Susan Gerstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-goldfinch"
Reading "The Goldfinch"
Having recently finished the nearly-800-page novel by Donna Tartt published several months ago, I am somewhat at a loss for words. The book received wildly enthusiastic, near-unanimous rave reviews. It had been described as everything I love: a leisurely description of the growing pains of an adolescent following a life-changing trauma, the theft of a priceless artwork, the picaresque travels of the lead character across continents. Indeed, reviewer after reviewer described it as “Dickensian”. Donna Tartt, whose previous novels I am not familiar with, had spent ten years writing it. It was a “must read”, and indeed, I plunged into it with great expectations, no pun intended.
Alas, I found it, ultimately, a great disappointment, all the more so for the first half of the book delivers most of the promised pleasures.
At the beginning of the tale, the narrator’s voice, unidentified, is that of a man at his wits end in an Amsterdam hotel room; after a few pages however he begins to recount his memories of the defining trauma that is presumably the beginning of the road that brought him to this pass; he becomes the thirteen-year-old Theo whose narrating voice at this point is pitch perfect. Although the writing in general is straightforward with no attempts at lyrical language, Theo is a believable teller of the tale, one that throws us almost immediately into the mayhem of a horrible terrorist attack, an explosion in the midst of the Metropolitan Museum that kills scores of people, among them Theo’s beloved mother. Theo himself escapes, and in the chaotic aftermath he rescues a small masterwork of a painting, the Goldfinch of the title, from the rubble. -- Theo is now on his own, his unsavory father having abandoned mother and son some months before. The threat of being placed in a foster home by the authorities looms; it is averted by the miraculous, though temporary, rescue by the wealthy, upper class family of a school friend. Just as this family appears willing to take him on permanently, the unsavory father shows up unexpectedly and whisks a very unwilling Theo off to the wilds of Las Vegas where he is making his precarious “living” as a gambler.
The second quarter of the book takes place in Las Vegas, brilliantly described. Theo, at first completely out of his element, adjusts somewhat with the help of a newly acquired friend, the Russian (Ukrainian? Polish?) Boris, and the two boys form a sort of Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn partnership. Boris, an abused, much-lived wise guy of a boy introduces Theo to drugs and alcohol. When Theo’s father, whose gambling debts had mounted up beyond help, commits suicide, Theo, once again parentless, decides to pre-empt the looming, recurring danger of Child Services taking control of him, and decamps alone to New York.
At this point we are half way through the book. It is a page-turner, full of terrific characters and enormous promise. There had been many turns and twists in the tale so far that foreshadow fascinating developments and we have met characters we look forward to meeting again. Indeed, the author endlessly foreshadows destiny to take a hand. There are several “I thought I’d never see this again, never meet X again, but how wrong I was!”. There was the question in my mind of the almost complete lack of description the effect of the explosion had on the city; clearly inspired by 9/11, though not entirely of that magnitude, one would have liked to hear more of how life in New York was affected in the aftermath. However, the author chooses to concentrate on Theo’s personal trauma, and one is willing to go along with that. In this section of the book one marvels at the superbly captured voices of the cast of characters: the adolescent boys; the social workers dealing with the orphaned Theo; the doormen in his apartment building; the various members of the Barbour family, his temporary rescuers; his father’s seedy girlfriend straight out of a Vegas nightclub; the father himself: all are people you “hear” speaking. And there is the Red Haired Girl Theo locks eyes with in the museum right before the explosion that screams future encounters. – In Las Vegas, we lose all these characters only to encounter new ones, first and foremost Boris, the Huckleberry Finn, -- or is it the Artful Dodger -- of the piece, but also the thugs threatening Theo’s debt-ridden father, and Xandra (!), his drug-addled girlfriend. – Meanwhile, from New York to Las Vegas and back to New York, Theo carries the rescued painting, hidden in various hiding places. The rescue is beginning to look more and more like theft, but the painting had gained the status of a talisman for Theo who can’t seem to find a way to do the right thing and return it. His parting from his friend Boris is one of those instances of “I thought I saw the last of him, but I was wrong”, and there is a strong indication that the two boys have an erotic bond beyond friendship. So we have a second candidate for the expected eventual denouement for such a book, one that so far had followed all the rules of a nineteenth century novel, Dickensian if you will.
