The Goldfinch
Ratings568
Average rating4
A child loses his mother in a terrorist attack at an art museum. As he escapes the wreckage he steals a piece of art, and keeps it along with the guilt he has for stealing it for the next 10+ years into adulthood.
I found it to be quite a gripping book. I definitely preferred when he was more of an idealistic child and not the troubled adult he becomes, though.
“Who's to say that gamblers don't really understand it better than anyone else? Isn't everything worthwhile a gamble? Can't good come around sometimes through some strange back doors?”
I want Hobie in my life! The best character in this book. Period!
Another beautifully written book, mixing the depressing and uplifting. It's long but doesn't feel it - it's like being on a roller coaster, and you find you have such anxiety for the main character and what's going to happen. A story about the “catastrophe” that life is, and redemption.
4/5 stars
Was there times that I was too stupid for this book? Most definitely. But I understood most of it on a philosophical level.
I both loved and hated this book. Which really means I loved it nearly as much as anything I've read. But still, yeah, okay, amazing. But ...
3.5
A very long book that feels like a love letter to art and the preservation of paintings for me. I like how this book puts some focus on the appreciation of their beauty and their beautiful and mostly tragic stories. A good book but a bit of a chore to read since it's really slow-paced and it made me feel anxious and on edge a lot, which I don't mind if it happens once in a while but this book made me feel that way the whole time.
I read some other reviews before writing this one. The one and two star reviews cover much of what I am feeling. The one thing that I must add is that around 550 pages I abandoned ship. I didn???t care about any of the characters I didn???t care about their futures.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings towards this book. For the first few chapters, I just loved it so much and thought It'll surely end up in my 4-star list if the quality is consistent, even after Theo went to Vegas his experiences with loneliness and guilt feeling about the painting and his mother seems very intriguing even though I hated the side characters like Boris, Theo's father and his father. But after the time skip Theo's lamenting about Pippa was so irritating to read oof, Theo's failures in his personal life and constant listless actions seemed so boring smh. Then Boris's ridiculous prank with The painting put cheery on top of my annoyance, the plot twist seemed so much force. (hide spoiler)]
So my overall rating is 3.75/3.5 ⭐ out of 5
donna tartt be like yes they're gay yes they're homophobic whoops they're murderers now keep it moving
Too long. Protagonist is antagonizingly stupid. And they keep trying to preach the meaning of life.
I did not want to finish this book. Sooo boring.
3.75*
I understand why Stephen King liked this so much, characters with a lot of background story, ‘unnecessary' details and lots of plot (relevant or not). Some parts of this book I absolutely loved and other parts I had trouble dragging myself through. In the beginning of this book I was very excited and hopeful, this lasted during most of the Las Vegas parts, but soon after my interest started going down. I did like the parts with Hobie and a lot of the time spent with Boris but even they weren't enough to keep me really excited. This review might not sound too satisfied with the book and in some ways I'm not, but what I value a lot in this book is the style of writing and the story overall. That is why I rounded up to 4 stars.
(I have also seen the movie. It's pretty accurate but was not all it could have been.)
Donna Tartt takes us deep into the life of a boy who suddenly, tragically, loses his mother in an art museum bombing. It's a decisive moment in Theo's life. He is almost alone in the world, with no one who cares for him to assist him. Theo falls and falls and falls, and those who gradually appear in his life—his father, friends—are little help to him.
It's a story of loss and the descent into desperation, much of it grim and dark and horrifying. But it is also, in an odd way, redemptive, with good from bad, which may be the most hopeful of all.
What an amazing book. A huge story, grappling with the great philosophical questions, and conveyed by beautiful writing.
Hmm. I needed to sit with this a bit before reviewing. What to say?? It is certainly: very long. And yet kind of a page-turner? It didn't quite feel as long as it was. And I do take the point that the long, draggy parts are intentionally evocative of Theo's ennui.
The writing is lovely. The attitude Theo shows towards women is...icky? But realistically icky? But maybe now I'm at a point where I'm just less interested in the exquisite rendering of how a young man objectifies women without it ever really being challenged?
¯_(ツ)_/¯
I loved it. Epic. Rambling. Dickensian in scope and happenings. I won't lie, it is a commitment, but an immensely rewarding one, speaking to our modern American Age and yet fully tethered to the past through art.It's a story to savor and get lost in. No rush. The painting lost/stolen is just a frame to hang a bigger story where big questions are posed, along with the mundane, and no answer is given. It's not expected. Along with the sadness, is a funny, almost picaresque tale, brimming with life that spans past and present and over 700 pages I still wanted it to go on. Our narrator, unreliable as the best are, is Theo Decker, a boy who at 13 suffers the unimaginable loss of his mother in a terrorist attack. So starts Theo's journey as an orphan, first in a sublimely rendered NYC, with its local uptown & downtown fauna, and later in the mirage dream of the west via Las Vegas. [a:Donna Tartt 8719 Donna Tartt https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1409871301p2/8719.jpg] has created characters that brim with life and live outside the page: Theo, Boris, Andy, Hobie. I loved them all and surely expect to run into them at any moment. I was lucky enough to also pair this with [a:David Pittu 572486 David Pittu https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]'s masterful audio rendition. Wow.
