The Secret History: A Novel

The audio is not good. I wanted to enjoy this book, but I can not listen to this book. You can hear the authors breathing and weird pauses while reading :/

I loved one of her other books, but this book was way too long and the characters were unlikable.

Tartt does an amazing job at constructing a world. I had no problems envisioning the characters, decors, interactions. There is a precision that plunges the reader in the different scenes.
With Julian as a mentor, I felt the presence of Dionysus throughout, laughing at the evolution of the story, adding extras to thicken the plot, encouraging the characters to feel into their carnal natures, all of which I found both entertaining and powerful.
There are definitely lengthy passages: the narration through Richard's eyes limits perspectives and action. Tartt also want to close out too many elements: the reader relies on her vision but not imagination. However, the mood is so well created that I was not overly distracted by these faults.
A great read!

I will be the first in line for a ticket if The Secret History ever gets made into a movie. Hopefully, it will get better treatment than Tartt’s other excellent book, The Gold Finch. A group of classics majors, inspired by their professor, decide to have an alcohol and drug fueled bacchanal in the forest. Accidentally, they kill a local man and kept quiet about it. A member of the group, who wasn’t present, essentially blackmails a wealthy member who was the ring leader and the group decides he needs to go too. Coping with the guilt, paranoia, and questions of morality plague the students. Densely written, every sentence is packed with meaning. It’s become the classic that started the dark academia trend.

I feel that it could have used some more editing but I was riveted. The Epilogue was perfect.

Not what I expected but a fun read, loved the plot and kept me on the hook

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is a masterpiece of academic mystery thrillers, offering a slow-paced yet gripping narrative that culminates in a remarkable climax. Unlike conventional thrillers, this novel challenges readers by presenting events without spoon-feeding the intentions of its complex characters. Tartt’s storytelling invites readers to delve deeply into the intricate layers of the plot and make sense of the nuanced happenings.

The first half of the book is meticulously dedicated to character exploration, which is crucial for understanding the story’s depth. Among them, Henry stands out as the most dynamic and enigmatic character. As the narrative unfolds, the shocking developments in the characters' arcs keep readers engaged and intrigued.

Tartt masterfully saves the final twist for the climax, delivering a revelation that provides an entirely new perspective on the story. This singular twist is impactful enough to leave a lasting impression on the reader.

The Secret History deserves all the praise it has received and more. Its blend of rich character development, a thought-provoking plot, and a breathtaking conclusion makes it a must-read for fans of literary fiction and thrillers. Without a doubt, this book earns a glowing 5-star rating.

I love this book about college students who harbor a terrible secret. The characters, the author's voice, the setting all combine to make this a classic "dark academy" read.

Loved this backward mystery. You start out knowing who did it--you read to find out why.

Donna Tartt really knows how to evoke a mood and create a story that sticks with you. While the central characters of The Secret History aren't exactly what you'd call likable, they all feel so very real that I suspect I'll be thinking about them for quite sometime and that's a mark of good writing. Some reviews seemed to indicate that the book ran long, but this isn't so much a book about plot, although that is an important part of it. What it is is a book about mood and character and it helps to have the space to sit with those things in order to reach the pay offs.

Horrible narrator don’t waste your credits. You can hear her breathing it’s so cringe. I couldn’t make it through ten minutes. Unless an author has training as a voice actor they should absolutely not narrate their own book.

I thought this was going to be great, but it turned out to be rather ordinary and I am wondering what all the fuss - some years ago now - was about. The plot ends about halfway through the book, and the second half really adds nothing to our understanding of the characters while it treads water (as one other reviewer put it well). Tartt's writing ranges from pedestrian to showing off (it's mostly pedestrian). And the characters remain distant, unlovable, and opaque, while the narrator is an unremarkable everyman without much insight into the events of the novel or (as the author's mouthpiece) the human condition. It's too dull to be a good crime novel, and too banal to be literature. Pulp-able fiction?

