Sunday, 1 June 2025

The BookTok Effect: Why is The Secret History still so popular?

One of the most talked-about books on TikTok is Donna Tartt's The Secret History. More than 30 years after its publication, it remains a novel that continues to attract readers and spark debate. Not to mention attracting a new generation of readers. 

It’s a campus novel, a murder mystery, a character study, and a cult classic all in one — and it’s particularly resonant for a generation obsessed with aesthetics, identity, and the allure of darkness.

So what makes The Secret History so enduring?

The power of the BookTok Effect

The novel has experienced a massive resurgence thanks to TikTok, where it has become a key text in the so-called “dark academia” aesthetic. This genre fetishises tweed, Greek philosophy, old libraries, and fatal obsession. TikTok users post annotated copies, recreate outfits inspired by the characters, and quote lines like:

“I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”

Or the devastatingly simple:

“It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.”

These quotes capture the novel’s tone: brooding, nostalgic, self-aware. They speak to the kind of reader who finds glamour in intensity and danger.

A Novel That Lived Its Own Life

When The Secret History was first published in 1992, it stood out. Tartt was just 28 and a former student at Bennington College — the real-life inspiration for the novel’s Hampden College. She had been part of a literary circle that included Bret Easton Ellis and Jonathan Lethem, and the influence is evident. Like them, she chronicled the excess and ennui of a privileged, closed-off world. But Tartt went further, drawing on her classics education, she created a kind of intellectual thriller where murder becomes both metaphor and morality play.

The novel was marketed with huge fanfare. Tartt received a reported $450,000 advance — enormous for a debut. That’s like $1 million now. The book quickly became a bestseller. Critics were intrigued. Some dismissed it as pretentious, too stylised, or morally aloof. But others recognised its originality and its powerful evocation of a time, a place, and a state of mind.

Characters You Can’t Look away from

Much has been said about the characters. Some readers claim they’re too unlikeable, and that there’s no one to root for. But I disagree. The narrator, Richard Papen, is relatable in his way. A working-class outsider from California, he arrives at Hampden College and becomes enthralled by an elite group of classics students led by the enigmatic Julian Morrow.

Richard stands apart from the others: Henry, Bunny, Charles, Camilla, and Francis. He’s observant, reflective, and unsure. He’s us — the reader — drawn into a cult-like circle that promises meaning, escape, and belonging. His growing discomfort mirrors our own as the group spirals into deception, violence, and guilt.

Each character is carefully drawn. Henry is coldly brilliant. Bunny is charming and cruel. Camilla and Charles are beautiful and damaged. Francis is arch and anxious. They’re not meant to be admirable. They’re meant to be intoxicating. We watch them, fascinated and appalled.

Richard is also quietly in love—or at least infatuated—with Camilla, and that unspoken longing shapes much of his inner life. He idolises her and is blind to her manipulative character, much of which is hidden from him. He never acts on his attraction, never confesses it, but it’s there in every glance and gesture. It’s another way he remains on the outside: always watching, never possessing. That aching, impossible love adds a layer of melancholy to the story’s dark glamour.

“It’s a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”

The Secret History is story as seduction

The novel unfolds slowly, with Richard telling the story in retrospect. We learn early on that a murder has occurred. The suspense is not in who did it, but why, and what it costs them all. Tartt’s prose is elegant, layered, and occasionally baroque. She builds a world where everything is suggestive, ominous, overripe. Greek tragedies, secret rituals, snow-covered campuses, vintage martinis — it’s intoxicating. It’s also claustrophobic.

The murder is the breaking point. Everything after that is a long, painful unravelling. Guilt corrodes them. Love turns poisonous. The group’s intellectual arrogance becomes a trap.

Why The Secret History endures

The Secret History endures because it offers an experience. It’s not just a story: it’s a mood, a worldview, a fantasy. It speaks to our yearning to belong, to be special, to understand beauty and horror side by side.

It’s also about youth — and the mistake of believing that your life will be defined by art, love, intellect, and beauty alone. Richard, looking back, knows better.

More than 30 years on, this novel still haunts its readers. Whether you find it exhilarating or exasperating, one thing is sure: it’s unforgettable.

More on Donna Tartt

Whatever happened to Donna Tartt?

If you like The Secret History you'll love these dark campus novels

No comments:

Post a Comment