The Goldfinch discussion

Just finished The Goldfinch, and I'm stunned that some really obvious errors made it to publishing.

The biggest one: TWICE in the book people refer to the drinking age being 18. When Xandra tries to order Theo champagne at the restaurant in a Times Square, and when Boris is excited his 18-year-old girlfriend can buy booze legally. How did an American ever write this down, and no editor catch it?

A couple of smaller ones too - Theo crosses the continental divide after Denver on his way from Las Vegas to New York, but Denver is east of the mountains. And you can't take a direct flight to Vegas from Laguardia. The runway's too short for planes with that range.

I hate to be petty, but the drinking age one was so obvious it distracted me from the story. Am I alone on this?

It won the Pulitzer today....

I just let the drinking age slide as it's such a moving target. In the first forty years of my life, it was 19, then 18 (when I turned 18), then 19, then almost 21...

And for the US, while it's not 18, it's still one hell of a moving target: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._his...

So... the drinking age has been 21 throughout the 50 states for 26 years!

Also, if the events surrounding the accident happened about 13 years ago (2000 or 2001) there are other huge factual errors. There are many references to ipods, iphones, texting, email, the popularity. JayZ and Lebron James-etc. These inaccuracies distracted me from enjoying the book.

Just wondering...did any one else keep waiting for Theo to mention to Hobie the final instructions from Pippas uncle? Something about people coming to hurt Hobie and that he should close the shop and get out.

There's a few in the Amsterdam section. Boris tells Theo to buy liquor from Duty Free because off licences/liquor stores are state owned/controlled (nope, that would be Sweden). His hotel is on the Singel, then when he returns to it, it's on the Herengracht. And somehow they drive from Schiphol airport to Singel via Nieuwemarkt, which is a route that makes zero sense - coming from Schiphol, you'd go straight into Singel, not over to the other side of the city centre first...

I just love when readers find these kind of errors - proves what a tuned in lot we are.

I'll point out the obvious: IT'S FICTION.

Although it's fiction, it's not fantasy.

The writer should know these things. An editor should catch them.

Just like these kinds of blips in TV shows or movies.

The drinking age niggled at me, but I didn't stop to question why. Now I remember that it bugged me while reading.

Great catches, previous posters.

Lisa

My impression from the interview I read between her and an (her?) editor is that she isn't particularly editor-friendly. Maybe (pure fantasy speculation on my part = "oh please let it be so") her "editor" chose to ignore these issues just to let her ego take the hit. (I really didn't like the writing, and really don't like the author)

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.

Bradley wrote: "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 m..."

Fantastic observation/analysis, Bradley, thanks for pointing that out!

Tobin wrote: "I just let the drinking age slide as it's such a moving target. In the first forty years of my life, it was 19, then 18 (when I turned 18), then 19, then almost 21...

And for the US, while it's no..."

Indeed! Also it is possible that the editors and Tartt chose a more internationally recognised age. 18 is the most common age for legal drinking.

Mmmmm I thought that "Theo" was a bit of a BS artist! I think he's cheating a little when reminiscing...

I agree that Theo is an unreliable narrator - he pretty much confesses to it at the end: "I've come to believe there's no truth beyond illusion...and this is the space where all art exists... And that's why I've chosen to write these pages as I've written them. For only by stepping into the middle zone, the polychrome edge between truth and untruth, is it tolerable to be here and writing this at all." This is why a part of me thinks that my least favorite part of the book - the part in Amsterdam that reads more like a crime thriller than literary fiction - may be a figment of Theo's drug-addled PTSD-damaged imagination. Then again, sometimes a mistake is just a mistake.

John wrote: "I agree that Theo is an unreliable narrator - he pretty much confesses to it at the end: "I've come to believe there's no truth beyond illusion...and this is the space where all art exists... And t..."

John, I think you nail it; he's an unreliable narrator, and Tartt has described the book on the whole as an 'alternate' world.

What surprises me is how many people accept the bombing of the Met (and The Goldfinch being there, both of which were invented) but were unwilling to accept that the drinking age is 18 in the book. I am not sure how they can read a book detailing fictional happenings at real places and say, "That was cool but the drinking age being fictional is just horrible & ruins my reading."

Lisat wrote: "Although it's fiction, it's not fantasy.

The writer should know these things. An editor should catch them.

Just like these kinds of blips in TV shows or movies.

The drinking age niggled at me..."

Except it is fantasy, as Tartt stated in an interview; she called it a work of speculative fiction that takes place in a slightly different world than the one we inhabit. She thought the Goldfinch being at the Met, which gets bombed by terrorists, was a heads-up that we weren't in 'real-world America' anymore.

Jula55 wrote: "Just wondering...did any one else keep waiting for Theo to mention to Hobie the final instructions from Pippas uncle? Something about people coming to hurt Hobie and that he should close the shop ..."

....Hey! Good point...!

David wrote: "John wrote: "I agree that Theo is an unreliable narrator - he pretty much confesses to it at the end: "I've come to believe there's no truth beyond illusion...and this is the space where all art ex..."

