The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt
report by Maggie Rainey-Smith
My No.1 Book Group recently read
this novel. I think for all of us, it
was our first Donna Tartt novel although there are now murmurings within the
ranks that we ought to read 'The Secret History'. An 800 page novel, right on the heels of
'The Luminaries' is a big ask for a book group, but you don't know my book
group. One year, we were toying with the
'light' summer reading of 'Drawing the Line' the first popular history of the
making of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Most
of us admitted to 'skimming' at times, and mostly in the same places, but all
of us were full of admiration for the fascinating plot, character development
and at times breathtakingly good writing.
We had one of those book club nights that make a book memorable -
differences of opinion - new insights and finding flaws. It occurred to me that perhaps the best
books are always flawed because they take risks.
The
novel opens with the protagonist holed up in a hotel in Amsterdam reading newspaper
reports about a murder and already you sense he is somehow implicated. Then we go back to the beginning, Theodore
Decker, a schoolboy in trouble with the authorities at his Upper-West side
school (he's a scholarship boy, mixing with the right crowd). On his way to
face the music with his mother in tow,
it starts to rain and they take a detour.
His mother, part Irish, part Cherokee 'glossy and nervy and stylish as a
racehorse' worked as a model to fund her
art history major and now works for an Advertising Company. They stop off at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art to buy a gift for one of her colleagues.
Theodore becomes distracted by a young girl at the gallery and he and
his mother become separated. Fate intervenes in the form of a terrorist act,
there is an explosion at the museum, and his mother is killed. On to the stage comes 'The Goldfinch'.
The
title of the book is taken from this famous work of art... the hitherto,
unknown to me, painting of one of Rembrandt's students, Carel Fabritius. It is on first glance perhaps quite an
unremarkable picture, of a pet goldfinch, chained to its perch. The painting how has a growing fan base. Readers of the novel are evidently flocking
to Frick Museum in New York where the painting is on display. (One bird, and a flock of people.)
'The
Goldfinch' my book group decided is a metaphor for Theodore Decker's life
(perhaps even all our lives, the chain a symbol of our various entrapments),
and the painting becomes the plot of his life.
It is a fascinating plot full of many permutations, part thriller,
partly psychological, often philosophical, dark, funny, contemporary and
riveting. There is real pace and plot along with great characters, interesting moral complexities while at the
same time the author evokes almost tangible images of place.
I was on team Theo all the way but my book
group were divided in their sympathies for him.
There is Boris, his Russian friend (from the Ukraine) who, like Theo is
motherless and has a less than satisfactory father figure in his life. We met Boris in Las Vegas when Theo's father
finally decides to claim responsibility for his son. And, it is here, that Theo's life spirals
downwards into drug addiction. It is at
this stage in the novel where we were all, it seems, tempted to sometimes skim read, but it is here too
that Las Vegas (not the shining lights we know) - the suburban outreaches,
become a character and we meet the fabulously drawn Xandra, the woman who
Theo's father left his mother for.... and get to know Theo's father.
Both
young men through fate, have been dealt tough hands, but it's what they do with
those hands that matters. The whole
idea of what you do with your life and how much influence tragedy shapes who
you are, or whether you, as is the case with Theo, already have the seeds of
corruption in you. I kept making excuses
for Theo perhaps when I shouldn't have, but my book group are tougher than me
and they judged him for his passivity. I
excused him because of his useless Dad, but then we meet his Dad and it's not
as black and white as we've been led to believe.
The brilliance for me of this novel, is the
development of the two key characters, Theo and Boris but too, the interesting
insights into the upper-west side social set of New York. I particular liked the fascinatingly drawn Mrs
Barbour and her family who take Theo in when he initially appears to be
orphaned after the explosion at the museum. I loved too, the intriguing insights into the
murky world of antiques, the ruses, rorts and roguery, as well as the wholly
likeable, and possibly only dependable character, Holbie who restores antique
furniture and to some extent restores Theo.
And too the fate of the painting in the equally murky world of art
theft, the machinations and blindsides when a hugely valuable piece of art cannot
be sold on the open market, but is used as collateral for ongoing dodgy
deals.
I
spoke of flaws early in regard to this novel and really it is just that at
times, Tartt does go on... and on... but
having said that, the details are frequently riveting. Theo's darkest moments are dissected and
rendered in the first person, making them all too real and sometimes
unbearable. And too nearer the end, when we are back with Theo holed up in the
hotel in Amsterdam, there are some interesting philosophical observations. Do I recommend this book? You bet I do?
I think it is one of the more interesting books that my No.1 Book Group
have recently read, and too I think it has become and will remain, one of the
more memorable. And, cleverly, the
resolution brings some sense of moral satisfaction (even a religious allegory
on good and evil), but best of all, some interesting musings on the nature of
our individual hearts.
Footnote:
Maggie Rainey-Smith is a Wellington writer and regular reviewer on Beattie's Book Blog. http://acurioushalfhour.wordpress.com
Maggie Rainey-Smith is a Wellington writer and regular reviewer on Beattie's Book Blog. http://acurioushalfhour.wordpress.com
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