From the Bookshelf of Retro Chapter Chicks …

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

Start date: April 1, 2020

Finish date: June 30, 2020

Discussion: 2020 Book Discussion Archive

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2020 Book Discussion Archive

April 2020: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
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What Members Thought

Apr 13, 2020 Candi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, book-i-own, chunksters, pulitzers, contemporary-literary

"—if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don’t think, ‘oh, I love this picture because it’s universal.’ ‘I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.’ That’s not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you."

Finally!! This book! I put off reading Donna Tartt for far too long. This book in particular was on and off my list for quite some time. I can’t say why reall "—if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don’t think, ‘oh, I love this picture because it’s universal.’ ‘I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.’ That’s not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you."

Finally!! This book! I put off reading Donna Tartt for far too long. This book in particular was on and off my list for quite some time. I can’t say why really. Call me capricious, I guess. Then in November 2019, I read The Secret History and kicked myself for not having read Tartt sooner. On finishing that superb work of literature, I knew I’d pick this one up at long last. For once my dawdling paid off though. I couldn’t have picked a more perfect time to read this most excellent novel!

Last week, I was supposed to be in New York City for the first time in ages, having last been there on a field trip with a bunch of fellow teens. This was a vacation I was so highly anticipating. There would be trips to the theater, the Met, and Central Park. I was going to stuff myself with as much ethnic cuisine as I could possibly handle without making myself sick. AND… I would be visiting the Strand Book Store for the very first time!! Well, as they say, the best-laid plans… How very sorry I was to have to cancel this trip; how even more heartsick I was to hear of the devastation in that vibrant city as the result of something virtually invisible yet so deadly as this damn virus that has shut down the entire world. One consolation until this evil is eradicated – The Goldfinch. It was a life saver for me, as books so often are. Plus, I got to indirectly spend a good chunk of time in NYC immersed in these pages.

There are plenty of other fabulous reviews out there if you are interested in gleaning a bit more about the plot. I’m just going to say that this book has it all, really. First and foremost, the prose is exceptional. I’m all about the writing these days. Secondly, these are wholly believable characters, full of imperfections just like real people. Even when I didn’t agree with many of their actions, I never felt that Tartt was asking us to judge them. I never felt the need to judge them; I rooted for them no matter those flaws. I can see where Theo Decker might be a bit of a turnoff to some readers. For me, however, there was something about him that just crushed me and drew me to him. I guess you could say, I understood him, despite our superficial differences. There was something at the core of him that gnawed away at my heart.

"I’d felt drowned and extinguished by vastness—not just the predictable vastness of time, and space, but the impassable distances between people even when they were within arm’s reach of each other, and with a swell of vertigo I thought of all the places I’d been and all the places I hadn’t, a world lost and vast and unknowable, dingy maze of cities and alleyways, far-drifting ash and hostile immensities, connections missed, things lost and never found…"

And then there was Theo’s best friend, Boris. This guy! Sometimes I wanted Theo to get as far away as possible from him and other times I was wishing him right back with us. Mostly, he made me smile. Wise Hobie and the lovely Pippa definitely won me over. The settings are brilliantly illustrated – from the vitality of New York City to the dust and depravity of Las Vegas to the charm of Amsterdam. Of course, there is a cleverly plotted storyline that made this another step up from just your everyday ‘good’ book. Despite its length coming in at over 775 pages, I was captivated in its entirety.

There’s too much to say about this masterpiece - more things I could say about the meaning of art, about the choices we make, about love and death. About life. I was completely consumed by the ending pages. I couldn’t help but think of this novel in terms of our current situation. For this reason, I believe it will forever hold an extra special place in my heart. I have one more full-length Tartt novel to delight in. It will take a lot of willpower not to rush to it right away! The Goldfinch is headed to my favorites shelf.

"That life—whatever else it is—is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch."
...more

284 likes · Like · see review

Jan 01, 2016 Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own

MY BLOG: Melissa Martin's Reading List

I really hate that I didn't love this book to death like so many others :-(

I would say I loved the first half or maybe a little more of the book, I felt like it was too long and some of the things I wasn't interested in toward the end.

First off this painting by Carel Fabritius 1654 is so beautiful, so simple and so beautiful.