I decided to listen to this book after seeing the movie trailer. This was one of the most boring, uninteresting books I have every listened to. I actually increased the speed of the playback to 2x just to get through this book, something I have never done before. I would have been better off just DNFing this book instead of struggling to finish.
I ran really hot and cold on this book. It reads very much like a familiar and kind of insufferable subgenre of literary fiction where white men pine for some timeless golden youth in Manhattan, and I didn't like that. I also didn't like the intro, which immediately flashes back in a disorienting way that indicated to me that we'd flash forward again... but we never did. The flashback was the book, leading back to the present. But by the end, I had been won over. It was pretty interesting and I wanted to know what happened. Which is why the ending, which doesn't tell you what happens, and ends so abruptly I thought something was wrong with my copy, left me cold all over again. I'm averaging this out as a 3. I don't regret reading it; I'm glad I did. But man.Update: something was actually wrong with my copy of the audiobook! There's a whole chapter (1/12 of the book!) remaining. So I'll update this once I'm done.
Yep. I loved the first 1/3 of the book. I found the story interesting, I liked the characters, I wanted to know more... Then chapter 10 happened, and I noticed that it had been deteriorating the whole time, but it had happened so slowly (like everything else with this book) that I hadn't noticed it. And then it crashed.
Chapter 12 is among the most stupid crap I've ever read. The logic and research was on the level with fan fiction. When it's OK for fan fiction quality work, it is not OK for a Pulitzer prize winner.
I mean, it starts with them flying over the Atlantic ocean in about an hour. His best friend becomes a totally different person, just to force our MC to wander the streets of Amsterdam and waste time. He takes his passport with him, just to lose it, so that the author can create drama later on.
He gets wet, just so that he gets sick. (Because people get cold by getting cold. It has nothing to do with things like viruses and so.)
He creates really elaborate plans to get rid of his blood stained shirt, when the most obvious, easiest and untraceable solution would be to just put it in the hotel waste basket. Hotel cleaning crew has seen a lot more upsetting, incredible, weird things in waste baskets than a stained shirt.
His telephone dies two days after it got wet, when he tries to charge it, just so that he won't get his friend's text messages.
He tries to buy a train ticket and they insist on seeing his passport. This doesn't ever happen. They don't care about your ID when you buy a train ticket. They just want your money. And you can be a kid, they'll sell you tickets anywhere you want. Because your passport is going to be checked AT THE BORDER. And there is no border control between Amsterdam and Paris. But, noooo, that would be too easy, and Donna would have needed to cut out this whole part, and she probably loved this specific part.
There's at least 400 pages too many in this book, and a lot of drama just for drama. It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't forward the story, it's just there, because. FU, that's why!
It's like watching a damned Woody Allen movie. (I don't get the fascination of those either. Blasé and neurotic people yap about things no-one cares about, not even they, and there's a lot of sex between “woody” and a young, pretty, sex-crazy fan girl. And everyone speaks the same way. Lots of stuttering and blabbering and impotent rage.)
Really, the last 200 pages I was like “look at that bitch eating those crackers as if she owned the world”. Every little error and fault grew into a bloodstain that just won't wash out. Like, where did all those shoes in his closet come from?
I almost forgave her with the scene with Hobie at the end, but then she made me angry again with the last part of blah blah blah blah... I was moaning out loud when reading the last 100 pages, and almost started crying when I turned a page and saw that there was still more to be read. Like reading the Cyrano de Bergerac death scene. He talks and talks and walks about and falls and dies and wakes up and talks some more and dies and wakes up and talks... and here the MC talks and talks and talks, says the same thing over and over again, differently this time, and then the same way, just to make it sure we get the point, and blah blah blah blah...
GOD! If it hadn't been a library book, I would have ripped it in pieces, jumped on it and burned it!
I would have given it two stars, because I really liked the beginning, the basic story, the characters, but The Goldfinch received tons of accolades and praise from people who really should know better. I call this “Emperor's New Clothes” effect - people don't get it, but it SHOULD be amazing, so they praise it and talk about some mysterious values and stuff, to hide how clueless they are. I really fail to see how anyone could seriously like this book. I know, I know, people like different things, but... Uh.
Anyway, one of my greatest achievements this year is managing to actually read this book.
I think this was my first fictional autobiography. It dragged a bit, in places, but overall it was an interesting and (mostly) entertaining read. But, y'know? The end really grated. The whole thing was full of soooo much angst, and in the end? All wrapped up so nicely and neatly and positively and innocently and legally. And annoyingly.
highly enjoyed, good recommendation - thanks Priest!
mostly listened to this on audiobook and the narrator was fantastic as well.
Not what I was expecting
This book when it is good is really good. When it is so so it is very so so. I felt like I was reading 2 books one an action adventure book and another a character piece. Unfortunately the two did not mesh as seamlessly as they should. Certain parts of the book seemed to go on and on never truly getting to the point or if she did I missed it because the author dragged it in too long. I think this would be a great 500 page book but goes on for 774 pages. I really enjoyed the first half the second half not so much.
Not what I was expecting
This book when it is good is really good. When it is so so it is very so so. I felt like I was reading 2 books one an action adventure book and another a character piece. Unfortunately the two did not mesh as seamlessly as they should. Certain parts of the book seemed to go on and on never truly getting to the point or if she did I missed it because the author dragged it in too long. I think this would be a great 500 page book but goes on for 774 pages. I really enjoyed the first half the second half not so much.