The Secret History is a surprising book. It tells of the secrets of a small college in Vermont, where a small clique of odd students spend their time reading the classics under the tutelage of their mysterious professor.
And doing drugs and drinking. Significant amounts of each.
Bad things happen, as they will do under these circumstances, and most of the rest of the book is taken up with how these young people deal with the bad things.
This doesn’t sound, on the first glance, very exciting, but Tartt is so good at teasing out little disasters and stories that I found myself unable to put the book down. She manages to create a creeping sense of people falling apart, of basically good people losing their way, of evil begetting evil. Richard, the main character, seems at first the most lost, but he ends up being the most stable one of the group, perhaps because things happen TO him rather than him eagerly participating in them.
It’s a high residue book- the characters will stay with me for quite a while, I think. I’d like to reread it, trying to figure out how Tartt wields her magic, but it’s too hard to do. The story is grim and sad and a bit despair-inducing, like a Greek tragedy.
Still, highly recommended. Worth the time spent .
I may have to wait a bit before reading anything more by this author, though…

The book opens with five students from a small private college in Vermont walking away from the body of a sixth, making sure they have cleared the evidence from the scene. Told from the point-of-view of Richard Papen (a transfer student from an unsupportive and less-than-wealthy family in California), this mystery is not a "whodunit" or even "howdunit" but a "whydunit". The story spools out through a haze of drugs, alcohol, sex and a Classics course in Greek as we witness the mental states of the students deteriorate under the strain of paranoia, guilt, jealousy, insecurity and self-absorption. It all adds up to a psychosis-inducing cocktail and a compelling tale as riveting as it is awful. Despite the interior dialogues of Richard and the insertion of relatively esoteric ideas (e.g., untranslated words and phrases in Greek and Latin, Ancient Greek concepts of the self, etc...), this isn't really a deep dive into the psyche of the individual or group-- so there is little emotional leverage to fully engage the reader. But I have to admit that this may be because I went in thinking that this would be a lit-fic book and started looking for meaning where perhaps none existed: There must be a reason why "Bunny" was the only one with a nickname (all others are addressed by full first names), right? These students represent archetypes, yes? What does Julian, their teacher represent? But trying to extract meaning out the story is as pointless as it is counter-productive to just enjoying the story for what it is: a remarkable debut novel from a young author (They were under thirty-years old when the book was published) and an entertaining, page-turning thriller with some surprising plot twists.

I was introduced to Donna Tartt when The Goldfinch was published. That book continues to be one of my all-time favorites. Ever since, people have been recommending I read The Secret History. I finally followed the advice and put The Secret History on hold with my local library. Approximately six months later, my hold finally came in for the audiobook on the Libby app.

The Secret History is an incredible story. I didn’t know much about the plot when I started reading, which I think best suited my experience. My personal challenge while reading The Secret History is that I kept comparing it to how much I loved The Goldfinch, and The Secret History didn’t quite rise to that level for me. I repeatedly reminded myself to manage my expectations and stop comparing one to the other. When I was able to do that, I became immersed in the story.

The story is told from the perspective of Richard Papen, a young man who leaves his home in California to attend Hampden College in Vermont. New to the area with no friends or acquaintances, Richard enrolls in the Ancient Greek program and is academically counseled by professor Julian Morrow. There are only five other students in his Greek studies class. Richard successfully makes a good impression on his peers and is cautiously brought into their close knit fold. Richard never truly seems to fit in with this group as they come from money and don’t really need an education for a future career. Richard comes from a differently world entirely.

The Secret History opens with Richard telling his story from a much later time in his life. He immediately reveals that one member of his peer group is dead. Richard then shares the development of their relationships and how one of his friends met his fate. The story continues to grow darker and more dysfunctional by the minute. It’s a very tragic novel that is exceptionally written.

As I previously mentioned, I borrowed the audiobook from my local library with the Libby app. Surprisingly, Donna Tartt narrates the audiobook and she does an excellent job. It was an additional pleasure to hear the book exactly as the author wrote the story.

I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog

I recently heard the NYT book review talk about it this classic Donna Tart psychological thriller about an elite college where an unusual band of students conspire with and against each other regarding acts of murder and cover up. I though The Goldfinch was an excellent read so looked into this, her first novel. It was certainly an engaging plot and I found the narration of Richard Papen to be similar to Nick in the Great Gatsby. He wanted to be a part of the group but yet could stand back and coolly assess their strengths and weaknesses. Certainly Tart used her background of attending Bennington college as the setting for this description of the life of the privileged classics students who fall under the spell of a professor and who felt superior to others. It was news to me to hear how her peer group of writers graduated together:
Vanity Fair:"The twin forces of youth and genius, at least, were palpable in the air upon the arrival of the class of 1986, when three particular undergrads named Bret Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt,and Jonathan Lethem hit the campus, primed to flirt and flounder and follow their callings through their ensuing years at the decade’s most decadent college (which all three would later mythologize in their respective literary careers).
I also didn’t realize how current the idea of “dark academia “ is with hundreds of TicTok videos quoting from this novel.
Though I certainly found the writing smart and full of literary references, I can't say that I enjoyed it much, ghastly things done by unlikeable people and ultimately suffering for it.
Lines:

She raised up on tiptoe and gave me a cool, soft kiss that tasted of Popsicles. Oh you, I thought, my heart beating fast and shallow.