It seemed like a normal day with Theo and his mom going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

but it wasn't anywhere near normal, this w ...more

78 likes · Like · see review

Oct 04, 2015 Book Concierge rated it liked it

Shelves: audio, book-club, coming-of-age, new-york, literary-fiction, survival, concierge, crime, library, art

Book on CD performed by David Pittu
3.5****

From the book jacket: It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysterio Book on CD performed by David Pittu
3.5****

From the book jacket: It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the criminal underworld.

My Reaction:
There is much about this novel to like, and quite a few things not to like. In the end I’m struggling with how to rate it because of these conflicting issues.

I like the way Tartt writes, particularly the way she so vividly depicts the scenes in this book. Her descriptions of the Barbour’s apartment, Hobie’s antique shop, the wasteland of an abandoned Las Vegas suburban development, or Amsterdam at Christmas all put me squarely into the landscape of the novel. For example, here is Theo’s reaction on seeing his room at his father’s house: ”the kind of room where a call girl or stewardess would be murdered on television.”

I also really found myself caught up in the basic plot – Theo’s coming-of-age. I liked how Tartt explored the effects of one violent act on the survivors, how Theo was left to negotiate his way through life pretty much on his own, and how easily he fell prey to bad influences. There was many a time when listening to the CD that I’d yell out loud – “Don’t do that!” I did not really sympathize with him or like him; but I understood, intellectually, how his circumstances would lead to his behavior. I wanted desperately for some adult to rescue this poor motherless (and for all intents and purposes, fatherless) child. But then …

I got really tired of the repeated bad choices. How often did Tartt have to describe how Boris and Theo got drunk, laughed hysterically, passed out, stole stuff, etc. I got it the first time – they were without supervision and basically grew up as feral kids. I couldn’t help but wonder where the novel was going in that long Las Vegas interlude. And then Theo returns to New York and to a fairly stable influence, the kindly Hobie, who takes him in and gives him an honest trade in his antiques & restoration business. But despite this apparent good influence, Theo never seems to mature, except in age.

And let’s just talk about the painting for a minute. I’m not sure what Tartt was trying to say here. Does art transform? Is obsession an understandable reason for living? There were long sections of the book where the painting isn’t even mentioned, and apparently not thought about by Theo.

Which brings me to the ending. Tartt takes us on a wild ride into a criminal underworld that had me on the edge of my seat for about 100 pages. Then … well I don’t want to spoil the resolution for anyone, so I won’t say what happens, but I was very unhappy with the way the characters got out of that mess. And for the last several pages I get some long philosophical treatise, and the novel is finished. I have no problem with ambiguous endings, in fact I rather like them most of the time. But this time? I have to admit that when the audio ended I said – aloud – “Is that it?!”

David Pittu does a superb job narrating the audio version of this novel. He has great pacing, and his skill with voices made the characters come to life. I particularly liked how he voiced Hobie, and he did a credible job with the women as well. I was confused about Boris, though, because Tartt describes his accent as a cross between Aussie and Russian, and yet Pittu seemed to lose the Aussie almost immediately. But that’s a small quibble. I’d give Pittu 5* for his narration. ...more

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May 28, 2020 Tasha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Started really strong, loved it through most of the story and I thought for sure that this would end up a 5 star read. Great writing and definitely a literary page-turner for the most part. Somewhere just past the middle, the tension slowed, picked up and finally slowed again to the point where I felt this book could have ended at least 100 pages earlier. I felt Theo's story ended fine, I just needed the rest of the meandering storytelling to end as well. I skimmed the last pages.

This is my fir ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Sep 10, 2014 ˜”*°•.˜”*°• Sheri •°*”˜.•°*”˜ rated it did not like it

Shelves: in-person-book-club

Theo Decker, a teen, accompanies his mother to the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art. While there a bomb explodes and Theo's mother is killed. Theo survives and while trapped in the crumbled building is given the painting of a goldfinch which he ends up taking home once he escapes the rubble. He hides the painting and then can't figure out how to return it. He's supposed to have a very high IQ and figures out how to pass off furniture as antiques but he can't figure out how to get rid of the paint ...more

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Dec 06, 2013 Lory Sakay rated it really liked it

This book took me from shocked to sad to skeptical to angry to disgusted; what a roller coaster of emotions. I liked the way Tartt wrote but conversely disliked how loooong she took to describe events and settings. It made the story drag on forever and I had a hard time staying "hooked". It was a struggle to see Theo turn into another version of his father, despite his mother's attempts to have him avoid that route. Although the extenuating circumstances Theo faced understandably altered his ado ...more

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