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The Goldfinch: by Donna Tartt -- Review

Expert Book Reviews

3.98 · Rating details · 1,266 ratings · 212 reviews

THIS IS NOT THE NOVEL, BUT A BOOK REVIEW.

Learn what the experts are saying about Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch with this literary review. Dark themes prevail throughout the novel as protagonist Theo Decker copes with the violent and untimely death of his mother. As a 13-year-old boy, Theo’s grasp of reality is limited, and the tragic event forces despair and self-defeating b ...more

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Kindle Edition, 46 pages

Published December 10th 2013

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Feb 16, 2014 Kathryn Williams gravelle rated it did not like it

This could have been a good book. Basic story line was good; however the main character Theo was a bore and 2 dimensional. His self indulgent musings were too much for me.

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Jan 10, 2014 Pamela Cathcart rated it it was amazing

Loved it. As a playwright, especially appreciated the infinite amount of detail in each character's "doings;" almost like watching a play. She sets up lighting, background noise, how the person is feeling (and how he thinks he should be feeling, and a literary example of that feeling...) to such a degree that, just when you are wondering if the book ever had an editor, things take a delicious turn. Boris just made me laugh out loud. The ending had me feeling overdosed in "cosmic truths," but giv ...more

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Feb 23, 2014 Sarah Nichols rated it did not like it

I found the characters in this tedious opus one-dimensional and unpleasant. I made myself plow through to the end which I found completely unsatisfying. Tartt rambles on for page after page for no purpose that I could discern.

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May 08, 2014 Patricia rated it it was amazing

I am so glad that this book came to my bookshelf now. I am retired and have the time to read and assimilate the story at a leisurely pace, so the length was not detrimental for me. I was gettingantsy for a book that was different from the usual "best sellers". This delivered in spades. I think maybe those readers who found Theo two dimensional have no personal insight into how it feels to suffer from PTSD. It is difficult enough to get through daily life with support, but poor Theo is not wanted ...more

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Feb 20, 2014 Rosemarie added it

I'm about a third of the way through and dislike Theo so much that I can't finish the book. So as someone else said, Donna Tartt writes very well - I just don't like what she wrote. ...more

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Mar 05, 2014 Patti rated it really liked it

I would haven given it 5 stars but although I loved every page of it, it was a lot of pages. The themes explored are timeless. It's been compared to Oliver Twist and I can see why. The writing is superb and the turns that Theo's life has to navigate are each filled with their own turbulence. He does exacerbate the problems sometimes through his own choices but he is a teen at the start of the book. There is humor throughout all his banter with Boris and there relationship is really what endeare ...more

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Jun 17, 2014 Elisamarie rated it it was ok

This was the wordiest book I have ever read. I think I liked it, but I was so ready for it to end that it took away from my liking it too much.

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Jan 21, 2014 Melissa Brown rated it really liked it

A very interesting plot, and awesome development of characters...however I thought the book was too long. Because it was on the depressing side, I felt like I was slogging through it at times. I generally liked the book and I'm glad I read it. ...more

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Feb 10, 2014 Susan rated it it was amazing

Tartt immediately drew me into the story with her amazing descriptions and the moral dilemma she presents. The contrast between NY and Las Vegas with their cast of characters was sharp and believable. I loved the ending and the musing about truth and beauty. I want to read her earlier work!

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Mar 21, 2014 Serena rated it it was amazing

I have read all Donna Tartt's books now and, for me, she is one of the best authors writing today. The Goldfinch didn't let me down either. It is a long, harrowing read but the descriptions, characters and plot carry you along. There were two points in the novel where I had to put it down and have an emotional "rest"! I think I'll have to reread it shortly to appreciate the beautiful prose and descriptions as I devoured the story line, desperate to know what happened to these fascinating, damage ...more

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Mar 24, 2016 Christina Houen rated it it was amazing

Yes, I’m three years behind in my reading (at least). I’ve just read Donna Tartt’s 3rd novel, The Goldfinch, published by Little, Brown in 2013, and awarded the Pulitzer prize in 2014.

The cover features a glimpse of the famous, priceless painting by Carl Fabritius (1654), which is the metaphorical subject of the novel, and the key to its plot and central character. The fact that the painting is only glimpsed through a tear in the cover page is a clever symbol for the part the painting plays in t Yes, I’m three years behind in my reading (at least). I’ve just read Donna Tartt’s 3rd novel, The Goldfinch, published by Little, Brown in 2013, and awarded the Pulitzer prize in 2014.

