Helpful Score: 8
Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-goldfinch.html
The goldfinch is a small bird. The Goldfinch is a small painting created by
Carel Fabritius in 1654. The painting is of a small bird chained to its feed box. It is considered to be a masterpiece of tromp l'oeill illusionism. Viewed from a certain angle, the viewer may think that the bird is real. The painting is also one of only about 15 works created by the artist, who died very young. Shortly after painting this piece, he died in a explosion of a gunpowder store in the city of Delft in the Netherlands.
The painting is a key character in the story of Theo Decker. Theo is thirteen years old as the story begins. He is being raised by his mother; his father has recently abandoned them both. Theo and his mother are caught in an explosion, which leaves his mother dead and Theo traumatized. He walks away physically uninjured but altered forever. He also walks away in possession of this painting.
The book proceeds to tell of Theo life - taken in by friends, claimed by relatives, alone, finding and losing friends, living his life as an adult, and repeatedly turning to self-destructive behaviors as an escape.
The book definitely consists of distinct sections centered around different phases in Theo's life. He travels through his life, never finding solace to recover from the trauma of losing his mother. The Goldfinch travels with him, and takes on the role of Theo's anchor.
This book is almost 800 pages long, and one of the saddest, most depressing books I have ever read. If that will deter you as a reader, then this is definitely not the book for you.
That being said, I really liked the book. It has some of the qualities of a train wreck - terrible things happen to this young man; yet, as a reader, you cannot look away. Regardless of the bad choices he makes, I care about Theo and what happens to him. This makes the almost 800 pages fly by, waiting to see if at some point, he finds peace and joy in his life.
At one point, Theo remarks, "As much as I'd like to believe there's a truth beyond illusion, I've come to believe that there's no truth beyond illusion. Because between 'reality' on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there's a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic."
This book, in its reading, hits that middle zone.
The goldfinch is a small bird. The Goldfinch is a small painting created by
Carel Fabritius in 1654. The painting is of a small bird chained to its feed box. It is considered to be a masterpiece of tromp l'oeill illusionism. Viewed from a certain angle, the viewer may think that the bird is real. The painting is also one of only about 15 works created by the artist, who died very young. Shortly after painting this piece, he died in a explosion of a gunpowder store in the city of Delft in the Netherlands.
The painting is a key character in the story of Theo Decker. Theo is thirteen years old as the story begins. He is being raised by his mother; his father has recently abandoned them both. Theo and his mother are caught in an explosion, which leaves his mother dead and Theo traumatized. He walks away physically uninjured but altered forever. He also walks away in possession of this painting.
The book proceeds to tell of Theo life - taken in by friends, claimed by relatives, alone, finding and losing friends, living his life as an adult, and repeatedly turning to self-destructive behaviors as an escape.
The book definitely consists of distinct sections centered around different phases in Theo's life. He travels through his life, never finding solace to recover from the trauma of losing his mother. The Goldfinch travels with him, and takes on the role of Theo's anchor.
This book is almost 800 pages long, and one of the saddest, most depressing books I have ever read. If that will deter you as a reader, then this is definitely not the book for you.
That being said, I really liked the book. It has some of the qualities of a train wreck - terrible things happen to this young man; yet, as a reader, you cannot look away. Regardless of the bad choices he makes, I care about Theo and what happens to him. This makes the almost 800 pages fly by, waiting to see if at some point, he finds peace and joy in his life.
At one point, Theo remarks, "As much as I'd like to believe there's a truth beyond illusion, I've come to believe that there's no truth beyond illusion. Because between 'reality' on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there's a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic."
This book, in its reading, hits that middle zone.
Helpful Score: 3
I actually was very frustrated with this book for about 50% of it. I was not empathizing with Theo, the main character at all, his troubles were all self induced. The authors descriptions of people and events were beautiful, and vivid so this kept me reading. Then almost at the end of the book I was pretty distressed because there was no way things were going to turn out well for the characters that I did like, specifically Hobie. However, the ending is amazing everything turns out well with an unexpected twist and a deeper meaning, you have to read it to find out!
