Warning: Our book club almost broke up over whether the ending of 'The Secret History' was a cop-out or perfect.

Half of us, including me, thought the final chapter in Vermont was a brilliant, quiet tragedy, while the other half called it a lazy fade-out that ignored the central moral question, so which side are you on?

2 comments

2 Comments

avery8124d ago

Totally get why people feel cheated by the Vermont ending, but I'm with the_oliver on this one. The whole book builds this feeling of things falling apart slowly, so a big dramatic finish would have felt wrong. That last chapter just shows how empty Richard's life became after everything, which hits harder than some neat lesson. Maybe it's just me, but the quiet sadness of it all worked way better than a clear answer would have.

the_oliver4d ago

Look, it's a book, not a peace treaty. People get way too heated about fictional endings. The whole point is that life often just fades to gray, not some big courtroom scene. Richard is broken and alone in the snow. That's the punishment. What more do you want, a moral written on the page? The quiet ending fits the story.