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The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

Start date: March 2, 2016

Finish date: March 31, 2016

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Sep 17, 2019 Joni (Jonez) rated it really liked it

4.25

Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" is derivative. There I said it. She has taken her formula straight from Dickens and used it as an outline from which she has crafted her own phonebook sized tome. It has all of the elements.

An Orphan
A childhood crush/first love/obsession that has gone unrequited through time
A Fagin type character for a best friend
A character trying desperately to fit into high society
An old lady that is going a bit crazy and reclusive
Crime
A non-parent benefactor is taken for gra 4.25

Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" is derivative. There I said it. She has taken her formula straight from Dickens and used it as an outline from which she has crafted her own phonebook sized tome. It has all of the elements.

An Orphan
A childhood crush/first love/obsession that has gone unrequited through time
A Fagin type character for a best friend
A character trying desperately to fit into high society
An old lady that is going a bit crazy and reclusive
Crime
A non-parent benefactor is taken for granted
Atmospheric locations as a backdrop

Tartt's story has a few other flaws to mention. It can be a bit pretentious, or not self-aware (ten-year-old Theo sometimes reads like he is 20 or 30), it needed a bit of editing in areas where the story unnecessarily lost pace and flow (although a novel of length is expected and desired in this instance). For these reasons, I can't give it a full five stars. (Remember, this is literary fiction show I am going to rate this more critically than a piece of YA Fiction or Fantasy).

So, with all that said, did Donna Tartt borrow from Dickens his formula and create something unique and masterful of her own? I would say yes! This book is well crafted, it is unique, it's characters are fully formed and three dimensional. Are they all likable? No! But they don't have to be. As a matter of fact, I would argue that is the point. "What if our badness and mistakes are the very things that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way?" Theo is stuck at the moment he lost his mother and is forever navigating through life with his mind stuck in that trauma. Boris has always been in survival mode and learned to take what he had to take in order to survive. Hobbie wants to see the best in everything from tattered pieces of furniture to people, and therefore sometimes avoids flaws at all costs. What you take away from these characters is a deep and rich understanding, and that is kudos to the author.

Now, it wasn't lost on me that the only POC here are the eager "help", but I'm not sure Iif that was the deliberate choice of the author to show how Theo and those around him saw people of color, or is this how Tartt see's POC? I'm not thrilled about it, but since it came off to me more as the former, and being ive read nothing else of Tartt's, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

The settings and the story, even the painting is given its own life. Tartt does this with her masterful way of writing. Her writing, in this novel, is perfection. I can't take away from her the ability to spin a story and turn a phrase that didn't make a 771-page novel feel at all like a struggle to read, or get back into (even after putting it down during portions that did seem to drag, it always peaked my interest to pick it back up and continue. I needed to know what happened to these characters). Tartt has created a breathtaking, sometimes frustrating, sometimes the edge of your seat, and often times heartbreaking Dickensian tale of her own, and it is one that I will continue to think about. Isn't that all you can ask from a piece of literary fiction? ...more

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Apr 01, 2014 Michelle rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, gave-up-on

I loved parts of this and really hated other parts... And after trying to finish it 4 times I finally gave up. It was good, but she could've trimmed at least 100 pages out of this bad boy.... Which is about how many pages I had left when I decided to quit. ...more

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