Helpful Score: 1
I liked this book very much. It is long, it drags at times...but it is ultimately a beautiful and cathartic read. Not for everyone.
Such a great read. Of course the characters didn't do what I wanted them to do but they were a lot like real people -- flawed and imperfect, but nearly all trying to do the right thing. The book is full of information I learned for the first time but the narration is never pedantic. Terrific story that is difficult not to read all night long and destroy the next day.
Not your run-of-the-mill novel in any way. I loved this story on many levels.
Not your run-of-the-mill novel in any way. I loved this story on many levels.
. I just finished this book and heard such raves about it from my friends, I thought something was wrong with me because I really had a big problem with it. I read all the reviews on Goodreads and see I'm not the only one!
Theo, a polite, intelligent young boy of 13 survives a tragic bombing and his adored mother didn't. His life spirals downward afterward, making all the wrong choices as he gets involved with drugs, alcohol, Russian Mafia and art theft.
I read it to the end, always hoping to see a brighter side, but it never happens. I also skimmed a lot, this book was much too long, overly descriptive and too wordy and could have been written in 400 instead of almost 800 pages!
I really wanted to like Theo, but the only character I cared about was Hobie, who took him in when he had no place to go.
After saying all that, the book is probably worthwhile reading and the storyline does pull you in.
Theo, a polite, intelligent young boy of 13 survives a tragic bombing and his adored mother didn't. His life spirals downward afterward, making all the wrong choices as he gets involved with drugs, alcohol, Russian Mafia and art theft.
I read it to the end, always hoping to see a brighter side, but it never happens. I also skimmed a lot, this book was much too long, overly descriptive and too wordy and could have been written in 400 instead of almost 800 pages!
I really wanted to like Theo, but the only character I cared about was Hobie, who took him in when he had no place to go.
After saying all that, the book is probably worthwhile reading and the storyline does pull you in.
For better or for worse, The Goldfinch seems to be the book that everyone is talking about. At first I thought it was just a local thing (Donna Tartt is a native Mississippian and we do love our home-grown authors) but then it won the Pulitzer. It was about this time that my book club went rogue and insisted that we read it immediately. Now, 800-something pages later, I'm trying to decide whether I liked it or not.
My initial thought was that it would have been twice the book at half the length. Theo leads a very tragic, depressing, and self-destructive life, and Tartt describes every moment of it in painstaking detail. It was interesting enough to keep me reading, but it was also emotionally exhausting. This is a character study of very broken people who are consumed by depravity, and there is very little about this story that offers any glimmer of hope or redemption.
Then, after dutifully footslogging through 800 pages of woeful minutiae, Tartt rewarded my efforts with an ending so vague and poorly realized that it felt like nothing more than a hastily written afterthought. It seemed to devalue everything that I had just read, making all that hard work to become invested in the characters seem like a waste. Why would she spend so much time holding the threads of this plot so closely, only to let them fall apart so carelessly at the very end?
The Goldfinch is an oddly beautiful book with very well drawn characters, but it suffers from being too much in the beginning and middle and not enough at the end. It is one of those books where a lot is going on but nothing really happens, and the conclusion (what little of it there is) leaves you wondering what the point of it really was after all.
Is it a book worth reading? I really havent decided yet. The general consensus seems to be that the ending, which was disappointing and unrewarding, managed to spoil whatever positives the rest of the book had to offer. The natural answer to the question of Are you glad you read it? seems to be Yes, but Unfortunately, that is about the best answer that I can come up with as well.
My initial thought was that it would have been twice the book at half the length. Theo leads a very tragic, depressing, and self-destructive life, and Tartt describes every moment of it in painstaking detail. It was interesting enough to keep me reading, but it was also emotionally exhausting. This is a character study of very broken people who are consumed by depravity, and there is very little about this story that offers any glimmer of hope or redemption.
Then, after dutifully footslogging through 800 pages of woeful minutiae, Tartt rewarded my efforts with an ending so vague and poorly realized that it felt like nothing more than a hastily written afterthought. It seemed to devalue everything that I had just read, making all that hard work to become invested in the characters seem like a waste. Why would she spend so much time holding the threads of this plot so closely, only to let them fall apart so carelessly at the very end?
