A review by _sophahs_
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

‘Only - if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it?’

If I’m honest, I spent most of this book wondering what the hell it was about. Obviously, at surface level, it’s a story of a young boy who faces tragedy and turns to a tangible object to help him through it, from which he faces a number of issues. But it took me a long time to figure out the message of this book. And it was only towards the end that Boris introduced me to what I believe is one of the key takeaways of this novel. It’s a novel about morality, but, more than that, it questions innate morality. ‘That line [between good and bad] is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other.’

‘The Goldfinch’ is also about growing up, and the way the past affects the present. Theo is just thirteen when the novel begins and so much changes for him. By the end, his life is completely different - both parents gone, a drug addict, a thief, a murderer - and yet, somehow, his thirteen-year-old consciousness is still there. We as readers can still recognise him. 

You could easily argue that the painting threw Theo off the rails, but I would suggest it put him on the rails. 

Another thing I love about this book is the side characters, namely Boris and Hobie. Almost unarguably the most important people in Theo’s life following his mother’s death, they are complete opposites, and yet we are somehow made to connect to both of them. That’s not to say that we necessarily like Boris (though in a way I do, very much so), but we care for him nevertheless. Despite his flaws, he saved Theo, and helped him through his rocky (to say the least) childhood. As for Hobie, bless his goddamn heart. 

I know I just described Hobie and Boris as opposites, but perhaps they aren’t so opposite as one might think. They say similar things about good coming from bad places towards the end - “What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good?” / “Can’t good come around sometimes through some strange back doors?”. So perhaps the major, underlying theme of this novel is humanity. That’s what it all comes back to. 

Anyway, I adore Donna Tartt. ‘The Goldfinch’ is so different to ‘The Secret History’ but the distinctive features of her writing are present in both. Her novels are long, but you don’t necessarily notice the length because you just want to keep reading. They follow characters who are flawed, misguided, lost. But for me, the defining feature of Tartt’s works are the opening lines. Being told the answer, or a snippet of the future, at the very beginning of the book, and thus knowing that the details you read will eventually tie everything together. The opening lines of ‘The Goldfinch’ and ‘The Secret History’ are definitively ‘hooks’, and they keep you hooked, even 800 pages later…
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