The Goldfinch
a novel by Donna Tartt
Little Brown, 2013 784 pages
Recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize, this supersized novel took almost 10 years to write and is like a Pandora’s chest full of surprises. The story takes life on the basis of an actual painting, a small masterpiece created by Dutch artist Carel Fabritius in 1654. Although the painting is real, its mad adventures in the novel are made up. Cast as a memoir told by the central character, Theo Decker, the book begins with a horrific terrorist attack in a museum where 13-year-old Theo has gone with his mother. When the dust clears, Theo is badly hurt, his mother is dead, and he has in his possession a signet ring given to him by a dying man and the painting of the goldfinch.
From these explosive beginnings we follow Theo’s journey through a confused childhood, tortured by memories of his beloved mother. He briefly lives with his best friend’s upper crust New York family, whose lifestyle is almost cartoon-like except for the very real emotions that tie them to Theo. He is then shunted off to live with his flamboyant father in Las Vegas, until his father’s sudden death once again leaves him homeless. Still holding on to the painting, he makes his way back to New York, and the signet ring leads him to Hobie, an antique furniture restorer in Greenwich Village, who becomes the moral center of the book. Hobie, a gentle giant, becomes Theo’s true father figure and mentor and teaches him the art of antique furniture appraisal and restoration. Theo leverages these skills into somewhat shady dealings as he enters manhood and becomes Hobie’s partner.
The latter half of this sprawling narrative finds Theo embroiled in the unintended outcomes of his own machinations—an engagement to the society daughter of the family he once lived with; involvement with the Russian mob; pursuit by an evil art thief who learns of his connection to the missing painting; and unrequited love for a mysterious red-haired girl, Pippa, who was in the museum explosion, as well, and is Hobie’s ward.
Tartt is often compared to Dickens and rightfully so. The picaresque plotlines of The Goldfinch are truly Dickensian—lost boy seeking comfort, madcap adventures in a number of different settings, eccentric and finely drawn characters who wander in and out of the book, the stark cruelties of life on earth. Tartt’s descriptions are cinematic and sometimes encyclopedic. She puts you into New York City like no other writer I know of: she describes Greenwich Village and Hobie’s musty warren of rooms in a way that makes you smell the furniture wax and see the dust motes hanging in the dim light. Her portrait of Las Vegas is merciless; her evocative depiction of Amsterdam at Christmas time is both enchanting and frightening. And Tartt’s colorful characters are fully and vividly drawn, many of them not so nice—including Theo.
This is a hard book to categorize, for it is at once an adventure, mystery, fictional memoir, love story, and philosophical discourse. Its scale is huge, and the occasional wanderings off into writerly weeds are easily forgiven for the magnificent language found throughout and the author’s truly memorable thoughts on loss, love, the language of art, and what it means simply to be alive in this world.