The Goldfinch is an oddly beautiful book with very well drawn characters, but it suffers from being too much in the beginning and middle and not enough at the end. It is one of those books where a lot is going on but nothing really happens, and the conclusion (what little of it there is) leaves you wondering what the point of it really was after all.
Is it a book worth reading? I really havent decided yet. The general consensus seems to be that the ending, which was disappointing and unrewarding, managed to spoil whatever positives the rest of the book had to offer. The natural answer to the question of Are you glad you read it? seems to be Yes, but Unfortunately, that is about the best answer that I can come up with as well.
A whole bunch of nothing. I kept waiting for the main character to want something, to work for something. Instead we just kind of followed 'em around until the novel's "big ending." blah
As I read the reviews I am fascinated by the fact that I agree with aspects of many of them, whether they rate the book one, two, three, or even four stars. Even the positive reviews point out the very many flaws. I suppose it all comes down to what you are willing to tolerate in a novel. I found Tartt's writing to be at times quite lovely, but I got the feeling she is a little too enamored with her own skill. I am surprised to see the novel described as "dense." It was very, very (unnecessarily, in my opinion) long, but it was the opposite of dense. More like bloated--with lots of pretty fluff. When Theo is making his (again, long and mysteriously uninterrupted) way out of the Met in the beginning, I knew right away I was in for a severely under-edited read, and suspension of disbelief of inordinate proportions would be called upon.
I am not a reader who must like or identify with the main character, or even any of them, but I do require them to at least be interesting or representative of a larger idea in some way, if not, then I at least want to be able to root for them. Here, I found the characters unlikable (except for Hobie and Pippa, but they just fade in and out) and with no real emotional resonance. Theo's mourning for his mother in particular, felt vaguely like a lovesick teenager's rendition of grief in a creative writing class. His relationships with women are so shallow and unconvincing as to suggest that he is deeply closeted. But with his lecturing at the end (pursuing what your heart desires, etc), I would think he would come clean on this point if that were the case.
Even the discussion of the eponymous painting is lacking. It's as if the author didn't bother to research the piece--does she not know that Google exists? All the muddled philosophizing at the end left me unimpressed. In the end it was, in the words of Bart Simpson, "just a bunch of stuff that happened." A long, mostly tedious read with very little (or no) payoff.
If you are like me and finish a book you start no matter what, I would seriously give the reviews here a read before committing to it.
I am not a reader who must like or identify with the main character, or even any of them, but I do require them to at least be interesting or representative of a larger idea in some way, if not, then I at least want to be able to root for them. Here, I found the characters unlikable (except for Hobie and Pippa, but they just fade in and out) and with no real emotional resonance. Theo's mourning for his mother in particular, felt vaguely like a lovesick teenager's rendition of grief in a creative writing class. His relationships with women are so shallow and unconvincing as to suggest that he is deeply closeted. But with his lecturing at the end (pursuing what your heart desires, etc), I would think he would come clean on this point if that were the case.
Even the discussion of the eponymous painting is lacking. It's as if the author didn't bother to research the piece--does she not know that Google exists? All the muddled philosophizing at the end left me unimpressed. In the end it was, in the words of Bart Simpson, "just a bunch of stuff that happened." A long, mostly tedious read with very little (or no) payoff.
If you are like me and finish a book you start no matter what, I would seriously give the reviews here a read before committing to it.
As others have said this is a very long novel. I haven't decided if it was because I didn't sit and read it in a day or two or the story itself was just a bit to boring in parts to really like it or not, but I was not overly impressed. It is a well written book. The beginning goes fast enough to enjoy. The middle when he goes to Vegas, becomes almost repetitious in his day to day life. The end as an adult also seems to drag the story down. I've heard the end described as going too fast but to me it was a total let down. (maybe I expected to much) All in all would I read it again or even recommend it to a friend? Good question. I can't say either way. I guess it would depend on the person and how well I knew them. I would not read it again and I'll probably forget about the entire book after I finish the next one.