In my own humorless state I failed to see anything except what I construed as certain tragic similarities between Gatsby and myself.

The swish of the oars and the hypnotic thrum of dragonflies blended with his academic monotone. Camilla, flushed and sleepy, trailed her hand in the water. Yellow birch leaves blew from the trees and drifted down to rest on the surface.

A sudden wind rustled through the birches; a gust of yellow leaves came storming down. I took a sip of my drink. If I had grown up in that house I couldn't have loved it more, couldn't have been more familiar with the creak of the swing, or the pattern of the clematis vines on the trellis, or the velvety swell of land as it faded to gray on the horizon, and the strip of highway visible—just barely—in the hills, beyond the trees. The very colors of the place had seeped into my blood: just as Hampden, in subsequent years, would always present itself immediately in my imagination in a confused whirl of white and green and red, so the country house first appeared as a glorious blur of watercolors, of ivory and lapis blue, chestnut and burnt orange and gold, separating only gradually into the boundaries of remembered objects: the house, the sky, the maple trees. But even that day, there on the porch, with Charles beside me and the smell of wood smoke in the air, it had the quality of a memory; there it was, before my eyes, and yet too beautiful to believe.

I sat on the bed during the twilight while the walls went slowly from gray to gold to black, listening to a soprano’s voice climb dizzily up and down somewhere at the other end of the hall until at last the light was completely gone, and the faraway soprano spiraled on and on in the darkness like some angel of death… I was happy in those first days as really I’d never been before, roaming like a sleepwalker, stunned and drunk with beauty. A group of red-cheeked girls playing soccer, ponytails flying… the heavy sweet smell of apples rotting on the ground and the steady thrumming of wasps around them. Commons clock tower: ivied brick, white spire, spellbound in the hazy distance. The shock of first seeing a birch tree at night, rising up in the dark as cool and slim as a ghost.

More interesting in the first two-thirds, then drags unnecessarily afterward.
I picked this book up because it seems to appear on all the "dark academia" lists and videos. Consequently, I think I shan't be reading much DA in future.
[Audiobook note: Tartt did herself no favors by reading this herself. The book would have been much better served by a professional voice actor.]

I listened to the book in audiobook format and at 6 hours I was wondering what could possibly happen to these characters that would take 16 more hours. The author would move from one vignette to the next wringing out every last detail. It made for some distinct atmospheric effects, such as the hazy langour of the lake house, and the claustrophobic tension of waiting for the snow to melt and reveal what lay beneath. Those effects were the highlight of the book. However, it also felt stuck at times. For example there were repeated scenes of drunken arguing, many trips to make phone calls that were never answered, many times the narrator wakes up to find he has slept the day away. There were alarm clocks in the 90s, but he certainly did not know how to use one.

Other reviewers absolutely loved this book, but I kept checking to see how much more was left. There's no denying this is solid writing and I wanted to see how it turned out, but it was not an enjoyable read.

I just don’t know what to think. I felt compelled to finish this novel to find out how the guilt they all lived with played out. But I didn’t enjoy the overwhelming use of dreams, and characters living in a constant state of drunkenness. Richard seems to be asleep for most of the novel. Everyone is taking pills and talking Greek and acting odd and I’m not really liking anyone, Henry, Francis, twins Charles and Camilla, Bunny and Richard.
The murder/ mystery element in the novel is hazy also as in a dream sequence .
Themes of morality, education, friendship,university life, alcohol and drug abuse .
I just didn’t really like “ The Secret History”.

I can't put this book down!

This is a kind of strange book. I picked it up because I read that it’s the foundation of the ‘dark academia’ strain of books. Sadly, it did not have any supernatural aspects to it, but it was very, very dark.

