A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE GOLDFINCH

I came across a comment recently that reminded me of the stir that was caused first by the enormous popularity and critical acclaim for Donna Tartt’s novel THE GOLDFINCH, and then by Tartt’s novel winning the Pulitzer Prize. Since winning the Pulitzer, Tartt’s novel has been singled out as a great novel, a truly Dickensian work, and as an overrated and overheated schlock novel.

By now it is clear that one can find any number of reviewers or critics to support either side in the debate.

But does this lack of consensus say something about THE GOLDFINCH? At first glance, one might suspect that, if the Tartt novel were such hot stuff, there would be more unanimity among the critical establishment. However, a glance at all the books honored in this past year’s round of awards suggests that such agreement is a fantasy. Listed below are the finalists for the three awards that are arguably the most significant literary competitions in our society, the National Book Critics Circle Awards, the National Book Awards, and the Pulitzer Prizes.

Take a long look at the nominated authors. Two things become apparent. First, the lists of finalists demonstrate no overlap whatsoever – if you were nominated for the National Book Award, you were not on the Pulitzer list. This is particularly true of the winners – three different novelists for three prizes.

Second, because the National Book Awards reveal their “long list,” we can see that only one author appears on more than one list: Donna Tartt.

Finalists for the National Book Critics Award for Fiction:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, AMERICANAH (Knopf) (winner)
Alice McDermott, SOMEONE (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Javier Marias, THE INFATUATIONS (Knopf)
Ruth Ozeki, A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING (Viking)
Donna Tartt, THE GOLDFINCH (Little, Brown




FINALISTS FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION:
Phil Klay, Redeployment (winner)
• FINALISTS:
Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman
Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
Marilynne Robinson, Lila
Long list:
- Molly Antopol, The UnAmericans
- John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
- Elizabeth McCracken, Thunderstruck & Other Stories
- Richard Powers, Orfeo (W.W. Norton & Company)
- Jane Smiley, Some Luck (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)

PULITZER PRIZE
Finalists:
Donna Tartt THE GOLDFINCH (Winner)
Philipp Meyer THE SON
Bob Shacochis THE WOMAN WHO LOST HER SOUL

I am uncertain what has caused Tartt’s book, singled out by both the Pulitzer Committee and the National Book Awards, to be the target of so much rage and hostility. Perhaps it is that Tartt’s book committed the unforgivable sin of being wildly popular as well.

So how good is THE GOLDFINCH?

On the plus side, it is filled with memorable characters, including the narrator, Theo Decker, a child not so much tormented as hammered by fate, and several of his acquaintances, such as the gentle furniture refinisher Hobie, and for my money the most unforgettable young rogue in recent fiction, Theo’s lifelong friend Boris, a youthful con artist whose morals are as fractured as his English, easily the funniest character in the book. Tartt is also a fine writer with a genuine ear for dialogue and a gift for description. Finally, there is the pace of the book, which races through time and incident and across continents.
Problems? Well, there are several. Later plot developments, involving mobsters and guns and nighttime confrontations, will strike some as more suggestive of Ian Fleming than a serious novelist. And there is a talky, not particularly convincing ending, a speech from Theo that takes the place of a more satisfying or at least solid solution.

But consider this view of the novel, Saul Bellow writing to Bernard Malamud: "A novel, like a letter, should be loose, cover much ground, run swiftly, take risk of mortality and decay."

One thinks of Mr. Bellow’s own THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH as a candidate for this description of a novel.

THE GOLDFINCH is, all in all, not a tidy book, nor a perfect one, but it has more in common with Mr. Bellow’s definition of a novel than most I’ve read in recent years. The term used more than any other I’ve heard in connection with Ms. Tartt’s book is Dickensian. This is as close to the mark as anything, for THE GOLDFINCH is as close to a Dickens novel as any I’ve read in a long time. I often suspect that those who use Dickensian to describe a book haven’t read Mr. Dickens since 10th grade. If they took a new look, they would find a writer who produced long, rambling works involving dozens of incidents, some of them improbable, scores of characters, some of them caricatures, books sometimes overly long and overwrought but works filled with people and humor and ideas and life.
I believe that Ms. Tartt has indeed written a Dickensian novel, and the literary world is better for it.