The cover features a glimpse of the famous, priceless painting by Carl Fabritius (1654), which is the metaphorical subject of the novel, and the key to its plot and central character. The fact that the painting is only glimpsed through a tear in the cover page is a clever symbol for the part the painting plays in the life of Theo Deker, aged 13 when the story starts, and about 27 when it finishes. The image of it inside the cover of the actual book is dull and unremarkable, but other reproductions I have seen capture its understated, haunting beauty.

Theo and his mother visit the Museum of Modern Art to escape a rain storm and to fill in time while waiting to have an interview at Theo’s school about his suspension for smoking. Theo’s mother is beautiful, and loves him unconditionally. When he escapes from the Museum, shattered by a bomb blast, some hours later, he has lost her, and carries with him The Goldfinch. He doesn’t believe she is dead at first, because he couldn’t find her body as he stumbled and crawled around the room she had been in before the blast.

This loss, and the almost accidental acquisition of the painting, shape his life henceforth, her death the dividing mark between Before and After. I’m not going to summarise the plot; suffice to say that he drifts from being an awkward guest of a wealthy family whose son is his friend, to several years in Las Vegas with his father, a would-be reformed alcoholic who is addicted to pills and to gambling, then back to New York, where he finds refuge, comfort and some sort of purpose in living with Hobie, the elderly, eccentric, gentle and gifted furniture restorer. Hobie was the business partner of an old man Theo tried to help as he lay dying in the Museum, who had given him Hobie’s address, and in another window of lucidity in his delirium, urged him to rescue The Goldfinch which lay, ripped from its frame, nearby.

So the book falls into three parts, each dense with detail and characters both high- and lowlife, in a plot that has many surprising twists and turns. The dramatic events which start Theo’s journey through life as an orphan, the reversals and cul de sacs that follow, and his character as an orphan who grows up, not without a strong moral sense, compassion, and capacity for love and devotion, but lost, despairing underneath, and finding solace in drugs, fraud and crime (including the theft of the priceless painting, which is a talisman for his mother), have inspired many reviewers to call the novel Dickensian. I can see the parallels but find it intensely modern, first of all in its setting, in the capitalist centres of New York, uptown and downtown, in Las Vegas and in the old world yet cosmopolitan European, unfriendly back streets and hotels of Amsterdam. Also in the rich, contradictory, tormented consciousness of Theo, the narrator-protagonist. Dickens’ characters are always seen from outside, even in the first person, whereas I feel, with Theo, that I am there with him, even in the most unlikely and desperate situations. At the same time, the characters he meets and is involved with are portrayed with deft strokes, vivid detail, and dialogue that is cadenced and convincing. One of the most three-dimensional characters is Boris, his streetwise friend from Las Vegas, who shares the unfortunate biography of a mother lost when he was young and a violent alcoholic father. Boris is Russian-Polish, and learnt to speak English in Australia, so he speaks a slightly stilted but colourful dialect. He is tougher than Theo, harder, and ultimately more optimistic, though he has his own suicidal trajectory. When Theo asks him, on their dark, dangerous adventure involving The Goldfinch in Amsterdam, why he shoots up (which Theo draws the line at), Boris replies that he is a ‘chipper’, who does it only on special occasions:

That said, Boris added somberly—blue movie light glinting off the teaspoon—I am alcoholic. Damage is done, there. I’m a drunk till I die. If anything kills me—nodding at the Russian Standard bottle on the coffee table—that’ll be it.

Why do I love this book? It had me gripped, in a world so unfamiliar, so rich and strange and often uncomfortable and dark, yet shot with intense shafts of light, a vision of life that I do not share yet can empathise with through Tartt’s magical storytelling. One such moment of intense light is early in the story, when Theo meets again with Pippa, a girl his own age who had been with the old man who died in the Museum. She sustained a bad head injury in the blast, and is still recovering at Hobie’s when Theo sees her again, in bed in a darkened room, listening to classical music on her iPod. She gives Theo an earbud and they listen together to Palestrina. Theo had fallen in love with her when he had glimpsed her in the Museum before the blast; indeed, he had left his mother looking at paintings to make his way to the section where she was standing with the old man, which is how it happened that his mother was killed by the blast and he was not. Hobie appears at the door to tell Pippa it is time to go with her aunt to live.

The hem of a sheer curtain brushed a windowsill. Faintly, I heard traffic singing in the street. Sitting there on the edge of her bed, it felt like the waking-up moment between dream and daylight where everything merged and mingled just as it was about to change, all in the same, fluid, euphoric slide: rainy light, Pippa sitting up with Hobie in the doorway, and her kiss (with the peculiar flavor of what I now believe to have been a morphine lollipop) still sticky on my lips. Yet I’m not sure that even morphine would account for how light-headed I felt at that moment, how smilingly wrapped-up in happiness and beauty.

