"The Goldfinch" Donna Tartt

“Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?” 

― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

I was not a member of the Donna Tartt bandwagon.  I had been told to read her "The Secret History," but haven't taken the time.  The book has moved in and out of my "to read" shelf, making a trip back to the used book sale at the fairground and then rebought at least twice.  "Goldfinch" was a selection of a book club that I sort of belong to, reading the books but not going to the discussions/wine-drinking sessions because I never finish the book in time.  I decided to give the almost-800-page book a try, thinking I could listen to all 32.5 hours of the books over a week of cleaning house and exercise.

Two months later I am done.  I'm still not sure I am a member of the Donna Tartt bandwagon or not.

Theo is a young boy whose father has abandoned him and his mother.  He is beginning to hang out with some guys at school that are leading him down a troubling path, and he has been sent home from school for some bad behavior.  He and his mother are supposed to speak to someone at school, but they have time until then and visit an art museum in the meantime.  A bomb goes off in the museum, killing his mother.  He is in another gallery of the museum and there he comforts an older man who is injured and dying.  The man gives Theo a painting, The Goldfinch by Carel Frabitius, to take.  The man took it off the frame and wants it to be protected from the fire running through the museum.  Theo flees the danger of the museum with the 1654 painting in his backpack.

So begins the story of the impact of that chance meeting and the painting itself has on Theo's life.  Tartt.  In the beginning I find Theo a sympathetic character.  He is tragic and lost, and I champion his efforts to make a connection with someone or something.  But as Theo's life unfolds, the post-traumatic stress that he suffers from the museum explosion keeps him from making that connection, and he spirals out of control into drugs and fraud and worse.  At this point I didn't like Theo so much and wondered if he could be redeemed.

And then Boris, a long time companion of Theo's, who knows all of Theo's warts, and was probably the cause of many of them, gives Theo the speech above reality not being black and white.  About needing the bad to offset the good. This speech comes 96% of the way through the book, during a series of speeches by Boris, Theo and Theo's foster father.  This speech comes just when I'm wondering if I can suffer the remaining hour of the book.  It made me realize in my own black-and-white thinking that I believed Theo could only be good or bad and not some mix of the two.  It reminded me that the Hollywood endings that required the bad guys to be punished were artificial.  It brought me up short and made me think about my own life.

Powerful?  Yes.  But...did it have to take 800 pages for that?  Not sure.

Each part of the book is a story in itself, and I enjoyed them all until the scenes in Theo's hotel room in Amsterdam, where he feels trapped and sees no way out.  The tension built up during those scenes was excruciating, and I wasn't sure I could finish the book.  A friend of mine who read it said that about 300 pages of the book could be cut.  I agree.