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A review by afk2022
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I find this a hard book to review largely because it is so big. While reading, it can feel slow, and dense, emotionally straining and frankly, obsessive and excessive in the descriptions of depression, suicide and drug use. I feel like Tartt is pulling all this into s grander narrative though. On one level it is about Theo, a boy who after a simply awful act of God fails to fulfil his potential, makes the wrong friends and enters a dark path, all while seeing others suffer along the way. We stay with Theo through all his downward spiral and bad decisions, and by the end of the novel he hasn’t really turned it around - he just intends to.
On the other hand, it is a novel about love. Love for people and love for concepts, really. It is about how love and care for something bigger than oneself can give one purpose and drive when life is hard, and how this purpose can help motivate you to take the next step. There’s this triangulation of the painting, his mother and Pippa. Theo obesses over all of them. But the painting casts the other two into relief. Theo ends up obsessing and loving the concept of his mother and Pippa, the memory as it were. The painting, arguably more of a concept than the other two, is more real to Theo, and helps him recontextualise his life to view the other two as what they are, concepts and ideas of memory. It’s an interesting way to explore how these “larger” concepts help illuminate the smaller, closer ones in our lives.
As usual with a Tartt novel, sexuality is ambiguous and I’m not sure what to say about that.
This novel isn’t for everyone, and I can see why it has received the criticism it has received to date. However, I do think it is brilliant both in scope and style, and in the way it explores the complexity of life, fate, choice, mortality and love.
On the other hand, it is a novel about love. Love for people and love for concepts, really. It is about how love and care for something bigger than oneself can give one purpose and drive when life is hard, and how this purpose can help motivate you to take the next step. There’s this triangulation of the painting, his mother and Pippa. Theo obesses over all of them. But the painting casts the other two into relief. Theo ends up obsessing and loving the concept of his mother and Pippa, the memory as it were. The painting, arguably more of a concept than the other two, is more real to Theo, and helps him recontextualise his life to view the other two as what they are, concepts and ideas of memory. It’s an interesting way to explore how these “larger” concepts help illuminate the smaller, closer ones in our lives.
As usual with a Tartt novel, sexuality is ambiguous and I’m not sure what to say about that.
This novel isn’t for everyone, and I can see why it has received the criticism it has received to date. However, I do think it is brilliant both in scope and style, and in the way it explores the complexity of life, fate, choice, mortality and love.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Gun violence, and Suicide