The Goldfinch discussion

I am currently reading the Goldfinch, and while the story itself is really engaging and interesting, I am totally distracted by trying to understand what year it is. Here are the facts I have collected, which make it confusing as they seem super inconsistent:
-14 years in the future there will still be newspapers
-it's after 9/11
-the only smartphones adults have are blackberries, and kids don't have phones
-Beyonce's daughter is alive (reference to celebs naming kids Blue)
-the legal drinking age is 18
-people still burn CDs for friends
-His Russian/Ukranian friend is called a "Soviet"

Seriously, why even put in some of these, which don't add to the story?

I wondered the same thing. She writes as if fourteen years ago is present day at times, but there are too many inconsistencies. It drove me nuts!

This is how I saw it - the story started in the present day, say 2012, - the start of the story (Theo and his mother at the museum) occurred 14 years earlier, in 1998. The I-Phones appear in the current story, only cell phones in the earlier story, perhaps blackberries, which would I think be introduced by then. The reference to Soviet in 1998 is off a bit, but since the Soviet Union only broke up about 1992 the reference is not that unusual, as it was still being used as a general term for the region, because people in the west were still not that familiar with the countries (e.g., Ukraine for years was referred to as "The Ukraine", like a geographical and not political division) and Theo is not sure where Boris is from. The reference to drinking at 18 I think is actually a reference to going to a music club at age 18, even though drinking would not be permitted there. I agree that some of this is dodgy, but the story did not hang on these details, so perhaps better to roll over them.
One inconsistency that I noticed was that Theo takes a red eye flight from Amsterdam to New York - not possible, red eyes are only flown west to east.

Mary, I often flew overnight from NY to European cities so I am not sure that was a discrepancy.

Anita, New York to Europe typically is usually overnight or red eye - but he is supposed to do it Amsterdam - New York - going east to west - which I think is about impossible.

Mary, there's a Bin Laden in reference to the museum attack, which I thought would place it after 9/11, although I suppose that could be a wrong assumption. I agree that the story didn't hang on the details, but I found myself distracted and trying to piece together a timeline throughout the book. I know I tend to overthink the details... I'm a little OCD! ;)

My recollection of the Oklahoma City bombing, which I think was in 1994, was that al Quaida was mentioned as possibly being responsible (of course it was not al Quaida, it was domestic -Timothy McVeigh), and al Quaida /Bin Laden certainly were responsible for the US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya (in 1998 I think) so everyone would have known of Bin Laden per my timeline for the museum bombing.

Mary wrote: "My recollection of the Oklahoma City bombing, which I think was in 1994, was that al Quaida was mentioned as possibly being responsible (of course it was not al Quaida, it was domestic -Timothy McV..."

The bin Laden reference was "Buckle up, Manhattan! Osama bin Laden is rockin us again!" It's just specific enough that I figured it was post 9/11.

Okay, could be. There was also the 1993 garage bomb at the World Trade Center which was al Qaeda (finally looked something up, so also have the anglicized spelling cleared up) although I don't think bin Laden per se was associated with that. Regardless, I do agree, dates are not that clear, but I was happy with my own explanation.

Another point, the 13 year old Theo also steals a copy of the Jet Li dvd Unleashed, which was made in 2005. But i think those are just inconsistencies, and the framing device is set in 2013, and young Theo's time is set around 2000.

Regardless, I agree with Vivian that it was unclear, confusing, and could have been dealt with by simply assigning dates.

Anita wrote: "Mary, I often flew overnight from NY to European cities so I am not sure that was a discrepancy."

Me too! Red eyes are described that way based on the time you leave. It doesn't matter the direction at all. I frequently travel and take overnight flights.

I agree with all the other inconsistencies. I also found the general way people talked a little weird too. I felt like the book wanted to be set in an earlier time by way of the jargon used but I chalked it up to the author trying to be "off-beat."

Another reviewer on here said that the author has admitted that she doesn't use the internet.

Sheena, direction does matter, because European time is ahead of US time. The flights from Europe to the US leave in the morning or afternoon, and arrive in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Example: 6 hour time difference, flight time from Amsterdam to the US 9 hours - if you depart from Amsterdam at 1 pm, you arrive in the eastern US at 4 pm. Even if you left at 7 pm (and I have not seen flights leave that late) you would arrive in the eastern US at 10 pm, and would not have flown overnight. The point is that you do not miss a night going from east to west, you just have a very long day.

There are lots of overnight flights, but those all go from west to east - the US to Europe - if you leave the US at 5 pm and fly for 7 hours (shorter flights because of the prevailing winds) you arrive at 6 am, and because you missed the night, the flight is called a redeye.

While I don't think the discrepancy is a big deal with respect to this story, it is a discrepancy.

