The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I'm writing this while I am in en route to Philadelphia, PA. Leaving the frigid tundra of Boston, which is currently being pelted by yet another snow storm, was quite the journey. A 1 hour T ride (normally 20 minutes) and 30 minute delay were all made bearable by a Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate and bagel. America really does run on Dunkin.

Once I boarded my train I immediately started reading The Goldfinch. I thought I would finish it last night, alas the Grammys and some YouTube videos won me over. It didn't take long to finish the book on the train since I only had ~70 pages left. This book took me more than a month to read, which I guess isn't a big surprise since it is 775 pages, but I can usually finish a book of this size in about two weeks (or less) if it's really good. Being TheDrowsyReader and all, I read much of this book late at night and usually fell asleep right after. Not sure if that's good or bad. Typically if a book is really good I don't fall asleep right away, instead I'm up thinking about it…

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that I ended up reading as part of a book club. The first thing I thought when I picked it up from the library was "this book is ginormous, who chose this for book club?" The last time I read a book of this size was the first book of A Game of Thrones…and Harry Potter. Naturally any book that is over 500 pages is bound to be full of extensive character development, plot complexities, and a touch of "what's going to happen next?!" in order to keep the reader motivated. Sadly, this was not the case.

The first piece of this book is fantastic. Tragic, but fantastic nonetheless. We are introduced to Theodore Decker, his mother, his best friend, and a few other characters who piece together Theo's "family." So far so good. We are walked through some pretty mundane things that happen in Theo's life, but ultimately it is the mundane that changes his life forever. Pretty soon into the book tragedy strikes Theo and his entire world is shaken. He is in a museum with his mother when a bomb explodes. She dies and he lives. Before walking out of the museum he speaks to an old man (Welty) who is dying, takes a ring from him to return to the old man's business partner, and walks out with a painting. Yes. A painting. That was hanging in the museum. It was his mother's favorite. All of this takes place pretty quickly in the book.

Next we see Theo's father come back into the picture. Theo moves to Vegas with his father (and his new wife) and there he meets Boris. Boris quickly becomes Theo's best friend. Tartt spends a significant amount of time detailing Theo's life in Vegas and his relationship with Boris. Then, like before, tragedy strikes and Theo's life is once again in shambles. He ends up leaving Vegas, saying goodbye to Boris, and going back to New York City. There he lives with Welty's business partner, Hobie, and he eventually becomes Hobie's business partner. By the way, throughout this entire book Theo is in love with a girl he saw in the museum - Pippa. She is Welty's granddaughter and lived with Hobie for a bit before having to move. Confused yet? Because I'm confused just trying to recap this, so I'll stop.

So much happens in this book, yet it seems like nothing happens at all. The first 100 pages or so are full of tragedy and then the book lulls for the next few hundred pages. All of a sudden Theo is back in New York and finds out that his best friend from childhood is gone. Then another hundred pages passes and BOOM! He's engaged. Then another 50 pages pass and WHAM! Boris is back. The entire book is like this. Even towards the very end there is a lull and then all of a sudden the writing gets very philosophical. I found the last 10 pages of the book to be the most prolific, but I'm not sure that it was worth reading 760 pages to get there.

I can easily see this being a "Required Reading" in American high schools 50 years from now, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. I appreciate books that are detailed and complex. While this book was extremely detailed, I did not find it to be particularly complex. Because of that it is an easy read. However, when I pick up a book that is almost 800 pages long I am expecting something spectacular and The Goldfinch just didn't do that for me.

Read on,

Saudia