The Secret History

[poliphilo]

It's very difficult, this late in the day, for novels to surprise us. The guys who got there first- Scott, Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky- marked out great swathes of territory. By 1900 there wasn't much left to explore- and 20th century novels are, by and large, smaller, daintier, less interesting. If the point of the novel is to take us places we haven't been before- and I think it is- then the novel is almost redundant now. The Secret History is a very good example of what the form has been reduced to. It's very well written, but entirely constructed out of other fictions. The debt to Crime and Punishment is frankly acknowledged, but there's a lot of Brideshead in there too, a lot of Hitchcock- especially Rope and Strangers on a Train- and even a dollop of David Copperfield (with the narrator as David and the other members of the Greek class as Steerforth). The bacchanal (which - as my friend yuki_onna points out- is sketchily done and not very well integrated into the story) comes straight out of Death in Venice.

It is still just possible for great novels to be written. Jonathan Littel's The Kindly Ones- which takes us into the inner life of Nazi Germany- terra incognita for sure- is a rare late specimen. It is very pleasant to be guided elegantly over familiar ground, but the only novels that count- in the long run- are those that extend the boundaries of the known. Good writing- even exquisitely good writing- is not enough.

Comments

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I read Secret History and enjoyed it well enough for what it was. Trying to decide whether the scorn displayed for it on the comment thread of yuki's post is over Tartt's abilities as an author, her transgression in trying to write "high literature" (if that was in fact her aim) or the high praise the book won from critics at the time of its release (ergo the denunciations of it as overrated pulp).

Tangential to this, I've always been interested in the lines a society draws between low, middle, and highbrow culture. Specifically the inherently arbitrary and nebulous nature of those lines, and how time can often wreak havoc on the previously accepted critique of any given work. Shakespeare wrote plays for the commoners in his day, and now in the 21st century a significant number of "commoners" dismiss the bard as high-falutin' snobbery.

Which isn't to predict Tartt's work being elevated to the cultural level of Shakespeare in 400 years, mind you.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

High-brow doesn't mean better. High brow art can be ephemeral and low brow art long-lasting. Conan Doyle, for example, has outlived most of his more literary contemporaries- and- interestingly- for stories he considered trivial.

I admire Tartt. I think she's a very fine writer. I enjoyed the book. My criticism is simply that she doesn't tell me anything new.

[mariko-writing.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that that novels today don't surprise you in terms of material (e.g. Nazi Germany)? Or storytelling devices (Crime and Punishment/Brideshead/etc.)? If it's the former, perhaps you could try out some lit from other countries or writers who don't subscribe to "the canon." For storytelling devices, maybe some Italo Calvino (If on a winter's night a traveller ...)?

By 1900 there wasn't much left to explore- and 20th century novels are, by and large, smaller, daintier, less interesting. If the point of the novel is to take us places we haven't been before- and I think it is- then the novel is almost redundant now.

I think it's kind of funny how much you and I must disagree on what kind of novels we like. I much prefer the smaller-scale, yes even everyday, subject matter, paired with masterful control of language that turns me on my head (Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, Zora Neale Hurston, Willa Cather, to just name a few). That extends the boundaries of my known, anyway.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I mean both. I believe almost everything that could be done with the novel had been done by (roughly) 1920. To take a single example: everyone who writes sharp-edged, social comedy today writes in the shadow of Jane Austen. One of the reasons why there's such a cult of Pride and Prejudice is because no-one in the intervening 200 years has been able to better it. Austen perfected the form and left her successors with very little to do.

I haven't read Calvino. I should give him a whirl.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Austen, too, acknowledged source material such as Gothic novels. As they say, ain't nothing new under the sun.

I loved Secret History because we all know self-assured types like that when in college, who are elevated by their poise into being uberhumans. Tho I found it hard to swallow the fact that these ubermenschen had to have the protagonist explain to them the use of the locative case. Even a Leaving Cert Latin chick like myself can do that - and I was NOT popular in college or had a Henry Winter beating up guys on my behalf.