Last fall I saw lots of praise for The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. The cover and glowing reviews dominated headlines in several online book newsletters and reading websites that I frequent. It sounded like a novel destined for big things. And indeed it was. It won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction this spring, just about the time I first snagged it off the new arrivals shelf.
Here's a quickie synopsis from the Pulitzer folks, just so you know what they thought:
"Awarded to "The Goldfinch," by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown), a beautifully written coming-of-age novel with exquisitely drawn characters that follows a grieving boy's entanglement with a small famous painting that has eluded destruction, a book that stimulates the mind and touches the heart."
Considering the book is well over 750 pages, you could say the Pulitzer judges left a few things out in that blurb. They skipped over the deep, dark abyss that was the main character's life. But that's just my take.
This was, most of the time, a difficult story to navigate. And not because it was poorly written. Oh no. Tartt is a gifted writer, and I marveled at her imagination and ambition to crank out a novel of this magnitude and complexity. How much research did this woman conduct beforehand? She knows about classical artwork, art theft, Americana furniture sales, reproductions and restoration. She knows about drugs and drug abuse and living in Las Vegas. She knows about the uber rich of Manhattan as well as the conversational styles of Latino doormen.
She also made me care--madly and deeply--for Theo, our young hero/victim/reluctant art thief whose life we share for hundreds of pages. It was why I kept hungrily returning to the book, even though I knew each chapter in Theo's life would be rife with despair.
Theo loses his mother in a terrorist attack while visiting a New York museum, and while he picked his way through the debris to escape, a dying man insists he grab Carel Fabritius's The Goldfinch from the destroyed gallery's wall. Dazed and desperately searching for his mother, Theo does what he's told without question.
Later, his alcoholic--and estranged--father resurfaces and sweeps Theo from the comfort of a friend's home only to insert him into a barren, lonely existence in Las Vegas. Instead of a bomb, Theo is now the victim of epic negligence. His father and his father's girlfriend are absorbed in their lives and destructive habits while Theo ekes out a life with his closest friend Boris, a Russian transplant and product of a similar Vegas, absentee parent. They become brothers and scrounge for food, drugs, a kind word.
And that's just the first third of the book. Theo ultimately returns to New York City with the painting and starts fresh. After what he'd been through, it is a euphoric moment in the book that moved me to tears. But Theo's tragic history and family tree squash every lucky break. Just when I hoped his situation would change, Theo elected to keep secrets. He distrusted those best suited to help. The painting, regretfully, stayed hidden. In the midst of his deception, Theo does learn a trade. He becomes a savvy antique furniture restorer and salesman. He even reunites with the family that offered him refuge after his mother's death. I held my breath from page to page, just waiting him out. I wanted Theo to come clean. To trust. To stay clear headed and sober. But wishing didn't make it so. Instead, Theo got Boris, and the world turned upside down again.
I couldn't put the book down (when I had the time to read during this busy spring), but the story made me wince. I wanted to love this prize-winning novel, but I pushed to finish. Couldn't wait to finish. Yet I'm very, very glad I invested my time in The Goldfinch. In fact, I have encountered readers who gushed over this book, like the woman at my salon who reported during her cut and blow-out that members of her book club hated to see it end!! So there you go. Yes, read this. But buckle up.
The book is making me crazy. It's great, but it's a mess (a recent Washington Post headline claimed it was a "pretentious mess"). Tartt gives us a glimpse of the dirty underbelly of life, yet I couldn't look away. No one could.