Richard Papen is our narrator. He is from California, in an area where there are no cultural enrichments available (in Richard’s opinion). His father expects him to go into his boring-as-can- be business, and so will fund him going to a local college to get a business degree. Richard has different ideas; his forte is languages, particularly dead languages. He wants to go to an eastern college, where ivy climbs the walls and the classics are studied. He applies to Hampden College, and, surprisingly, gets a scholarship- which doesn’t go very far to pay the bills other than tuition.

Shortly after arriving, he sees a group of students who are different from the rest. They are dressed expensively and somewhat eccentrically, they don’t go to the popular places on campus, they are always together, frequently with the professor of Greek. They pique his interest; he feels he is meant to be a part of their group, although they seem unapproachable and decidedly better than any others on campus. He applies for entry in the Greek classes; the charismatic older professor turns him down. On a second try, he is accepted into the lofty company of the 5 who are the only students in the Greek classes.
The group members are upper class, well-funded, intellectual, and snobby. Twins Camille and Charles, fey Francis, tightly wound Henry, and Bunny, who is always short of money and forever getting the other four to pay his way. (I swear this character would be played by Vince Vaughn if this were made into a movie) Richard almost immediately invents a life for himself, wherein he, too, is also from wealth and culture. He finds as job on campus, which gives him enough money to survive during term- barely- and not at all during winter break. His fake biography and facility with ancient Greek get him past the rarefied group’s cursory inspection and he finds himself included in their get- togethers and antics.

At the start of the novel we are given the information that they have committed murder. This is not a spoiler; this is where Richard pretty much starts with his narration. It turns out the murder was an accident, but they go to lengths to hide it. When one of their number, Bunny, discovers this, he threatens to go to the police and the group decides to commit premeditated murder-and insist that Richard (who had nothing to do with the first death, and was not even part of the group at the time) take part in it. Therein ensues the core of the book, the disintegration of the Greek students, both personally and as a group. It’s painful to watch. Very painful.

This is a very long book, but Tartt’s prose carried me along effortlessly, even in the painful sections. And that’s a good thing, because the characters are… thinly portrayed. There are no souls behind the window dressing of their elitism. There isn’t really a lot of plot- there are a few events, and a lot about how the characters react to them. In the end, the secret society of elite intellectuals is nothing more than teenagers trying on guises and finding out that there are real world consequences to their actions. Did I enjoy the book? Yes, I did. Despite its weak spots, I couldn’t put the gigantic thing down. I just had to see what those kids did next- and the ending did have quite a surprise.

The Secret History is a murder non-mystery; in the novel's opening paragraph its first-person narrator, Richard Papen, confesses his role in the murder of another student of Hampden, a small liberal arts college in Vermont. The only facts left to discover after his admission are what led to the murder and what happened in its wake that leaves Richard—as he puts it—with no other stories to tell.

At Hampden, Richard is befriended by the only other students studying classics with Julian Morrow, a reclusive professor of some renown in the literary world. Henry Winter is the group's ringleader; it is his "modest plan" that results in the murder of the troublesome Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran by Henry and his three cohorts, the maternal twins Charles and Camilla Macaulay and the affable Francis Abernathy.

The novel is broken into two parts: the fatal consequences of Bunny's accidental discovery of a crime all his friends except Richard participated in, and the aftermath of Bunny's murder as the five remaining friends pretend it has no impact on their psyches. Impaired by drugs, alcohol, lust and incest, the group eventually collapses under the weight of its paranoia-induced mistrust of each other.

Some aspects of the story are hard to believe. The depth of Richard's knowledge of the habits and mannerisms of his friends is more in line with a lifelong acquaintance than an association of little more than a semester. The continual drunkenness exhibited by the group is shocking; its lack of impact on their studies is equally unconvincing. And Bunny's family is particularly cartoonish.

Despite these flaws, The Secret History is an engaging story of the detrimental effects of manipulation and deception among well-educated young people isolated in a remote college town with too much free time and money.

Social chronicle, portrait of youth, frustration, it is slow, (2014) (Translated from Spanish)

I have heard about this book for what feels like ages: highly literate friends of mine shocked and stunned when I told them I hadn't read it; many who plant Proust and Woolf regularly on their top ten lists would also place this book on their top ten list of both contemporary and all-time favorite novels; etcetera. I feel like I've owned a copy of this book forever, and it was a wonderfully compelling read—almost addictive in its prose, its characterizations, its unrivaled setting of mood. Tartt is a master of ambience, and The Secret History is less what one reviewer below calls it—something along the lines of a first-time novelist writing a long book to pack everything she wants in, to show her talent off, and so on—and much more a long, tedious, and claustrophobic study in the ominous. It can be downright uncomfortable to read this novel because of Tartt's expert use of mood and her control of the narrative through the first-person narration and her juggling of temporalities throughout.