Phew! It took me about 3 weeks but I made it through all 771 pages of this massive novel that in essence was about a young man, Theo, who lost his mother during a terror attack on an art museum in New York and who during the chaos of the explosion, was able to make off with the classic painting "The Goldfinch" by Fabritius. Along the way, Theo lives with a well-to-do family in New York, the Barbours, moves to Las Vegas with his wayward father, then back to New York to live and become partners with an antique furniture restorer, Hobie, who was the partner of another person killed in the art museum explosion. Throughout Theo's moves, he is able to keep the "Goldfinch" a secret and hidden away. While in Las Vegas, Theo becomes friends with Boris, a fast-talking schemer from the Ukraine who has traveled the world with his father. Boris is probably to me the most interesting character in the book and he plays a key role throughout along with "the Goldfinch" itself. Overall, I did enjoy the novel and thought Tartt's writing was eloquent; however, I think the story could have been shortened drastically. I just thought there was way too much detail although much of it kept me fascinated including details about the art world and antique furniture.
I'm the only person I know who didn't love this novel. I felt it was too long and the story just dragged and dragged. The characters didn't evoke any emotion out of me. I was never rooting for the narrator or even feeling sorry for him. I just thought he was dealt a lousy hand in life and then let that dictate the rest of his existence and be his excuse for doing crappy things. The ending was dissatisfying. I really had to force myself to finish this book and would not recommend it to anyone.
At 771 pages, this is a beautifully written saga. It was darker than I expected with details about drug use, but by the final page the mostly likable narrator has come around to a hopeful stance in spite of himself.
THE GOLDFINCH was the December 2014 pick in my neighborhood book club.
I flat out cringed when this was chosen because 1) it's over 700 pages and I couldn't fathom doing that to myself at Christmastime, and 2) it won a Pulitzer, which nowadays screams BORING bookfor BORING people. (◕‿-)
Well, guess what? With this tome, my hunch was right! The life of Theo Decker had a couple of interesting moments that shined with potential (a notable scene in Las Vegas with his loser father) but they ended up being snuffed out by a narrative that felt too much like a run-on sentence to be enjoyable! I mean, I get itliterary fiction is the playground of pretentious linguistic acrobatics that can either demonstrate an author's savvy way with words, or their ability to use ten words when four will do!
Geesh. 771 pages! I'm all for intelligent writing, but don't most readers also need a story to be compelling and engaging to keep their eyes from glazing over in total boredom?
Bottom line? I so couldve done without reading this uneven, pointless book and I can hardly wait for our book club meeting so I can share exactly how wonderful a choice it was for December! (¬‿¬) I give it a C-
I flat out cringed when this was chosen because 1) it's over 700 pages and I couldn't fathom doing that to myself at Christmastime, and 2) it won a Pulitzer, which nowadays screams BORING book
Well, guess what? With this tome, my hunch was right! The life of Theo Decker had a couple of interesting moments that shined with potential (a notable scene in Las Vegas with his loser father) but they ended up being snuffed out by a narrative that felt too much like a run-on sentence to be enjoyable! I mean, I get itliterary fiction is the playground of pretentious linguistic acrobatics that can either demonstrate an author's savvy way with words, or their ability to use ten words when four will do!
Geesh. 771 pages! I'm all for intelligent writing, but don't most readers also need a story to be compelling and engaging to keep their eyes from glazing over in total boredom?
Bottom line? I so couldve done without reading this uneven, pointless book and I can hardly wait for our book club meeting so I can share exactly how wonderful a choice it was for December! (¬‿¬) I give it a C-
Although I agree with many other readers that the ending is less than satisfying, I highly recommend this book for its adventure and characters. I'm not sure how much I "cared" about the main character, Theo, but I was more than curious to find out his next move and that drove me to finish this big fat book quickly. I have no doubt that editors at Amazon made the right decision when the chose this book as the Best Book of 2013. It definitely is the best one that I read.
I cannot tell you how much I hate this novel. I absolutely hate Theo. I read the first 100 several times, with the same results and am reading only to satisfy my book club.