So far so good. And now Theo is back in New York, finding refuge with a benefactor, an elderly antiques restorer who is connected to the Red Haired Girl - Pippa - who, miraculously, is convalescing in the restorer’s house. We are headed into the second half of the book. Coincidences abound. Theo is increasingly addicted to drugs and he indulges in lengthier and lengthier descriptions of his drugged nightmares. This begins to sound more and more “researched”; unlike, say, Patrick Melrose in the St. Aubin novels, it does not sound as if it were based on experience. – The author’s perfect pitch abandons her. At one point, after having followed Theo from the time we had met him as a thirteen year old in minute, almost daily detail, there is a sudden a gap of eight years: we are told that, between the previous chapter and the present one he had gone away to college where he "did not do well"; he is now back in New York again, a young adult and a partner of his benefactor the antiques dealer. At this point, Theo becomes a less and less sympathetic character. The charming adolescent we had cared about had disappeared to be replaced by an obsessive, drug-addicted, floundering young man. Meaning well, he nevertheless conducts unsavory business behind the back of his benefactor. He is more and more obsessed by the painting he still has in his possession. He is somewhat in love with Pippa but she does not return his feelings. All this time, having lived for years in New York, somehow he never calls, never establishes a relationship with the family that took him in after his world had came to an end. This is believable after his return to New York from the Las Vegas episode, still only fifteen, still traumatized; but many years had passed and now he is a man of the world, a successful antiques dealer: would he not get in touch with his old friend? No, he does not; it is quite by accident he encounters a member of this family and lo and behold, he is, once again, deeply involved with them. Entanglement with the daughter of the house ensues. Unethical business problems ensue. Pursuit of drugs and descriptions of their effects ensue. At great length.
And then, the adult Boris reappears. No longer a charming urchin, he is now a criminal. He sweeps a dazed and unresisting Theo into an international chase that involve the painting, gangland murder, and finally we are back to the hotel room in Amsterdam where we had first met Theo at the very beginning of his narration. Drug-addled, believing himself to have been abandoned by Boris, he contemplates suicide. But no! Deus ex machina: Boris reappears at the last moment: a solution had been found for the return of the painting to the rightful museum, enough money had changed hands, legitimately, to solve all Theo’s problems. We are almost at the end of the book. Although there had been long sections in the second half that invited boredom, fundamentally one stayed with it to find out what in the end happens to Theo. In a book of this sort, some kind of resolution is in order. Theo reforms. Theo ends up with Pippa, the girl he loved the minute he laid eyes her, after all. Theo ends up with Boris, whom he had loved in Las Vegas. Theo marries the Barbour girl he had been somewhat reluctantly engaged to. Theo abandons all and starts a new life somewhere. But no, none of this happens. Having hoped right up to the very last page for a denoument that would permit us to have a sense of what Theo had learned from his experiences, where his life is heading and with whom, we get none of that. As if we had just read a very contemporary “slice of life” novel, we say goodbye to Theo in limbo. He is back in New York, he does not marry but continues to see Kitsey Barbour whom he does not love. He continues in business with his partner as if nothing happened. We hear no more of Pippa or Boris. In the closing pages there is a lot of pretentious philosophizing about Art and the effect it has on our lives.
This leaves the reader, at least this one, unsatisfied. A lot of editing and a more comprehensive ending would have gone a long way to make this a much better book.
Alas, I found it, ultimately, a great disappointment, all the more so for the first half of the book delivers most of the promised pleasures.
At the beginning of the tale, the narrator’s voice, unidentified, is that of a man at his wits end in an Amsterdam hotel room; after a few pages however he begins to recount his memories of the defining trauma that is presumably the beginning of the road that brought him to this pass; he becomes the thirteen-year-old Theo whose narrating voice at this point is pitch perfect. Although the writing in general is straightforward with no attempts at lyrical language, Theo is a believable teller of the tale, one that throws us almost immediately into the mayhem of a horrible terrorist attack, an explosion in the midst of the Metropolitan Museum that kills scores of people, among them Theo’s beloved mother. Theo himself escapes, and in the chaotic aftermath he rescues a small masterwork of a painting, the Goldfinch of the title, from the rubble. -- Theo is now on his own, his unsavory father having abandoned mother and son some months before. The threat of being placed in a foster home by the authorities looms; it is averted by the miraculous, though temporary, rescue by the wealthy, upper class family of a school friend. Just as this family appears willing to take him on permanently, the unsavory father shows up unexpectedly and whisks a very unwilling Theo off to the wilds of Las Vegas where he is making his precarious “living” as a gambler.
The second quarter of the book takes place in Las Vegas, brilliantly described. Theo, at first completely out of his element, adjusts somewhat with the help of a newly acquired friend, the Russian (Ukrainian? Polish?) Boris, and the two boys form a sort of Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn partnership. Boris, an abused, much-lived wise guy of a boy introduces Theo to drugs and alcohol. When Theo’s father, whose gambling debts had mounted up beyond help, commits suicide, Theo, once again parentless, decides to pre-empt the looming, recurring danger of Child Services taking control of him, and decamps alone to New York.