Structurally, this is a very sound and very wise book; I actually thought that one of the long chapters toward end (about three-quarters of the way through the book) was an oversight on Tartt's part, but, on thinking it over a bit more with this idea of the mood she's trying to set and alter slightly as the novel progresses, this actually works wonderfully. (I'm not saying which chapter because the location and events would be a major plot spoiler.) This is less a novel about plot—we learn what happens, for the most part, on page one—than it is a novel about the psychological depths of others as viewed by one very biased narrator. For that alone, it's well worth reading as a study in psychological realism and depth; coupled with the strange, ominous, and often creepy mood Tartt continues throughout, it's a compelling and masterful read.

It's hard to believe this is a first novel, and I can well believe the immense pressure Tartt felt in writing her second which I look forward to reading soon.

Extraordinary first novel from a young writer. Exceptional in observational detail, background knowledge, pace, dialogue, mood, and yet full of flaws, too. Biggest criticisms: There is little depth to these characters (understandable for college students maybe, but the adults are constructed this way, too) and some situations, conceits are just too overwhelming to accept. While not a classic, I had no trouble seeing why this novel arrived with fanfare and made Tartt a literary darling.

uhh these characters Suck but man was that a ride

A fascinating and immersive novel, with particular resonance for me as I happen to have spent a year at Bennington College, the model for Hampen College. Tartt's description of rich kids' lives in Vermont is evocative and brought back a lot of memories, and her portrayal of the fascinating classics department professor Julian intrigued me (I also studied classics). The realism of their Greek studies and the environment was balanced by the fantasy of the way they talk and their secret activities, which I think were intentionally at a remove from our experience as moderns -- the question posed is, what if some kids really did decide to live like ancients in the modern world?
I was less satisfied was the "inverted detective story" plot, which seemed to arrive with too much urgency, infecting the narrator's and my own experience before we had barely got settled into our new life as classics students. But, still a fascinating read whose author I will continue to follow.

Just stunning. Couldn't stop, had to read it all in one sitting, absolutely drunk, delirious, insane. Hate reading books this good.

Five stars because this book was so excellently written. Dark and atmospheric, so layered. I have so much admiration for this author's work.
The characters are extremely hard to like, just a bunch of young assholes.

This book takes place in some town in Vermont, in a liberal arts college, that is one of the strangest colleges I've ever heard of. They don't work very hard, they only go to school for 3 months in the fall and three months in the spring, and they party so much, and everybody smokes so much you can't believe it.
The protagonist and his group of cohorts are so very young and think they are so very mature. They're very unlikable. They actually are studying ancient Greek; I don't know what they think they're going to do with that. Two out of the group are rich kids, so that's why they don't really care that they're taking a course of study that won't get them a job.
The narrator is Richard, from a lower middle class background in California. The other poor kid is nicknamed Bunny; he's not really poor it's just that his parents won't give him a penny. He shamelessly mooches off everybody else, especially Henry.
They are fascinated with this idea of having a bacchanalia: and to them that means losing their minds and going into a depraved state where every carnal desire is satisfied and alcohol plays a huge part in it; essentially they become wild animals. They actually achieved this, and in that state they commit a terrible crime.
When one of their group that wasn't there finds out that they did this, then they commit another crime to cover it up.
as there were a lot of references I didn't understand, I looked them up on google, and came across this blogger, whose observations were helpful to me, and I copied and pasted part of what she had to say about the book:

Michelle podsiedlik

"The Secret History is very much like The Magus and The Brothers Karamazov: two of my all-time favorites that I hesitate to recommend too heartily to others. The plots are meandering and unsatisfying; many of the characters are aggressively unlikeable; the authors have little sense of humor about their subjects (Fowles, especially). But the writing itself hits a sweet spot for me. It’s like a quiet art film. Tartt’s compositions are so beautiful that each moment is enjoyed, even if the overall structure is lacking. This kind of enjoyment is very subjective. I can’t call The Secret History a great book but I had a great time reading it."