I thought the claim that red-eye flights couldn't be taken from Europe to the East Coast to be odd, so I just looked up flights on Expedia. I found half a dozen flights on a given day leaving after 11 pm from Amsterdam to New York, with arrival times varying from morning to afternoon for the following day. It's entirely possible to take an overnight flight between continents, either direction.

Sarah, I just looked at Expedia myself and the flights that leave Amsterdam at about 11 pm to JFK go via either Moscow or Istanbul (and are red eyes, but going west to east) then the flight from Moscow or Istanbul to the US is again a long day flight, not a red eye overnight. There do not seem to be any flights that leave Amsterdam at 11 pm or so and fly west. One explanation would be that this flight, with a 6 hour time difference and a 9 hour operating time, would land on the east coast at 2 am, when airports often have landing restrictions because of noise.

I understand what you're saying now, Mary, and I didn't take into account that they weren't direct flights. I've only flown red-eye flights heading east to west from L.A. to Asia, which is different due to the international date line. I think though, that despite arrival and departures, stops, time zones, etc., most of us would call any travel that begins late at night local time and doesn't end for many hours a red-eye.

These inconsistencies drove me nuts too, especially the iPhone thing! When Theo goes to see Hobie for the first time it says that Andy Barber lent him his iphone! And then later it mentions that Andy was texting him and he shut the iPhone off. Ugh! I just pretended that when the book starts (and Theo is older) that that is in the future and the time when he is a child was during our current present day. It got me through!

Ummm...the book is a novel, so the author is free to jumble timing of actual historical events and popular culture at will. You can't call it a mistake when it's fiction.

Well really people have only touched on the blatant anachronisms in the book. I posted this elsewhere, but it's relevant here; so I'm repeating:

Here are just a few of the things that had not been invented or popularized in 1999 which she continually makes reference to:

iPod -- 2002
texting -- 2000
iPhone -- 2007
camera phone -- 2004 maybe
GPS in automobiles -- mid-2000s
Survivor -- fall, 2000
American Idol -- 2002
Blackberry -- just introduced in 1999

As for the fact that it's a novel the author can do whatever she feels like -- sure if she wante to make a point about about technology or wants to be humorous a la Blazing Saddles. But, no, the author is wanting us to accept it as realism. Imagine writing a book about Henry VIII and having him drive a car!

Julie wrote: "Ummm...the book is a novel, so the author is free to jumble timing of actual historical events and popular culture at will. You can't call it a mistake when it's fiction."

Thank you for making that point. You are absolutely correct.

Thank you all for bringing this up. It's driving me a little nuts as well. 13 year old Theo is living in a Post 9/11/2001 world as evidenced by the security he goes through at the airport when flying to Las Vegas, and the cabbie's reference to the Shoe Bomber (12/2001). So, the earliest the museum bombing could have happened is early spring of 2002, causing present day Theo - 14 years later - to be living in 2016. So, I'm just going to accept that present day Theo is sometime in the future, and allow that 13 year old Theo is sometime after 2007 iPhone.

I also thought adult Theo was sometime in the future.
It's the only way it made sense to me.

I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the minutia of what a red eye flight is and whether one can only happen flying west to east or if any flight that leaves from anywhere after 11pm to travel a sizable distance constitutes a red eye. I'm glad The Muffia isn't the only one. In discussing Richard Ford's Lay of the Land, we were hung up on the main character's treatment for cancer since Ford spent so much time discussing titanium beads in his balls.

I also assumed that adult Theo was near future given references in his teen years to various bits of technology.

Interestingly 'The Goldfinch' was on exhibition in New York in late 2013 (though not at the Met) and this was the first time in decades the painting was lent overseas. Still it underlines a contemporary timeline or recent past for teenage Theo.

The anachronisms drove me crazy. So happy to learn that it isn't just me.

Not just the anachronisms...... She had the characters looking at Orion in the sky in the middle of summer.

There is also a geographical mistake. She mentions that while on the bus going east out of Denver they pass the Continental Divide. They would have passed the Continental Divide on the previous leg, Grand Junction to Denver. Maybe it's because I am from Denver, but that one really stuck in my craw.

I read the book 8 months ago, but my husband is reading it now, and he can't get over the inconsistencies. He thinks there are too many of them and they distract from the story. He's especially upset about the drinking age of 18, which hasn't existed since the 1980's.

(Vagues spoiler alert) This was one of the many things I loved about the book. I do not think these are mistakes at all. Just as when Boris' German friend (I forgot the character's name) is describing the painting of the Goldfinch, (specifically how the black brush strokes making out the ledge the bird is sitting on were intentionally out of place with the rest of the painting, and how great artists do this intentionally to continue the conversation with the viewer, to let them in on the joke), I think Donna Tartt is doing the same thing with the reader.