I don't see him as an "unreliable narrator" in the traditional sense. What would be the motivation for this? Why? For me, the book is all about perspective and how life's events influence this. Hence, the metaphor of the painting.

David wrote: "John wrote: "I agree that Theo is an unreliable narrator - he pretty much confesses to it at the end: "I've come to believe there's no truth beyond illusion...and this is the space where all art ex..."

David wrote: "John wrote: "I agree that Theo is an unreliable narrator - he pretty much confesses to it at the end: "I've come to believe there's no truth beyond illusion...and this is the space where all art ex..."

Spot on, David. If we accept the bombing - the author's poetic licence to create what she likes in her fiction - then the drinking age is really a minor niggle!

Adina wrote: "Also, if the events surrounding the accident happened about 13 years ago (2000 or 2001) there are other huge factual errors. There are many references to ipods, iphones, texting, email, the popular..."

I just assumed the bombing took place around 2007 or 2008 as the iPhone didn't exist before then. Which would place the climax of the novel around 2022, which isn't too far-fetched.

Also, Boris complains about excessive ID checks in the Netherlands, and Theo is unable to buy a train ticket without a passport, both of which imply the setting is not in real-life Europe.

Given the amount of detail in the novel and the amount of time Tartt spent writing it I find it unlikely that she did not consciously decide to make the drinking age 18, to allow for non-stop flights from La Guardia to Vegas, switch the location of various works of art, travel laws in Europe, etc. I'm of the opinion, along with many of the previous posters, that Theo is an unreliable narrator. I also think that this explains the use of cliches and somewhat clunky phrasing in parts of the book. Tartt is trying to write in Theo's voice and the deep texture of the novel comes from his (imperfect) memory. Of course, in a novel of this size there are also very likely a few (or several) unintentional factual errors; it would be unbelievable if there weren't. It will probably take decades for literary scholars to parse through this book to figure out which alternative aspects of reality were intentional and contribute to the story and which were errors. I'm sure it will cause much debate but it will also ensure that this book stands as a classic for a long time.

GOLDFINCH THE MOVIE, JUST ANNOUNCED!!! August 15, 2015 release date!!!

Every stupid book deserves an even stupider movie!

Starring Julia Roberts (winner informal 2014 poll of worst living actresses, conducted by yours truly) -- as an aged Pippa who, like Rose in Titanic, narrates this film as she looks back on the events in her old age. She wears 43 scarves, 12 kerchiefs, 11 broaches, and is surrounded by cats. She constantly nibbles at a piece of banana smothered in thick Greek yogurt, ensuring her narration is obfuscated by sounds of lip and tongue smacking.

Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains) as Theo, pronounced as Te-o in this film for unknown reasons, perhaps as a tribute to Manti Teo the football player or because Kirk Cameron is a friend of Donna Tartt's and has taken on her pretend accent and speaks with either a French or Czech accent. He has studied closely Richard Gere's methods and spends most of the film blinking or removing and replacing his glasses. He speaks mostly in whispers. His speeches are often accompanied by orchestral crescendos which is indeed quite moving to the audience--sometimes they are moved to tears, at other times moved to diarrhea.

Lindsay Lohan as young Pippa (everytime she is pictured on film she is surrounded by a halo of light). She wears a 100-ft-long scarf that is wrapped around her entire body so she looks like a mummy except for her arms which extend from the shell. Her voice is a robot voice taken from a mixture of C3PO and iRobot. Lavender is her primary color.

Rachel McAdams as Kitsey (died blonde and wearing 4 inch glass pumps, there are a lot of intense scenes where she makes deliberate and extended eye contact with a variety of characters. This is serious acting. She routinely telephones Donna Tartt to try to get into Kitsey's head.)

Harrison Ford as Hobart (wearing a powdered gray George Washington wig). His voice is typically accompanied by the sound of a harp or a scratchy record. He wears heavy flannels. Harrison Ford does 12 weeks in a lumberjack camp to study for the part. He speaks of Donna Tartt as a sort of Shakespeare comparable only to Katie Couric in the power of her words.

Meg Ryan as Mrs. Barbour (she does a lot of waving about with her hands, directing people this way or that with a point or a wrist-twitch. This is powerful stuff and at least one person suggests she is deserving of an Oscar for this).

And introducing Shia LeBoeuf as Boris. LeBoeuf has immersed himself in Russian studies for the part. Unfortunately he sounds Scottish in the film which is fine since most Americans just recognize his voice as sound foreign generally. The trench coat he wears is sold on e-bay for $11,000 after the film.

The film is 18 hours in length. As noted, it is told from the point of view of an aging Pippa, who remembers fondly Theo (pronounced Te-o). Theo (Te-o) typically appears as a silhouette to give importance to his lines. Such as "what?" or "whatever?" or "what the hell?" The silhouette interestingly is not the silhouette of Kirk Cameron who portrays Theo (Te-o) but of Tartt herself who has graciously lent her image to the film.

