From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: December 31, 2020

Discussion: LONG READS

Why we're reading this: Group pick Oct 2020 - Quarterly Long Read
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LONG READS

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What Members Thought

Nov 05, 2014 Laurel Bradshaw rated it really liked it

Shelves: coming-of-age, audiobook, new-york, pulitzer-prize, daytimers-book-club, literary-fiction, themes-birds, amsterdam, las-vegas

This is not really a very "likeable" book, but it is a very powerful one. Basic plot: boy loses mother, is cast adrift, descends into drug use and alcoholism, makes choices that spiral out of control, and eventually grows up and tries to put things right. One of those choices was stealing a valuable painting from the MOMA during a terrorist bombing that kills his mother. He clings to this painting as a sort of anchor in his life, and it is his undoing, but in the end, it is also his salvation. T This is not really a very "likeable" book, but it is a very powerful one. Basic plot: boy loses mother, is cast adrift, descends into drug use and alcoholism, makes choices that spiral out of control, and eventually grows up and tries to put things right. One of those choices was stealing a valuable painting from the MOMA during a terrorist bombing that kills his mother. He clings to this painting as a sort of anchor in his life, and it is his undoing, but in the end, it is also his salvation. Tedious in some sections, especially life with his until then absent father in Las Vegas, and his descent into drug abuse with his friend Boris -- and Theo is not really a very likeable character himself -- nevertheless, it was also mesmerizing. The painting is a character in its own right - perhaps the only character that I actually cared about. The power of this book is in the broader themes that transcend plot and characters: how much do we control our fate? what is the power of art? the nature of authenticity? what happens when we try to follow our heart, but our heart cannot be trusted? Dickensian in scope, there is more than a a nod here to Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Will all be well in the end? Maybe, and maybe not.

Book Description: Theo Decker, a 13-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 underworld of art. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love--and his talisman, the painting, places him at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. ...more

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Aug 15, 2014 Kim rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: finished-in-2014

I really wanted to like this book, and in the beginning I did, but then it dragged on for 600 more boring and unlikable pages. It was well written and I kept hoping something was going to change and to turn the story around, but it doesn't. Basically this is a story of a boy who is dealt a pretty tough hand in life. Then something really terrible happens which leaves him with PTSD and he spends the rest of the book making poor decision after poor decision. Then the author spells out the moral of ...more

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Feb 23, 2019 Ketutar Jensen rated it did not like it

Shelves: it-should-have-been-good

Yep. I loved the first 1/3 of the book. I found the story interesting, I liked the characters, I wanted to know more... Then chapter 10 happened, and I noticed that it had been deteriorating the whole time, but it had happened so slowly (like everything else with this book) that I hadn't noticed it. And then it crashed.
Chapter 12 is among the most stupid crap I've ever read. The logic and research was on the level with fan fiction. When it's OK for fan fiction quality work, it is not OK for a P Yep. I loved the first 1/3 of the book. I found the story interesting, I liked the characters, I wanted to know more... Then chapter 10 happened, and I noticed that it had been deteriorating the whole time, but it had happened so slowly (like everything else with this book) that I hadn't noticed it. And then it crashed.
Chapter 12 is among the most stupid crap I've ever read. The logic and research was on the level with fan fiction. When it's OK for fan fiction quality work, it is not OK for a Pulitzer prize winner.

I mean, it starts with them flying over the Atlantic ocean in about an hour. His best friend becomes a totally different person, just to force our MC to wander the streets of Amsterdam and waste time. He takes his passport with him, just to lose it, so that the author can create drama later on.
He gets wet, just so that he gets sick. (Because people get cold by getting cold. It has nothing to do with things like viruses and so.)
He creates really elaborate plans to get rid of his blood stained shirt, when the most obvious, easiest and untraceable solution would be to just put it in the hotel waste basket. Hotel cleaning crew has seen a lot more upsetting, incredible, weird things in waste baskets than a stained shirt.
His telephone dies two days after it got wet, when he tries to charge it, just so that he won't get his friend's text messages.
He tries to buy a train ticket and they insist on seeing his passport. This doesn't ever happen. They don't care about your ID when you buy a train ticket. They just want your money. And you can be a kid, they'll sell you tickets anywhere you want. Because your passport is going to be checked AT THE BORDER. And there is no border control between Amsterdam and Paris. But, noooo, that would be too easy, and Donna would have needed to cut out this whole part, and she probably loved this specific part.

There's at least 400 pages too many in this book, and a lot of drama just for drama. It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't forward the story, it's just there, because. FU, that's why!
It's like watching a damned Woody Allen movie. (I don't get the fascination of those either. Blasé and neurotic people yap about things no-one cares about, not even they, and there's a lot of sex between "woody" and a young, pretty, sex-crazy fan girl. And everyone speaks the same way. Lots of stuttering and blabbering and impotent rage.)

Really, the last 200 pages I was like "look at that bitch eating those crackers as if she owned the world". Every little error and fault grew into a bloodstain that just won't wash out. Like, where did all those shoes in his closet come from?

I almost forgave her with the scene with Hobie at the end, but then she made me angry again with the last part of blah blah blah blah... I was moaning out loud when reading the last 100 pages, and almost started crying when I turned a page and saw that there was still more to be read. Like reading the Cyrano de Bergerac death scene. He talks and talks and walks about and falls and dies and wakes up and talks some more and dies and wakes up and talks... and here the MC talks and talks and talks, says the same thing over and over again, differently this time, and then the same way, just to make it sure we get the point, and blah blah blah blah...

GOD! If it hadn't been a library book, I would have ripped it in pieces, jumped on it and burned it!

I would have given it two stars, because I really liked the beginning, the basic story, the characters, but The Goldfinch received tons of accolades and praise from people who really should know better. I call this "Emperor's New Clothes" effect - people don't get it, but it SHOULD be amazing, so they praise it and talk about some mysterious values and stuff, to hide how clueless they are. I really fail to see how anyone could seriously like this book. I know, I know, people like different things, but... Uh.
Anyway, one of my greatest achievements this year is managing to actually read this book. ...more

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May 31, 2014 Sunflower rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-read-2014

This is a sprawling, incredibly well-written novel that takes you through the life of a boy and... a painting. These collide early in the book, back when the boy has an almost normal life, but from the time of the initial catastrophic event things begin to unravel for him. I don't think that any further outline from me can do this book justice, except to say that it is an exceptional read. And that I was completely unaware that the painting actually exists until after I'd finished it. ...more

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