The Goldfinch in DC Public Library

Jan 28, 2014 martha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: kindle, 5-star-favs, year-2014

Aaaaahhhh, this was so long! Aaahhh, this was so good!

If the world allowed such things, I'd probably give this a 4.5; there were definitely parts I didn't enjoy and parts I found debilitatingly stressful, but I'm rounding up for how completely engrossing it was. (And isn't that almost all anyone really wants in a book? It is for me.)

First, a note of appreciation for the immense range in settings and characters and tone -- so incredibly disparate, maybe moreso than any other book I can think of, Aaaaahhhh, this was so long! Aaahhh, this was so good!

If the world allowed such things, I'd probably give this a 4.5; there were definitely parts I didn't enjoy and parts I found debilitatingly stressful, but I'm rounding up for how completely engrossing it was. (And isn't that almost all anyone really wants in a book? It is for me.)

First, a note of appreciation for the immense range in settings and characters and tone -- so incredibly disparate, maybe moreso than any other book I can think of, yet ultimately this feels as cohesive and real as an actual life. The way it stayed with details, let scenes of even very mundane life expand in real time contributed to that feeling of realism.

This seems like a digression but it's not: one thing I never expected about getting an ereader was how it would transform me into a highlighter/underliner/marginalia-er. I never have been, since I've spent my life in the world of library books, or textbooks I'd have to sell back. And even in cases when I could, it's not like I'd stop reading in the general course of things, to find a pen and make a mark. With the Kindle, though, I can pause and underline any gorgeous turn of phrase or crazy good paragraph and I do now, all. the. time.

This is the kind of book that's made for that. Except it's not the kind of book where style overwhelms plot; no matter what else you can say about it, this book keeps moving forward, is almost compulsively readable in that sense.

And in a way, really -- here's where my pretentious English major side is gonna come out -- it's like when the book talks about how you can see a painting two ways at the same time. As Theo puts it: "It's there in the light-rinsed atmosphere, the brush strokes he permits us to see, up close, for exactly what they are--hand worked flashes of pigment, the very passage of the bristles visible--and then, at a distance, the miracle, or the joke as Horst called it, although really it's both, the slide of transubstantiation where paint is paint and yet also feather and bone."

And that's how this book is put together, too. You can see the brush strokes, the handiwork that goes into the really excellent writing and at the same time appreciate the whole story as something that seems real and inhabitable, without the writing coming between you and it at all.

Also I can't wait to go back and look at what I marked. ...more

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Apr 06, 2014 Jessica rated it really liked it

Shelves: owned

This was like a Wilco album: kinda long, obviously well-made, and I understand why people love it. That said, it's not quite for me.

I loved the art stuff, I would read a book from Boris' standpoint, and the passages about being young, bored, and on drugs in the desert were devastatingly familiar (mostly they reminded me of a truly shitty week spent in northern Idaho one summer). I wish there was more about Pippa, specifically from Pippa's POV. I know that's not possible from a first-person book, ...more

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Oct 23, 2013 Megan Reichelt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, favorites

Fan-frikkin-tastic. Listened to the audiobook, which is really well done.

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Jul 31, 2013 Devon Tutak rated it it was amazing

A modern Dickens. Absolutely Tartt's best work. The last 10-15 pages seemed a bit unnecessary, but are forgivable in light of the larger work. ...more

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