Their advisor, and their teacher, is an old man named Julian, who is independently wealthy, and does pretty much what he wants in the college, because he refuses his salary except for a dollar a semester. He's the one that puts the idea of the bachanalia into their minds. Richard starts the class late in the term, and on the first day, Julian has this to say:
"...the discussion that day was about loss of self, about Plato's four divine madnesses, about madness of all sorts; he began by talking about what he called the burden of the self, and why people want to lose the self in the first place.
'Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so?' He said, looking around the table. 'Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls - which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, and that no one and no thing hurts along with one's burned tongues and skinned knees, that one's aches and pains are all one's own. Even more terrible, as we grow older, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them, don't you think?... ' "

Richard the narrator is a loathsome character, but even more loathsome is the character of Bunny, whose real name is Edmond. After the bacchanalia, and Bunny figures out what has happened, Henry takes Bunny to Rome over the 3-month break of Christmas, in a way to bribe him out of telling on them. He spends probably $80,000 on this trip.
Richard had to find a place to stay, because the college closes up over the extended holiday. He has no money and no job, so he finds a room at the top of a warehouse, where the owner obstensively makes musical instruments, and he's supposed to help him by making pegs for instruments, and sanding mandolins. There's a hole in the ceiling, and no heating, so he lays on the floor and catches pneumonia eventually. By chance, Henry discovers him, having come back early from Rome. He takes Richard to the hospital, and when Richard is released, brings him back to his house to recuperate.
"on the Saturday before school was to begin, I was lying on Henry's bed reading a book. Henry had been gone since before I woke up. suddenly I heard a loud banging at the front door. Thinking Henry had forgotten his key, I went to let him in.
It was Bunny. He was wearing sunglasses and -- in contrast to the shapeless, Tweedy rags he generally wore -- a sharp and very new Italian suit. He had also gained about 10 or 20 lb. He seemed surprised to see me."

Henry tells Richard about the bacchanalia: " " 'it was heart shaking. Glorious. Torches, dizziness, singing. Wolves howling around us and bull bellowing in the dark. The river ran white. It was like a film in fast motion, the moon waxing and waning, clouds rushing across the sky. Vines grew from the ground so fast they twined up the trees like snakes; seasons passing in the wink of an eye, entire years for all I know... I mean we think of phenomenal change as being the very essence of time when it's not at all. Time is something which defies spring and winter, birth and decay, the good and the bad, indifferently.'
. . . What exactly did you do?' I said.
'Well, really, I think we needn't go into that now,' He said smoothly. 'there was a certain carnal element to the proceedings but the phenomenon was basically spiritual in nature.'
'You saw Dionysus, I suppose?' I had not meant this at all seriously, and I was startled when he nodded as casually as if I'd asked him if he'd done his homework.
'You saw him corporeally? Goat skin? Thyrsus?' "

I mentioned how much they smoke in this book. Most of them are chain-smoking, all the time; I don't even know how they breathe, because they're doing it inside of houses.
Later on in the book, Francis calls up Richard in the middle of the night and tells him he's dying. He convinces Richard to come over to tend to him:
" 'The way you smoke,' I said, 'no wonder you're short of breath.'
'that has nothing to do with it,' he said irritably, tamping the cigarette on the back of his wrist. 'That's just what these stupid Vermonters tell you. Stop smoking, cut out booze and coffee. I've been smoking half my life. You think I don't know how it affects me? You don't get these nasty cramping pains in your chest from cigarettes, nor from having a few drinks, either. Besides, I have all these other symptoms. Heart palpitations. Ringing in the ears.' "
I forgot to mention that they also drink, almost constantly. And not just beer; they're drinking every kind of hard liquor. They do every kind of drugs too, all kinds of pills, and snort coke, do crank.

When the shit hits the fan, Julian, their beloved teacher, is not there for them, but runs away, as fast and as far as he can:
" . . . I could say that the secret of Julian's charm was that he latched on to young people who wanted to feel better than everybody else; that he had a strange gift for twisting feelings of inferiority into superiority and arrogance. I could also say that he did this not through altruistic motives but selfish ones, in order to fulfill some egotistic impulse of his own. And I could elaborate on this at some length and with, I believe, a fair degree of accuracy. But still that would not explain the fundamental magic of his personality or why - even in the light of subsequent events - I still have an overwhelming wish to see him the way that I first saw him: as the wise old man who appeared to me out of nowhere on a desolate strip of road, with a bewitching offer to make all my dreams come true."