(I posted this in another forum so excuse me if it seems like I am repeating myself).

Bradley - that is an excellent insight. I am sure Tartt wanted the novel to provoke this kind of conversation. I also loved the novel and its imperfections in a strange way add to that.

Vivian wrote: "I am currently reading the Goldfinch, and while the story itself is really engaging and interesting, I am totally distracted by trying to understand what year it is. Here are the facts I have colle..."

You did a good job trying to analyze this. The author does not appear to have children of her own (kids without cell phones?!) and is looking at perhaps motherhood from her perspective of when she was a child herself? I thought it was the late 60s-early 70s until I got the jarring realization that cell phones were being used and that buildings were being blown up by terrorists in a post-9/11 world. I also was confused at the fact that she was talking about the Met but never calling it that.

Bradley wrote: "(Vagues spoiler alert) This was one of the many things I loved about the book. I do not think these are mistakes at all. Just as when Boris' German friend (I forgot the character's name) is describ..."

As well, the book is framed to be narrated by Theo. This adds to the theory because I think this is something he would do as well, as an "artist".

Julie wrote: "Ummm...the book is a novel, so the author is free to jumble timing of actual historical events and popular culture at will. You can't call it a mistake when it's fiction."

Ummmm, yes, I think everybody on this page is looking way TOO deep into this novel. It IS fiction--not real! Now, I can understand if it was a non-fiction and there are inconsistencies, sure! But it is fiction everybody!

We get that it is fiction, but we are talking about inconsistencies that are distracting, not fictional license. Okay, The Goldfinch has not been on display at the Met, and having that exhibition of Dutch paintings is a fictional creation that drives the plot. Having iPhones before they were in use, and having age 18 drinking, are not necessary - while this is a work of fiction it is not science fiction or fantasy. Tartt has done, for instance, a great job of portraying an Upper East Side wealthy, or at least well-off family, also of an off-beat furniture restorer in Greenwich Village - and the correct small details in describing these are partly why this is such a good book. That is why the inconsistencies just seem sloppy and detract.

I still stand by my belief that Tartt put those iPhones in to place the latter part of the story in the near future not 2013 and working backwards. In 20 years time it won't even be an issue as time will have caught up with the story.

Vivienne wrote: "I still stand by my belief that Tartt put those iPhones in to place the latter part of the story in the near future not 2013 and working backwards. In 20 years time it won't even be an issue as tim..."

Vivvenne,

Why do you think she would do this? Is there a literary reason?

I expect she wanted to cite the story post-9/11 but aside from that I've noted she's always tended to be vague about setting her stories at a specific date. I think she wants to remove to some extent the story from time.

Jeffery wrote: "Julie wrote: "Ummm...the book is a novel, so the author is free to jumble timing of actual historical events and popular culture at will. You can't call it a mistake when it's fiction."

Ummmm, yes..."

So Tartt said it took her about 13 years to write. (She said she started to write this when she was on tour for the Little Friend). I find it difficult she went back and changed the text to include an ipad by mistake.

Bradley wrote: "(Vagues spoiler alert) This was one of the many things I loved about the book. I do not think these are mistakes at all. Just as when Boris' German friend (I forgot the character's name) is describ..."

I wish that this was the truth…but I don't think Mrs. Tartt is all that clever. It took her 11 years to finsih this novel…she apparently does not write all that much. Yes, her work is popular with some…but she had a decade to pull this thing together into something much more interesting, but instead she choose the most uninteresting places and characters and wrote 500 pages about each and left the most intriguing and mysterious locations and characters as sub plots with no conclusions. HUGE mistake, regardless of the pulitzer win and what other people love about the book. She made up a russian guy, worked hard on his dialect, popped I'm in and out of the book whenever, without logic..ESPECIALLY THE ENDING…oh shame! The reader was engaged because they wanted to know the ending, and she so blew it…this, after eleven years?To each his own.

Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the minutia of what a red eye flight is and whether one can only happ..."

Yes, discussions regarding this book abound. I have found that many people like it, but the ones who do are not the ones who read exceptionally good literature. (This is a generalization, but true as well), If they were, they would also be addressing the weak structure of this book, characters who don't feel or act real… characters who pop in and out for no good reason and others left undeveloped at their most interesting time...not on purpose…..over a decade to write and this is it? A drug expose of Las Vegas? An absolutely post it ending…..a book that keeps one engaged because a young innocent crime has not been resolved, and after 1100 pages..this is how she does it.?I don't want to spoil it so I won't go into details. Someone said something about the analogy of the brush stroke of paint being the whole painting and the "trick" is in this, and thus the "trick is on us as a parallel to understanding her story.
That just does not work. Neither does the book. It might keep you reading till the end, which is a trick,(and a lot of people think this alone makes it a great book) but at the end, its nothing. So maybe it is a trick, but not one made on purpose…tartt is not that smart. She knows just enough about art history as she does about writing…not much. She may have a small talent for story telling, but 1100 pages is not a story…..it should be a masterpiece.

