The Goldfinch: A Novel Worth a Try

            Hello everyone and a belated happy new year!! Over the long break, I decided to gather my thoughts on The Goldfinch and get started on this post! I hope you enjoy it! Overall, I liked this novel. It has a continuously tragic plot that was the only reason I got through all 784 pages. So let’s debrief! Just a slight warning, there is a brief mention of suicide and a small part about drug addiction, so please look out!

When starting the novel, I didn’t really have that much background information. I knew Donna Tartt’s work is quite popular, and there was a movie adaptation, but I had never found a reason to read it until it finally got to the top of my ‘To be read’ list. I checked out a copy from the library (sorry for anybody in Kankekee who wanted it for about 4 months), and began my reading! At first, I felt a bit intimidated by the book solely because of how lengthy it was but I ended up finding a rhythm and read the first 250 pages decently quickly. In October, I posted my first thoughts on the book! Looking back, I still agree with the points I made, but I’m ready to build upon them (with spoilers, so be careful).

Theodore Decker is a character who I felt so bad for throughout the novel. Starting with The Goldfinch, we are given a look into Theo’s life. He is an adult for the first chapter, looking back on his life and mourning his mother. Directly after, we are brought into the mind of 13 year-old Theo, going with his mother through the bustling streets of New York city to visit an art museum. However, on that day, a terrorist attack takes place, and Theodore loses his mother. With his father absent, he has truly no one to turn to. Due to this, he clearly has a difficult time coping with this information, and his generally good presence as a student significantly drops. We learn Theo has also snuck a painting, The Goldfinch (a real painting by Carel Fabritius) out from the rubble per request of a stranger he saw earlier that day. This is where I began to be intrigued, as I knew Theo would probably not be in the correct state of mind to smuggle a painting with him and heal from the massive traumatic event he just experienced. He is placed into a house with a family he previously knew, the Barbours, and continues to close himself off. He meets new people, including the former coworker of the stranger he met in the museum, who runs an antique shop. The coworker, Hobie, helps Theo express more of how he feels for the first time after his mother’s death. Antiques became a sort of relief for Theo, and I felt really happy for him. However, when he is sent to Las Vegas, everything changes. He meets one new friend while there with his dad, and his name is Boris. Boris is also without a mother, and is probably not the best person for Theodore to meet. The two of them end up being mischievous together and begin taking drugs, becoming addicts. I haven’t known anyone or experienced anything like this myself, so my opinion does not matter, but this is Theo’s desperate escape. The two skip school more, and Theo’s grades drop, but he starts to focus slightly less on the events that took place before the accident. The painting is not a big deal to him, and he doesn’t feel much anxiety until his father begins to treat him even worse, and decides to flee to New York city, with Boris waiting to leave. Back in New York, he reunites with Hobie and sells fake antiques through him, only telling Hobie when one customer in specific begins to blackmail the both of them in a way Theo thinks will reveal the fact that he has had The Goldfinch. This is especially where I started saying “No, Theo!”. I really wanted for him to improve, but he continued to dig himself further into trouble. Tartt’s detailed style is what I believe helps this, and her detailed descriptions of Theo’s thoughts and fears throughout his selling process makes me sympathize with him even more. I also enjoyed how realistic Theo felt overall. He wasn’t necessarily a special person, and he continued to land into stressful situations solely because he was trying to move away from addressing the issues looming over him throughout his life. 

I have one major dislike of the novel. I did not enjoy The Goldfinch’s ending. I thought it felt strange, and I don’t think there was much of a payoff. Tartt works up all these ideas for Theo’s failure, like his suicide attempt later in the novel, but he instead gets off scott-free with the painting and returns money to the people he sold fake antiques to through Hobie’s shop. At the same time, I also understand how this ending is possible, and does clean up the story nicely, but it does differ in what I was expecting from the dramatic events leading up to the resolution. 

In conclusion, if you cannot tell already, I enjoyed this novel! If you have some time to set aside during a break, I would definitely try this book! I think there are many other topics that could make its own blog post as there are many different opportunities for different opinions and analysis. It’s not something I would've necessarily gravitate towards, however I thought it was really intriguing throughout and was worth the long read! As always, if you’ve read The Goldfinch, talk with me! I’d love to discuss some other topics that I didn’t get to in this post with you!

-Nona R.