The Little Friend

[si]

Worth persevering with?

I've read The Secret History numerous times, probably sneaking it's way in to being my favourite novel. I've tried to read The Little Friend twice now, both times giving up half way through. I don't understand how I can love one book and hate another when the author is obviously genius.

Is TLF (!) worth pressing on with? Does it get better/have an amazing denouement?

[elmsyrup]

Oh, I've just been given this. I'd like to know, too.

[Lisa]

Stylistically there were things I enjoyed about this book and I think the main character is so strong. But ultimately, I wouldn't recommend it. If you're looking for plot, forget about it - it doesn't get better.

As for loving/hating different books by the same author, I'm like that about Jeffrey Eugenides. I love 'The Virgin Suicides' but I simply cannot get through 'Middlesex'. Like bad Tim Burton films, or bad series of Buffy, I accept it. I don't feel that what came before is diminished.

[Deleted]

'The Little Friend' took me ages and ages and ages. It is really a series of 5 incredibly good set-pieces punctuated by pages and pages of overwritten, unnecessary padding. Also, it's deeply unsatisfying in the last section, as if Donna Tartt just went, "Oh, that'll do. Riddles, mysteries. Life, eh? Funny thing, life. THE END."

I much preferred 'Middlesex' to 'The Virgin Suicides', strangely - TVS sort of lays out all its ideas in the first two chapters and then ambles around until what we all knew was going to happen happens. 'Middlesex' is about four times as long but I read it in half the time.

How queer.

[smellslikesomeghost]

My advice? Don't bother.
I began it, as I suspect you all did, with hope and glee. A secret history was so utterly wonderful being well written and a page turner and the wait for a follow up had been so long I was sure it'd be great. Like you Si I began it a couple of times, and admired the great furniture descriptions, but I longed for more. More did not arrive. I thought that perhaps the end would be a stunning dazzle...but I could not get there.
I asked my friend who doggedly persevered if there were a glorious revelation in the end...she assured me there is not.
Dull, over written and empty would be my verdict.
Shame.

[Elly]

I quite liked it, but only because the descriptions of the settings felt so real, and there were some genuinely amazing moments in there (the part where they were trying to catch the snake gave me palpatations)

It's clearly not a patch on The Secret History, which is rather disappointing considering how long it took Tartt to write, but I think as a novel, it's fairly misunderstood, and there was too much expectation on it in the first place. Certainly not for everyone, but those who enjoy attention to detail, and decent characterisation in place of plot might get something out of it.

[Floss]

The Little Friend promises much that it simply never delivers. My expectations weren't from reading another of Tartt's books, as I've never read The Secret History. But the blurb on the jacket, and the start of The Little Friend made me think I was in for a page turning literary mystery. And I wasn't.
It was, as other wise people have said, over written and full of unnecessary padding. And the ending. Pa.

Am I missing out on something with The Secret History? Should I overcome the fear created by The Little Friend (the spine of which is creepily staring out of my bookcase) and read it?

[si]

Floss said:

Am I missing out on something with The Secret History? Should I overcome the fear created by The Little Friend (the spine of which is creepily staring out of my bookcase) and read it?

Totally. The Secret History is a proper masterpiece, required reading. It's about a group of classics students who accidentally murder someone and try to cover it up. Similar in tone/content but the writing is much tighter and the characterisation completely makes it for me.

[ladytrol]

Whatever became of the movie they were making of The Secret History? Didn't Gwyneth Paltrow buy the rights, or am I imagining things again?

[Elly]

Ain't said:

Whatever became of the movie they were making of The Secret History? Didn't Gwyneth Paltrow buy the rights, or am I imagining things again?

I heard this too; she'd brought the rights, her brother was directing, and she was starring. Which promptly made me think 'Starring?! The only relatively prominent female character is Camilla, and surely Gwyn is much too old to play Camilla!' So I'm glad it's gone quiet now, because I don't know how I'd cope with Hollywood ruining my favourite ever book.

It would make a great film, though, if they did get it right, ie. lots of gay sex, incest and murder.

[si]

I thought it was Winona who bought the rights?

browneyedboy and I have already discussed casting.

Parker Posey for Judy Poovey!

I finished The Little Friend finally. I enjoyed it much more once I got about halfway through. Mr Marzi's sumation about really good set pieces pretty much sums it up (Edit: Well, duh, it's a sumation). After the whole section in The Mission, it became much easier to get to the end as something had actually happened. The ending wasn't exactly satisfactory, but then you could kind of work out that you'd never discover Robin's killer.

I liked the fact that she'd plotted through out that Harriet was to survive based on her love of Houdini et cetera. I also grew to like Harriet a lot more after Ida had left (before this she just seemed to be an irritating brat). I loved the whole sequence with Ida leaving and her aunt's funeral, how she could pin point the exact moment when she became an adult. I could really picture the kind of adult she'd become, and that sort of sneaked up on me.

The more I think about it, the most I realise I misjudged it for a long time. I've now gone back to The Secret History again. I wonder if she's working on anything new?

[ladytrol]

From www.purpleglitter.com/donna_tartt/news.html:

"With The Little Friend finally complete, Tartt is now reported to be working on a version of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, due to be published by Canongate as part of a series that will feature updated fables by Philip Pullman, Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson and JM Coetzee."

[unlikelyheroine]

I gave up on this. Very disappointing plot-wise, although very well-written. At the end of a novel that size, you simply cannot have no pay-off. Clever non-endings are fine for a short story that people have not invested in, but not for that kind of weighty tome. There's being clever, and there's just being pretentious and silly.

But if you look at Ms Tartt's picture inside the cover of her books, you will see that she does seem to take herself VERY seriously.

Enjoyed "The Secret History", it was a lark. Could relate to the mad university goings on, if not their scale.