The Secret History Book Review. Book review of empire of pain: It is one of the triumphs of the book that its dark catalyst.
The secret history is a thriller at heart, a very effective psychological thriller where the tension is provided by the gradual revelation of the threads and links in the weave of relationships between the central characters rather than by uncertainty (the murder which centres the book is described in the prologue). Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite new england college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the. Tartt's much bruited first novel is a huge (592 pages) rambling story that is sometimes ponderous, sometimes highly entertaining.
The book is short on characterization—this is atwood, never a warm writer, at her steeliest—and long on cynicism—it's got none of the human credibility of a work such as walker percy's love in the ruins.
The book seemed a vindication of the study of classics, a testament to the continuing relevance and importance of those literatures. The book is short on characterization—this is atwood, never a warm writer, at her steeliest—and long on cynicism—it's got none of the human credibility of a work such as walker percy's love in the ruins. That was the time when humanity started to wake up and realized they could actually use the powerful knowledge they had been given throughout their esoteric past. Every one of the millions who have read the secret history has the delicious illusion of being admitted to the most dangerous of confidences.