Loss is a strong theme in this book; Theo’s loss of his mother, of his father, of Pippa, who grows up to be with someone else, of The Goldfinch, of the double identity he has built up for himself in his life and work with Hobie. Outwardly, he is a successful businessman, who rescues Hobie’s world from bankruptcy. In reality, he jeopardises that world by selling fake antique furniture. The loss of The Goldfinch in Amsterdam (read the book to find out how) is his Damascus experience. Thereafter he returns to New York, to Hobie, and sets about making good the frauds he has committed by buying back the fake pieces. But there is no redemption for his soul, no romantic ending. He continues to believe that “life ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end”. But there is a twist: “as cruelly as the game is stacked, … it’s possible to play it with a kind of joy”. The joy comes from the moving qualities he finds in the impermanence of hotels, the moments of beauty, the spaces between the notes of music. Art survives death, and Theo’s love for that impossible golden bird has helped it, like other beautiful things, to ‘sing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.’

Of course, this begs the question of whether his long possession of the painting did really protect it, whether its survival was not a matter of chance and Boris’s underworld dealings as much as of Theo’s love for it. In some ways, the final message for me is itself as flawed as is Theo the character. But that doesn’t lessen my joy in it. ...more

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Jun 11, 2014 Yona McDonough rated it it was amazing

Reading THE GOLDFINCH reminded me of how I read as a girl: with total abandon, total immersion. The scope, the shape, the palpable sense of longing--all haunting. Yes, there were few missteps: Theo never sounded like a teen-aged boy (what 14 year old knows the brand of his mother's shampoo? And how is it he never, ever thinks of sex?) but still these things are minor compared with the towering achievement of this book. Great, sprawling, epic, filled with memorable characters and such a strong se ...more

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Jan 10, 2014 Eileen Huston rated it liked it

Way to long for the point it was trying to make.

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Feb 06, 2014 Catherine Kennedy rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

Dickens for the 21st century -loved it.

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Feb 11, 2014 Jgriffruraltel.net rated it it was ok

The book was a weighty corundum with a pretty bow tied at the end. There are a few good lines weighted down by overly verbose narratives. Don't bother. ...more

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Feb 16, 2014 John Zenoni rated it it was ok

I am very conflicted about this book because I really got into the character of Theo and his troubled life. However, while details can be essential to a character's development and/or of those interacting with the central character, there were way too many pages of unnecessary information and I found myself skimming pages at times. Definitely needed more editing on this one. Good book but way too long! ...more

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Mar 17, 2014 Eva Antonel rated it really liked it

This was one of those books that had me vacillating from love to hate. I was drawn in right away by the atmospheric description of New York and was reminded of The Catcher in the Rye as well as From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, both books that have a special place in my heart.Half way through the story I felt disturbed by the unremitting detail of drug use and general fall into depravity and despair experienced by the majority of the main characters. There were moments that I ...more

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Dec 23, 2013 Ryalto Savage rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I loved this book. It wasn't perfect, and I enjoyed Secret History more, but I cannot give it any less than five stars. So well written, and far too complex for me to go into detail about the storyline. The book starts with a terrible disaster, then takes us on a journey through the eyes of the chief protagonist, Theo, who is in the possession of a stolen painting, The Goldfinch. We meet many fascinating characters: notably Boris. The characters are so well described by Ms Tartt, one could even ...more

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Jan 23, 2014 Loretta rated it liked it

So descriptive. An great book that i just had to finish. The words truly paint the picture for you. But I felt many times it was too wordy, where characters stories were told that really had nothing to do with the main story. It seemed like wanderings of the mind, with truly no point. This dragged it on too much for me. I wondered if maybe the author was being paid by the word?

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Jan 28, 2016 Kate rated it liked it

Good read, but about 150 pages too long. Too wordy in parts that made it a bit tedious to continue. Secret History a much better book in my humble opinion.

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Sep 18, 2018 Weston Ochse rated it it was amazing

Now I understand why it won The Pulitzer. One of the best books I have ever read.

