It would spoil none of the enjoyment of this book to tell you that one of the main character 'Bunny', is murdered by his posh college friends about a third of the way through - the narrator (one of his 'friends') reveals this in the prologue.
To be honest, my one main gripe about the book is that it take so bloody long for them to get round to bumping him off, I'd began to give up hope!
Set in a fictional Ivy League college in the US, and narrated, years later, by one of the main protagonists, this is an astounding first novel - one I'm glad I made the effort to get into (it took a while).
A misfit group of classics students descend into drug and alcohol fuelled chaos, encouraged by their enigmatic tutor. The story follows their time at the college, and the strange relationships and interactions between them.
John recommended this book, and it is excellent, however I did spend much of the beginning wishing that they'd just get on with the inevitable murder.
What is most interesting is the way the author manages to make a dispicable act seem completely normal, natural and justified - as if it's perfectly acceptable for friends to murder and get away with it.
For me one of the weirdest aspects of the story wasn't the relationships, or the murder itself; but the complete timelessness of the story. Not only were the characters ambiguous, but so was the time period in which the story was set. Tartt gives few social markers, and I found myself searching the internet looking for a clue to when the action was supposed to have taken place.
Music is mentioned at times, but most of it obviously from the past. Since the students are studying classics most of the references to culture are from the past, the long distant past (in time and geographical location).
I'm left with a yearning to know what happened to the students, and in particular the classics tutor - he obviously had an interesting back story - one that I'd love to read about.
26th January - 22nd February 2010
Recommended and lent to me by John.