Mary wrote: "We get that it is fiction, but we are talking about inconsistencies that are distracting, not fictional license. Okay, The Goldfinch has not been on display at the Met, and having that exhibition ..."

I think the only reason this book has merit is because she was good at describing details, and worlds..although some of them were gratuitous in length and other worlds, not explored enough…teasers. A well described sketched out flushed out character/location coming of age Dickenson like story without the intelligence or interest to find the central interest in the story. She instead used a crime un solved to keep the reader engaged in details of the poor aching orphan…oh and lets add a completely fake guy to spice things up, thoroughly researched clever accent...and have him disappear without any detailed reason and pop up again 600 pages later to save the day because she couldn't figure out what she was writing about for so long that by the end they had no idea what and how everything happened for, or why. So stupid.

Am I the only reader who seriously disliked this book???????

Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the minutia of what a red eye flight is and whether..."

Wow, Deborah, I (and the Pulitzer committee) appreciate the complicate. And I like your use of irony; in a thread about inconsistencies, putting in a few yourself (ie saying the book is 1,100 pages when it 771, saying Boris is Russian when he is Ukrainian, and so forth). Bravo. By the way, did you like the book?

Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the minutia of what a red eye fligh..."

Thanks for noticing my clever use of irony, and I appreciate the accolades from both you and the Pulitzer Committee. I have read every Pulitzer Prize wining novel and I am writing an article about this, so I had to read the Goldfinch. Please accept my apologies for calling the book 1100 pages…I got it confused with the one I am reading now. Yes..it was only 771, exactly! I did read your post elsewhere regarding the "trick". Glad you enjoyed it, and , by the way,your use of "the unnecessary cynical retorts" so often employed in comment forums were also sadly noted. So sorry that I disagree with you on this book, and the manner in which I expressed my self prompted you to feel offended.

Deborah wrote: "Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the minutia of what..."

You do not have to apologize for not liking the same book. I was just responding to the "good literature" comment, which I am not sure if you realized just how condescending it sounded. And the fact that you it brought it up in this thread, when there are other threads which specifically address liking this novel or not.

No Deborah - I know quite a few people who didn't like it - who felt it was way too long. I was in the minority of loving it.

I googled the drinking age and Goldfinch and found an interview with Donna Tartt for The Salon in which she said this was 'alternative history' and cited the booming of the Met in mid-2000s

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/22/donna...

Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the..."

Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the..."

Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Bradley wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the..."

Bradley, thank you for clarifying your comment. I wish you could have just clearly stated it as you have here. The comment which offended you was just my personal observation of people I know and their reading habits.We all have different tastes. I understand how it sounds condescending, and I apologize for this as well as not following Goodreads sites enough to recognize all the "correct" threads, etc. But why did you ask me then if I liked the book on a thread about it's inconsistencies?
I guess you were really offended and thought that would be…? In any case…..I do think it is interesting how one of the only males on this thread focused on condescension, which I find in most comment forums; they are looking for it and taking it far too personally. I guess I care a lot about books, maybe too much.

Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the minutia of what a red eye flight is and whether..."
I do read great literature and I find this book up there as one of my favorites along with "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "East of Eden". I thought this was a book discussion club, not bashing other people because they have different opinions than someone else. Grow up!

Deborah: As Tartt has said in interviews, the book deals with an *alternative* timeline and history. Was the Goldfinch on display at the Met 8 years ago? Was the Met bombed 8 years ago? Well, there you go, clearly the author is aware of the lack of historical realism in her novel.

Did you read Chabon's Yiddish Policemen and get hung up on all the Jewish people in Alaska?! For God's sake, 'literary' well-read people largely loved this book. Nearly every criticism I've read said "It went too long" or "so much drugs"; literary people don't judge books based on length when they are written well (this book has some exceptionally beautiful prose) NOR do they make moralistic judgments about content.

Should we all declare Oliver Twist a work of shit because it deals with petty thieves? No? OK then. Moving on.

Jeffery wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Ann Royal wrote: "I absolutely adore this thread and you all remind me of my book club, not addressing the characters or structure but discussing the minutia of what a red eye fligh..."

sorry you felt bashed. I will try to grow up.

David wrote: "Deborah: As Tartt has said in interviews, the book deals with an *alternative* timeline and history. Was the Goldfinch on display at the Met 8 years ago? Was the Met bombed 8 years ago? Well, there..."

Hi…I think your comment was meant for the other people who had issues with the things you mentioned, my critic of the book was not
because of the points you made..those were written by others. But thanks for the input anyway.