The Goldfinch, Donna Tratt, 2013
Chosen as one of the Ten Best by the NYT and universally praised, I failed to enjoy this book. The tale of Theo Decker who as a 13 year old survives a terrorist bombing of the Metropolitan Museum in which his mother dies. Theo emerges from the wreckage clutching The Goldfinch, a 17th C oil painting by Faubertius and we then spend the next 750 pages following Theo’s attempts to be rescued by the beauty of art. Ugh! The writing is overwrought and over the top and if Tratt had any more about pouring rain, cold gray days, the vomiting that accompanies excessive drinking and drugging, etc, I would have stopped earlier. Theo is not very likable, though he’s a prince charming compared to Boris, his own father and Xandra, Kitsey Barbour, Martin and Frits, and a long list of ne’er do wells. Through NYC, Las Vegas, NYC again, and Amsterdam, Theo drinks, takes uppers and downers, kills a man, defrauds many with fake antiques, but somehow seems to be saved because he keeps The Goldfinch in a storage locker, though it turns out, he’s been schlepping around an old civics book for years instead of the painting which was stolen by Boris. Oy! Must read some reviews so I can see the light in this overblown and overlong volume. Until then, bad read! Have now read Stephen King’s review in the NYT and while I agree with his quote of Jack Beatty re James Michener’s Chesapeake: “Don’t read it and don’t drop it on your foot”, King only agrees with the second part. He loved it for its rich language, its description of grief, its characters especially Boris, and its plot. He also likened it to Dickens and I totally agree though I think as a bildungsroman it fails badly when placed next to David Copperfield where the characters are more richly drawn and the twists of the plot are more credibly presented. I guess, bottom line is that I’ll stick to classics and let time determine whether the contemporary novel is a keeper or not.