At this point we are half way through the book. It is a page-turner, full of terrific characters and enormous promise. There had been many turns and twists in the tale so far that foreshadow fascinating developments and we have met characters we look forward to meeting again. Indeed, the author endlessly foreshadows destiny to take a hand. There are several “I thought I’d never see this again, never meet X again, but how wrong I was!”. There was the question in my mind of the almost complete lack of description the effect of the explosion had on the city; clearly inspired by 9/11, though not entirely of that magnitude, one would have liked to hear more of how life in New York was affected in the aftermath. However, the author chooses to concentrate on Theo’s personal trauma, and one is willing to go along with that. In this section of the book one marvels at the superbly captured voices of the cast of characters: the adolescent boys; the social workers dealing with the orphaned Theo; the doormen in his apartment building; the various members of the Barbour family, his temporary rescuers; his father’s seedy girlfriend straight out of a Vegas nightclub; the father himself: all are people you “hear” speaking. And there is the Red Haired Girl Theo locks eyes with in the museum right before the explosion that screams future encounters. – In Las Vegas, we lose all these characters only to encounter new ones, first and foremost Boris, the Huckleberry Finn, -- or is it the Artful Dodger -- of the piece, but also the thugs threatening Theo’s debt-ridden father, and Xandra (!), his drug-addled girlfriend. – Meanwhile, from New York to Las Vegas and back to New York, Theo carries the rescued painting, hidden in various hiding places. The rescue is beginning to look more and more like theft, but the painting had gained the status of a talisman for Theo who can’t seem to find a way to do the right thing and return it. His parting from his friend Boris is one of those instances of “I thought I saw the last of him, but I was wrong”, and there is a strong indication that the two boys have an erotic bond beyond friendship. So we have a second candidate for the expected eventual denouement for such a book, one that so far had followed all the rules of a nineteenth century novel, Dickensian if you will.
So far so good. And now Theo is back in New York, finding refuge with a benefactor, an elderly antiques restorer who is connected to the Red Haired Girl - Pippa - who, miraculously, is convalescing in the restorer’s house. We are headed into the second half of the book. Coincidences abound. Theo is increasingly addicted to drugs and he indulges in lengthier and lengthier descriptions of his drugged nightmares. This begins to sound more and more “researched”; unlike, say, Patrick Melrose in the St. Aubin novels, it does not sound as if it were based on experience. – The author’s perfect pitch abandons her. At one point, after having followed Theo from the time we had met him as a thirteen year old in minute, almost daily detail, there is a sudden a gap of eight years: we are told that, between the previous chapter and the present one he had gone away to college where he "did not do well"; he is now back in New York again, a young adult and a partner of his benefactor the antiques dealer. At this point, Theo becomes a less and less sympathetic character. The charming adolescent we had cared about had disappeared to be replaced by an obsessive, drug-addicted, floundering young man. Meaning well, he nevertheless conducts unsavory business behind the back of his benefactor. He is more and more obsessed by the painting he still has in his possession. He is somewhat in love with Pippa but she does not return his feelings. All this time, having lived for years in New York, somehow he never calls, never establishes a relationship with the family that took him in after his world had came to an end. This is believable after his return to New York from the Las Vegas episode, still only fifteen, still traumatized; but many years had passed and now he is a man of the world, a successful antiques dealer: would he not get in touch with his old friend? No, he does not; it is quite by accident he encounters a member of this family and lo and behold, he is, once again, deeply involved with them. Entanglement with the daughter of the house ensues. Unethical business problems ensue. Pursuit of drugs and descriptions of their effects ensue. At great length.
And then, the adult Boris reappears. No longer a charming urchin, he is now a criminal. He sweeps a dazed and unresisting Theo into an international chase that involve the painting, gangland murder, and finally we are back to the hotel room in Amsterdam where we had first met Theo at the very beginning of his narration. Drug-addled, believing himself to have been abandoned by Boris, he contemplates suicide. But no! Deus ex machina: Boris reappears at the last moment: a solution had been found for the return of the painting to the rightful museum, enough money had changed hands, legitimately, to solve all Theo’s problems. We are almost at the end of the book. Although there had been long sections in the second half that invited boredom, fundamentally one stayed with it to find out what in the end happens to Theo. In a book of this sort, some kind of resolution is in order. Theo reforms. Theo ends up with Pippa, the girl he loved the minute he laid eyes her, after all. Theo ends up with Boris, whom he had loved in Las Vegas. Theo marries the Barbour girl he had been somewhat reluctantly engaged to. Theo abandons all and starts a new life somewhere. But no, none of this happens. Having hoped right up to the very last page for a denoument that would permit us to have a sense of what Theo had learned from his experiences, where his life is heading and with whom, we get none of that. As if we had just read a very contemporary “slice of life” novel, we say goodbye to Theo in limbo. He is back in New York, he does not marry but continues to see Kitsey Barbour whom he does not love. He continues in business with his partner as if nothing happened. We hear no more of Pippa or Boris. In the closing pages there is a lot of pretentious philosophizing about Art and the effect it has on our lives.
This leaves the reader, at least this one, unsatisfied. A lot of editing and a more comprehensive ending would have gone a long way to make this a much better book.
