Ranking the Novels of Donna Tartt
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- The Secret History, The Little Friend, and The Goldfinch. In this video, I rank the three great novels of Donna Tartt.
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I agree, while The Secret History is very engaging, The Little Friend is simply next-level both in terms of atmosphere and in terms of psychological portrayal. Great analysis as always! :)
Glad you agree that the Little Friend is a great and underrated novel :)
Thank you. I have only read the secret history and the goldfinch. I loved both and have been hesitant to read The little friend. I feel like I can tackle it now a free your review. She is due for her next book soon. cannot wait!!
Where has this video been all this while?
Hello from a huge Donna Tartt fan.
I love all three of her published novels, she is my favourite living writer.
Ranking all of them are 9 to 9.5/10 but I guess in terms of minute differences:
3. The Little Friend
2. The Secret History
1. The Goldfinch
I love them all.
The Little Friend is the expanded successor to another all-time favourite To Kill A Mockingbird.
The Secret History is the pillar of the dark academia genre (along with The Name of the Rose and maybe Possession? or My Name is Red) for me.
The Goldfinch...David Copperfield works but I think of it more as a modern day Great Expectations because of the Theo-Pippa and Pip-Estella parallel. Great Expectations is also my favourite Dickens novel.
All three masterpieces.
Great video. Really enjoyed listening to your thoughts.
Great video! I read each of these shortly after it came out and I love them all. Each stayed with me a little less than its predecessor. It’s been a couple of decades and The Little Friend did strike me as the most authentic, so I guess a re-read is in order.
Glad you enjoyed the video, hope you enjoy your re-reads!
I really enjoyed this ranking. For me The Little Friend is such a beautiful book, the story is great and the characters are brilliantly drawn. Second The Goldfinch, absolutely amazing a great read and I loved your description of it. The Secret History, I see why people like it, the pace is great, the writing is wonderful but the characters are truly a degenerate, unlikeable and self absorbed pack. This I probably won't read again the other two I definitely will. A link to consider for The Little Friend is True Grit. Donna Tartt has done a great narration of this book by Charles Portis and she has a lovely essay or interview on it. The plucky young girl on a mission of revenge. The audiobook is on UA-cam.
Thank you for this video! The Secret History is one of my favourite books. I wasn’t planning to read The Little Friend, but now I will. I would rather read a character driven novel than a plot driven story.
You should definitely give it (and the Goldfinch) a go. They're all great books!
I remember being entranced by "The Secret History" (of which literally the only two things I remember now is how the gay character kissed the narrator, and how the narrator survived through Christmas in his cold attic room, which was described in a really atmospheric way), but then "The Goldfinch" did nothing for me. It dragged and dragged, and this whiny protagonist walked around remembering the kinds of shampoos his mother used to have, and the only worthwhile character was Boris because he was alive and witty.
can you rank them based on prose
I read The Secret History first, then The Goldfinch because I wanted more of the same after being enamored with the world Tartt created in her first book. I thought it was a fun journey but overall not as gripping. After finishing that, I took up The Little Friend because I still wanted more Donna. Ive read a few reviews briefly about how it was disappointing and not worth the read. But I think The Little Friend had some of the most transportive set pieces I have ever read. Hely with his comic book coming into contact with the Ratliff brothers for the first time. When Hely and Harriet ride over to the Ratliff apartment with the snakes and break in and then ultimately escape. Some of the most tense scenes ive been inside of while reading. The summer Mississippi humid setting. So bleeping good. What Donna did with these parts of The Little Friend wowed me more then she wowed me with The Secret History.
Completely agree with:
LF > SH > GF
Yeah, I do think that the main vice of "The Little Friend" (which isn't really a vice), is that it was a big let down in terms of what people expected from Tartt's books. It is so unlike The Secret History, while also teasing to be similar with the murder mystery open, that a lot of people who were expecting more of the same were disappointed. It's a book that I hope becomes more important over time though. It's a modern Jane Eyre to me.
Hi Joshua, I’ve read all 3 and I would rank them the same way. Have you read To Kill a mockingbird? I felt like it was a more modern version of that. Tartt did grow up in the south (I think Alabama) and I also think she was references her life as a child. (Obviously not the murder stuff but I think she had some kooky aunts around)
That's a great comparison to "To Kill a Mockingbird" at least in terms of its atmosphere.
I found Little Friend the hardest to engage with, maybe it was because I first read The Goldfinch which I madly love and that feeling was only surpassed when I read The secret story (man, that's quality Netflix material right there) and then with Little Friend I felt kind of a down with the phasing but is a worth to read novel nonetheless.
Again, thank you for your effort giving us this videos.
A Little Friend is definitely a very different novel from the other two. More dense, lethargic, and character focused, so I can see how it might not suit if you really love novels like the Goldfinch and Secret History. Still, they are all fantastic books!
@@JoshuaJClarkeKelsallyeah I was expecting "the big shot/plot twist" the whole time and I was kinda disappointed on that, although I must say the cobra scene had me rolling in the floor like few books had made me, the whole narrative was so serious up to that point that it just hit like a bucket of cold water on a hot summer, that stand alone passage made the book worth it to me 😂.
I read The Secret History & The Little Friend years ago - loved them both. Donna Tartt is amazing.
I did not read Goldfinch yet (went against my rule and saw the movie first which was good). I met D. Tartt once…she was cool. She signed my copy of The Little Friend.
The movie is just OK. The book is a masterpiece. (The Goldfinch). It's a modern day Dickens story of a powerless waif, lost, and navigating through the world, the best he can. And what happens after he grows up. Every 10 years she has another book polished and ready to release !
My ranking is exactly the opposite as this… still, three masterpieces
Fair enough, I imagine that the Little Friend is a bit of an ugly duckling to choose as my favourite, but you are right, they are all perfect in their way. :)