Donna Tartt's "A Secret History" : A Review.

 “It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. 

Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.” 

 

What follows is a review of ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt that I posted on my Instagram page in January 2022. If you can get past the shoddy phrasing, you may find yourself iNfLueNCed (in the mid-21st century sense of the word) into reading what is actually a pretty cool book, all things considered.

Once more, Pinterest convinced me that I *needed* to get this book and read it immediately or my life would suck forever. So I go on Amazon and find no peace until “The Bible of Dark Academia” is in my hands. No other book could be read until I'd read this one, you might know the feeling. And my verdict? Not as life-changing as people claim but definitely stays in your consciousness for a good while. The aesthetic? Immaculate. The story? Extremely engrossing. The writing? Pretty fricking good. And the characters? Depends on whether you're willing to compromise your morals for pure swag and pretentiousness (looking at you, Henry Winter). From an unreliable, delusional, trainwreck of a narrator to a psychopathic, dark-mysterious coolboi whom the inhabitants of Pinterest seem to idolize for some unknown reason, every single character in the novel is instantly recognizable in real life, carved of flesh and blood. It is written in such a way that I just know that if I were to go to Vermont, I'd

meet this extreme Percy Jackson fanclub hiding in the woods plotting god-knows-whose murder (which is just genius of Donna Tartt, honestly). Speaking of murder, killing is a theme that surfaces often in TSH (as we call 'The Secret History' in Pinterest-lingo. Pint-lish?). And hedonism. Loads and loads of hedonism. So if you feel like escaping from this double pandemic-ridden (both my final sem project AND COVID) reality of ours into a morally degenerate Greek mythology-obsessed academic fantasy (fantasy because these people seem to somehow find time to submit assignments AND kill people?! Eyy eppudraaa!) then hop on, cause it is a wild ride from depressing start to depressing epilogue. I could probably go on but I have a feeling Instagram captions aren't supposed to be this long. For more information, you’re just gonna have to read it yourself. As Ms. Tartt herself said,

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

(TSH aesthetics by yours truly)

My Articles

I leave my bag unpacked on Monday, which is the day I reach back home. Like the memories I've decided not to sift through right now, it remains closed while I sleep off the suffocation of saying goodbye. On Tuesday, I give it a little shove under the bed. It's too fresh, too soon to grieve what's lost. Wednesday saw me refusing to unpack, as though expecting a call back, it's been a mistake, come on over, “they're all waiting for you here”. By Thursday, I'd dared to sneak a peek. Your soft, wrinkled sage green shirt greeted me, the accusation evident in its crumpled-up folds. “Deal with it, you can't be in denial forever”, it said. Friday brought with it the smell of rain and a soul-numbing emptiness in the hollow where until yesterday, there'd been nothing but pain. Already I could feel myself forgetting, moving on, denying. Fast becoming the person who'd one day look back and laugh at the dramatic essays in farewell and wonder why she'd wasted so many emotions over saying a silly goodbye. What cringe, I can hear her say. 

Saturday at last. I open the bag with the same care a bomb squad member would take with a suspicious parcel on a plane. I lay the articles I find inside on my sunshine-yellow bedsheet, in a row, just like how we used to sleep back Home. Caught in a tangle of thread at the very bottom of the bag were your red dangly earrings - remember, the ones you loaned me in the first year? So long I've had them that I'd forgotten they once belonged to you, I think you've forgotten too. In the light of the big bright pearls we shopped together, they look small and rather lonely without you, a constant reminder of the kind of person you were, the kind of person I was with you.  Digging deeper I come across another unpacking scene in my cupboard of memory, remember, the day you let me take your pink chequered towel for “safety”. And safety was what it gave me, the comfort and love of Home (not home) compressed into black squares on pink cloth. In a place where I was out of place, I carried your pink towel in my heart and thought of family, the kind which is found, not the kind we're born with. There are also a couple of black hoop earrings my fingers brush upon, heavy reminders of an innocent love too quickly gone. The blue shirt on my clothesline today is yours (the one with the embroidered sleeves, see). They carry the scent of scheming afternoons by the college back gate, of escapes to crowded malls and freedom. 

There are other things of course -- things I can't touch, things you didn't know I took from you. Intangibly stored in the camera roll in my head, these are the pictures I can't post on IG. Your ice cream-tinted smile across the street from me on Broadway, by the bakery we frequented so often we came to call it our own. A worn-out pink hair band clenched between my fingers the morning I woke up sick. The smell of your hair inside my nose in the mornings. Your hands on my head, trying to calm me down as I battle sleep for you. The pink (or was it orange? My memory's already tricking me) flamingos in your t-shirt waking me up for breakfast every morning. A hug by the door, a forgotten “I love youuuuuu”. Cold kabsa* on the Netravati*, going home in the rain. A "chechi, you teach so well" to make me strong. And a promise to brave the world ending together. The hairstyle you wore for three years of mornings on someone else's head on the street. 

These are the list of my articles, the articles I stole from you. The ones you never knew about, the ones you gave me to keep. The ones you can't touch, the ones I hold close to my heart. In all of these parts, I remember you bit by bit. With all of your parts, I make myself whole again. When the numbness sets in and I forget why I cried on the car ride home, these are the articles I'll use to remember why. Stuffed in a bag Nana bought me all those years ago (“hostelil konde pokaan vendi*”),  when I didn't know you were waiting in the wings to enter the next scene of my life. Now that I can't go back Home anymore, I'll stuff it with these memories - these articles - and I'll take it with me wherever I go, the same way I carried it on three years worth of train rides with you. They'll become my tickets back Home, the ones I'll pack in my travel kit, knowing them to be more essential than the soaps and shampoos in there. I have to do it just so lest I forget, I was once loved a bit too much. 

