147. The Secret History

Donna Tartt dedicates this book to Brett Easton Ellis.  When I opened the first few pages and saw this, I was a little bit exasperated at this fact, and indeed, she has the same tendencies for violence and tragedies that Ellis has.  They also share, I think, the same attraction to creating something beautiful (though they do it in different ways, hers more nostalgic softness while his is bold and neurotic), and unfortunately also the same shortcomings in achieving it.

There is a creepiness that runs through the way it is written, though I don't think it's due to the plot itself but more in the fact that something seems awry in the way Tartt writes.  Her writing wants so badly to be meaningful and emotional, but ultimately feels flat and feels theatrical with an adolescent quality.  For the entirety of the book, I had an unsettling feeling that I had read this book before, as everything I read had a deja vu sense to it.  Having finished it, I still have yet to solve whether I actually have somehow come in contact with this story before, or if it was just the type of story that is too overdone to the point of becoming cliche.  Perhaps this was the main cause of the haunting feeling that followed me through the majority of my read -- a  familiarity of all events, and inability to find surprise in anything.

Not the worst, but not the best either.  But hey, I guess at least her characters were likable.