Donna
Tartt is one of the few writers who makes me feel I must read every word she
writes. Admittedly, it’s a bit easy in
this case, since she comes out with a novel about once every ten years, big,
juicy books with lots of plot and fabulous characters: The Secret History, The Little Friend, and now, The Goldfinch, which I finished this
morning. At 771 pages, it’s not
something to enter lightly (and it will make your wrists hurt if you still
prefer paper editions, as I stubbornly do [though, sidenote, I really did not
like the paper this book was printed on—why has no reviewer noted this?]).
Still,
Donna Tartt! So I buckled down and
started reading over the Thanksgiving weekend.
I’m not going to give much away, but the basic premise is that a young
boy and his mother are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when a terrorist bomb
explodes, killing the mother. The boy,
Theo Decker, has a surreal exchange with a dying man who gives him a ring and
tells him an address to take it to. He
also tells Theo to save (by stealing) a painting, The Goldfinch by the Dutch
painter Fabritius, who died tragically early—also in an explosion—and who was
notably a student of Rembrandt and an influence on Vermeer, as well as being a genius
in his own right. (Here’s
a picture of the painting.)
Theo
does as instructed, and many, many, many things happen afterwards, taking us
from New York to Las Vegas to New York to Europe.
This
may not be the right book for everyone, but it is about the perfect book for
me. What I loved about it:
--The
Dickens-ish cast of characters, all well-defined and slightly larger than life,
and yet believable enough…Boris was a particular favorite!
--The
feeling of being immersed in a book in exactly the way we (I assume this was not
unique to me!) read as children, that sense of suspense and fear, “what will
happen next?”, and seeing the world through a (smart, observant) child’s
eyes. If you read and loved “orphan
books” back in the day, you are exactly the right reader for this one.
--The
magic of coincidence and reversals and plot that Tartt remarkably pulls off. If you like Harry Potter books, I suspect you’ll
like this one, too—there’s a similar twisted inter-connectedness but with a
much more sophisticated view and writing style.
She was so good, that even I suspended my disbelief on a few nit-picky
bits of reality (surely Theo would get some settlement money after this tragedy).
--There’s
some purposeful meta- that I enjoyed, such as Boris’s nickname for Theo: Potter
(because of his round eyeglasses); she knows she’s channeling Harry and what we
love about that series. The writer raises the curtain a bit from time to time
to let us in on her intentions without ever losing compassion for her
characters.
--Wonderfully
evoked settings. New York is very New
Yorky, but then a different, non-touristy side of Las Vegas is equally well-depicted. I’ve never been to Amsterdam, but I felt very
comfortable in those sections, so much so that I’m rather surprised now, out of
the book, that I haven’t actually seen those canals in real life.
--So
many elements of the writing were masterful on a craft level. Great dialogue (it’s a very talky book, which
I find attractive). Perhaps the only
dream in fiction that is executed elegantly and feels well-placed and relevant,
unlike the usual fictional dreams that often come off as convenient plot
devices. And I can’t believe I’m saying
this! More exclamation points than any
writer should every use! And yet I’m
convinced she needed every single one! !!
--Finally,
and the biggest plus of all, is that the book ultimately asks the hard
questions about life and death and art, and what could be more essential?
Read
more:
Salon interview with Donna Tartt: “To think about a place has always been a
way into a story.”
The Washington Post: “The novel ends
in full-throated praise for the power of a great painting to sink into your
soul, to act as a bulwark against the inevitable victory of death. Look here: A great novel can do that, too.”
The
New York Times Book Review: “It’s my happy duty to tell you that in this case,
all doubts and suspicions can be laid aside. “The Goldfinch” is a rarity that
comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary
novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind. I read it with that
mixture of terror and excitement I feel watching a pitcher carry a no-hitter
into the late innings. You keep waiting for the wheels to fall off, but in the
case of “The Goldfinch,” they never do.”