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Mar 05, 2014 Sharon rated it really liked it

The only thing that prevented me from rating this book 5 stars is that (as other reviewers have pointed out) it could have benefited from a tight edit. That said, I was totally engaged from the novel's start and found the tale so suspenseful that, once I started to read it, I barely did anything else for three days, until I finished the book. The plot and premise strain credibility but as an escapist novel, it would be a good choice for reading on a long plane trip with long delays or layovers o ...more

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Sep 12, 2017 Sewa added it

Pulitzer prize winner and all, i was pretty excited, and sorely disappointed. It has no idea wat it's about. If i wanted lost teenage, i would have read catcher in the rye. If i wanted unrequited love i would have read the great gatsby. If i wanted detective thriller i would have read James bond, if i wanted drug abuse history i would have read prescriptions, and if i wanted philosophy i would gave read the geeta. The only thing well done in this book is the description of paintings and what the ...more

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Jun 09, 2014 Howard rated it it was amazing

Outstanding story of the coming of age of a good kid who is forced to find his way in the world due to a series of tragic events. Throughout the book he's caught in a limbo-like situation somewhere between the privileged rich and the homeless. At each stop, he manages to develop relationships with characters that help him get through the stages of his life. And these characters are SO well-developed. Tartt has the knack of weaving a very complicated story in such a way that it really is easy to ...more

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Nov 13, 2019 Rob Hebron rated it did not like it

I have never had to work so hard to finish a book, it could have easily been a 300 page novel.

I found it incredibly self indulgent. The goldfinch needlessly trudges on droning on and on and on.

Maybe I didn't "get it," but that's perfectly fine.

...more

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Aug 26, 2018 Bob rated it it was amazing

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group. Interesting that a number of those in the reading group had already read it and wanted to read it again – even though it’s 770 pages long. This book has been widely acclaimed and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

Summary in 4 sentences: The story is told in first person from the perspective of a young man sharing his thoughts, fears, and perceptions of the world during a difficult 10 or so year period of his life – it could be c Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group. Interesting that a number of those in the reading group had already read it and wanted to read it again – even though it’s 770 pages long. This book has been widely acclaimed and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

Summary in 4 sentences: The story is told in first person from the perspective of a young man sharing his thoughts, fears, and perceptions of the world during a difficult 10 or so year period of his life – it could be called a “coming of age” novel. It begins when as a 13 year old boy living with his divorced mother in NYC, he and his mother are in the NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art when a terrorist bomb explodes, killing his mother and seemingly everyone in the vicinity, but he somehow survives. When he comes to after the explosion, he is with an older man who just before he dies hands him his ring, an address, and a painting – “The Goldfinch” – a very valuable painting from the Museum. Our protagonist leaves the museum unseen with the painting, and the rest of the book is about his struggles over the next 10+ years to come to terms with that event, feeling essentially alone in a chaotic world where he has no roots, trying to find his own identity and some sort of happiness – while secretly having in his possession a stolen and invaluable work of art from the Museum.

My impressions: The story in The Goldfinch is like a labyrinth – twisting and turning and it is often unclear where it is going, and what the point is. The story itself is NOT is NOT what makes this books special – what is compelling is the cast of very interesting characters, the truly exceptional writing of Donna Tartt and the underlying morality play that one only sees at the end. The book culminates in the last 30 or so pages. In the young man’s thoughts and perspectives looking back, the entire story made sense to me. The story was interesting enough, but the conclusion made the book truly exceptional. I felt I really did need to go through the whole book for the conclusion to have its intended impact.

The book begins with our protagonist in a hotel room in Amsterdam, in considerable despair over his prospects, and then pretty rapidly, goes back 10 or so years to the beginning of the story that got him there.

If you want to read the rest of my review, go to: https://bobsbeenreading.wordpress.com... ...more

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Jul 06, 2014 Phyl rated it liked it

Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch is favourite to win the Baileys women's prize for fiction and is already tipped for the Booker. Having said that, I was not so enraptured with this book as I expected to be. The characterisation was the standout feature for me, the young boy, Theo Decker, who loses his mother and with her, his moral compass and differing paths that his life may have otherwise taken. All Tartt's characters seem very finely drawn in an almost microscopic way. Once we get past the chara ...more

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Mar 17, 2014 Susan rated it liked it

Donna Tartt is an excellent writer. I was amazed with her ability to write such vivid explanations of art. Because of this story I will never forget Carel Fabritius' 1654, work of art. The Goldfinch. The author really did a tremendous amount of research. She shared an
impressive amount of art knowledge with out having to sign up for a college art course.
Lots of language ,Russian, Dutch, Ukranian and travel to Amsterdam was fun for me as well.

I enjoyed the book most of all the closer I got to t ...more

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Sep 21, 2014 June rated it liked it

Very tough for me to get interested at first and incredibly depressing, yet the creation of characters and conversations was amazing. Totally believable despite being far from what I've experienced. During the last 3rd of the book I really had a hard time putting it down. Disappointed that the ending dragged a bit. I think the point could have been made more quickly. Still, an intriguing book! ...more

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Feb 06, 2014 Diane Feldman rated it really liked it

I enjoyed this book, but it was really long. A lot of descriptions that really slowed down the reading. I enjoyed the characters and the ending - but there was 20 pages after the "ending" that just drug on and on. ...more

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