 ********

Allow me to set the scene for you. I penned this piece the day after I left my college hostel for good in the month of May 2021, after saying goodbye to my closest friends and confidants of three years. If you wake up and spend almost every waking moment next to someone (in my case, a group of someones) for almost two years (Covid took the rest away from us), you become more family than friends. The very next day, I was faced with the terrifying prospect of unpacking my luggage for the very last time, filled as it was with the many, many items and articles I had begged, stolen and borrowed from my friends. This write-up was what resulted from that bittersweet moment, so I hope you will forgive me if parts of it seem too personal and hence incomprehensible to outsiders (Today, that’s you, Dear Reader). I was moved to post this here in light of the fact that yet another parting scene awaits me in less than a month, one that threatens to be even more painful than the last. But that’s a story for another day. 

Please note that the ‘you’ here refers to all my loving friends interchangeably, while ‘Home’ stands for our room in the college hostel (and ‘home’ is just my normal, same-old home).

*a biryani like-dish 

* A train that runs from Ernakulam Junction to Kollam Junction.

* "to take to the hostel"

Judgement Day

Reader, the day of reckoning is finally upon us! I have been asked to submit the rest of my thesis tomorrow! Tomorrow I will be revealed as the fraud I really am when my guide sees how little I’ve actually done. Where has all the time gone? Wasn’t it just yesterday when I told myself I had months left? Why did I let it come to this?? If only I had started at least yesterday!

Memories of a night long past come to mind…the night I sat unmoving on the sofa for 12 hours straight, the night I completed my UG project overnight, right before I was supposed to submit the hard copy of it…the night I swore that my PG dissertation wouldn't be this way. Oh God, when will I ever learn?

It’s going to be a very long day. So much to do, so little time. Sleep is not on the cards for me tonight. I'm sure that if only I had tomorrow as well, I would get so much done. (Will I though?) Armed with lots of coffee (and popcorn to stress-snack on), 

Yours in deep regret, 

Someone who will definitely be getting what she deserves tomorrow. 

 

How To Make Oats In Ten Minutes: A Tutorial

A complaint I see very often on Twitter and other social media sites is that people who publish online recipes spend too much telling stories in the prologue to their recipe, rather than getting to the actual recipe itself. Well, fret not, for I am here to remedy this sorry state of affairs with my immediately available recipe for oats. Follow the steps given below and you will achieve a quick and easy (somewhat edible) breakfast in around ten minutes.

Step One: Wake up unfairly early on a Sunday (of all days!), much earlier than your peacefully sleeping roommates who are the ones to usually make breakfast. 

Step Two: Wonder if you can somehow go back to sleep as you brush your teeth reluctantly.

Step Three: Discover that sleep is a bygone possibility, stare at said roommates for fifteen minutes as they continue sleeping (still!) without a single care about your predicament ( how rude!). 

Check the time. (Just 9.15??) Take your time in being devastated because you and your friends are used to sleeping till at least an hour later. 

Step Four: Wonder if you can stay hungry until 10.15. If your stomach starts growling, understand that this is a definite “No” from your body and that you cannot, after all, try to forget your hunger by playing Subway Surfers. 

Step Five: Resign yourself to the fact that today's breakfast will have to be made by you. At this point, you can either choose to repent the fact that you used to stand idly by while your hardworking friends did the same, week after week, or you can come to accept the fact that adult life is full of hardships like making oats for breakfast on Sunday mornings. 

Step Six: Discover that there’s no milk on your kitchen shelf. Be irrationally annoyed at the abovementioned roommates for their lax judgment, even though you were the one in charge of getting the groceries this week. 

Remember to keep checking the bedroom from time to time in hopes that the sleeping parties have somehow woken up while making sure to close the door really noisily when you are continually disappointed by the same.

Step Seven: Pour the milk you just bought into the vessel. You’ll need around half the packet for making oats for one person. (Note: You don’t. This is in fact way too much milk, but this won't be revealed to you until it is too late). After severely misjudging the amount of water needed for the milk you took, you can wait for two minutes for the milk to boil. Watch the vessel very carefully. At this time, I would strongly advise that you get bored, go to the front room, and start scrolling through Instagram. This step is essential in making sure that your milk boils over and pours down the side of the pathram onto the kitchen counter. When you finally remember, run to the kitchen just in time to immediately wipe it all off before your roommates have a chance to wake up and be disappointed in you. Again. 

Step Eight: Add a very disproportionate ratio of flattened oats to the mixture. (I used Saffola, you can use your preferred brand here). Please don’t forget to promptly leave the packet open after this, as only then will you manage to feed the entire army of ants you inadvertently let inside the packet. 

Step Nine: Two teaspoons of sugar is recommended for the amount of oats you’ve put in. This will of course be laughably insufficient and will ensure that your oats taste extremely bland, but this would've been the case anyway if you had followed all the steps prescribed above to the T.

Now you wait. After as much time as you think necessary (I gave it like a minute and a half), turn off the stove and pour it all out into a nice clean dish. For a bit of added flavor, you can even choose to slightly burn your fingers a little in the process. Then you can top your bland, undercooked, and watery oats with your choice of topping; I chose crushed biscuits for a bit of crunch, which of course melted and became mush almost immediately after adding. Mmmm, appetizing! Cool down and enjoy (or shove it into your mouth while hot and burn the inside of your mouth, it's up to you). Don't forget to tell your friends that you made the perfect breakfast without their help and hope and pray they don't notice that you can't feel your tongue for two days after. 

And, that, my dear friends, is how you make the perfect, delicious, balanced breakfast. Comment if you wanna see more such fun, easy recipes in the future. See ya! 

 

Picture used for representation purposes only