Jon
Although I enjoyed The Secret History I wasn’t seduced by the specialness of the Bennington-type elite liberal arts college, with its precocious undergraduates and charismatic faculty. Decent plot, very well turned sentences and echoes of Greek tragedy all combined well ebough but the characterisation wasn’t a strong point. The rich kids in the Greek class all blended into one another, bar the narrator and the one they offed which, given they were supposed to be tragic in different ways, was a bit of a failing.
But Bennington, Wellesley etc are where so many of the New York Times, Washington Post arts pages staff went, for them the setting and doomed youth were part of the magic and that became a given in the Secret History’s rep. A bit the same recently with posh privately-educated Guardian journos and Fleabag.
None of which stops The Goldfinch being brilliant. About 150 pages to go.
