On the Pleasure of Reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Carel Fabritius. The Goldfinch, 1654, oil on panel, 13 inches tall by 9 inches wide.
Book Summary
Theo Decker, a young boy in New York City, miraculously survives an act of terrorism at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art that takes the life of his mother. Alone and determined to avoid being lost in the city's foster care system as an orphan, Theo is first taken in by a wealthy family, then by his absent father, and finally by someone he meets as a result of an incident in the museum. He becomes enamored by the one thing that reminds him of his mother, a small, mysteriously captivating painting, The Goldfinch, the painting displayed at the top of this post, that eventually draws Theo into the art underworld.
On the Pleasure of Reading The Goldfinch
It's been decades since I've had the leisure to read a book as long as Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. Closing in on 800 pages (in the e-book version), the book was an investment I wasn't sure I wanted to make; it was a 'maybe' selection on my weekly trip to the library. Its opening sentence captured me:
While I was still in Amsterdam, I dreamed about my mother for the first time in years.With that first sentence, and the intriguing paragraphs that follow it, "drawn in" hardly describes the engagement I felt with this book. I was pulled along by the artistry of its language, the mystery that shocks the mid-20s-aged Theo into telling the story of his adolescence, the tragedy that haunts him throughout his life, the fully drawn characters he meets, and the talisman that led him to the life he currently leads.
I kept the library book for the week I'd been allowed to have it, long enough to help me understand that this was a book I'd probably want to savor. Because the library waiting list indicated that 30 others waited for the same pleasure, I was forced to return it. And then my dilemma: should I purchase the physical or the e-book? I couldn't wait to get back to it. The e-book version won for its immediate delivery.
Now that I have spent the better part of two weeks with The Goldfinch, the reviews that call the book "Dickensian", a well-worn cliché, honestly use that metaphor. It's a book full of quirky well-rounded characters, a tale of an orphan drawn into unfamiliar and aptly illustrated worlds, and an increasingly disturbing plotline that depicts art crime in thriller terms. And once I had finished reading it, I returned to its beginning, in order to appreciate how deftly Tartt had closed the loop. Then I went further. I returned to enjoy the beauty of Tartt's language through some of the passages I'd highlighted, because her skillful descriptions often made me pause, with their artistry and their close observation of place and character. Such as this rich description of a significant character I eventually wished I could know in real life:
He was six foot four or six five, at least: haggard, noble-jawed, heavy, something about him suggesting the antique photos of Irish poets and pugilists that hung in the midtown pub where my father liked to drink. His hair was mostly gray, and needed cutting, and his skin an unhealthy white, with such deep purple shadows around his eyes that it was almost as if his nose had been broken. Over his clothes, a rich paisley robe with satin lapels fell almost to his ankles and flowed massively around him, like something a leading man might wear in a 1930s movie: worn, but still impressive.
If you're looking for a long read that builds slowly and artistically to a nail-biting conclusion, you might want to consider The Goldfinch. It's a classic Bildungsroman that asks some of the bigger questions about adversity, art, meaning, and love.
Donna Tartt. The Goldfinch. New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2013. 755 pp.
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