Frequently Pippa will bring us back to the present in her small and cozy chamber and cut through a couple dozens pages of text with a summary such as "this is the part where they do more drugs." Or "this is that one part with the dumb shoot-out."

One important scene lasting 4 hours shows Hobart and Theo (Te-o) working together to restore a chest of drawers. They literally sand for four hours with no words. (Harrison Ford uses a stunt double for this scene.)

The viewer is also blessed with a surprise appearance by Tartt herself as a food critic. She is seen at Barbour parties whenever wine is served interjecting herself to make sure everyone knows that she has tastes many wines and to correct them on their interpretation of the wine. She also does this for hummus and indeed for any kind of food or drink.

It's a real film journey and it must be good since so many people are talking about it already.

Mayor wrote: "GOLDFINCH THE MOVIE, JUST ANNOUNCED!!! August 15, 2015 release date!!!

Every stupid book deserves an even stupider movie!

Starring Julia Roberts (winner informal 2014 poll of worst living actress..."
Where is the 'like' button when you need it!
Nicely done, Mayor!

I didn't think the book was stupid, but your post made my day.

Fart wrote: "Just finished The Goldfinch, and I'm stunned that some really obvious errors made it to publishing.

The biggest one: TWICE in the book people refer to the drinking age being 18. When Xandra trie..."

The national drinking age changed to 21 on July 17, 1984. Before that it was 18. So, this is not a factual error. I am old enough to remember when the drinking age in NYC was 18.

I enjoyed The Goldfinch but was pulled out of the story by some of the errors. The drinking age of 18 for one. Having lived in Las Vegas for 32 years there were a few glaring errors about the place. One is the two places where the teens live are on opposite sides of the valley. No way you could walk from one to the other. There aren't mosquitoes except around pools that aren't maintained and a very few parts of the valley with standing water. But really, no mosquitoes the way they are depicted. Very odd these glaring errors.

I think the main factual error is anytime someone says Tartt is a good writer

Fart wrote: "Just finished The Goldfinch, and I'm stunned that some really obvious errors made it to publishing.

The biggest one: TWICE in the book people refer to the drinking age being 18. When Xandra trie..."

I have to add the drinking in many states was 18 until 1984. Just enjoy the book and stop trying to find "errors" or don't read the book.

When I read fiction, generally some errors don't bother me at all because it is fiction, and the author can create a world of her own if she chooses to do so...Just sayin.

I'm usually the same way. But with The Goldfinch I was pulled out of the story by the errors. I still enjoyed the book on the whole. The errors seemed sloppy to me. Having lived in Las Vegas, the errors about that place bothered me more than the drinking age issue.

I loved it. Would have given it 6 stars.

I graduated from high school in 1971, when the drinking age was 19 in
Ohio. We went over the border to Michigan because it was 18 then. All through the US, it was different depending on the state.

I keep track of all kinds of errors while I'm reading books. There are VERY FEW that don't have glaring errors, be it "factual" SF, or fantasy, or historical fiction, etc. I pick my battles... I enjoyed the stories of these people' slices, and yes, many of them did not live smart or legal lives... The book showed what kinds of messes we all are...

Btw, I can't stand Romances because even the basic premise is stupid beyond belief.

Nearly any posse comitatus of English grad students could be called together to workshop a new novel and could write something as good as Goldfinch or better. Goldfinch reads the way writing manuals and magazines and continuing ed profs encourage writing. I find it unoriginal and self-absorbed.

Sorry, I tend to get carried away to exaggerations. I just really did not like this book at all but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I went on vacation and took two books with me, finished the other one first, and then was stuck with this for the rest of the trip so I ended up reading it anyway even though it was painfully slow by page 200 or so and I stopped hoping it would get better.

Here's an excerpt from the book where Theo is describing his mother:
"She had black hair, fair skin that freckled in summer, china-blue eyes with a lot of light in them; and in the slant of her cheekbones there was such an eccentric mixture of the tribal and the Celtic Twilight that sometimes people guessed she was Icelandic. In fact, she was half Irish, half Cherokee, from a town in Kansas near the Oklahoma border; and she liked to make me laugh by calling herself an Okie even though she was as glossy and nervy and stylish as a racehorse."

This paragraph is an example of what I don't like about Tartt's writing. Too many adjectives: black hair. Fair skin. China-blue eyes. Eccentric mixture. She's part this and part that and part the other. "As a racehorse." While many people seem to like her wordiness I feel it detracts from the story and is a cover for a lack of originality. It feels like she can't say in one sentence or two sentences the essence of what Theo thinks his mother looks like, so she uses a whole paragraph of adjectives and nouns to cover for herself. So many metaphors in this novel. So many. To me it would be more powerful for Theo just to say, "my mother looked like she had been carved out of bone" or "my mother was beautiful but not pretty." Or something more succinct. It feels like the connection Theo is trying to describe is artificial -- Tartt doesn't communicate to me a basic instinctive love for his mother. She says everything except the most important thing. Yes, I realize there numerous other places in the novel where he talks about his mom, but to me it just doesn't feel sincere, I don't relate to it. The only character who felt legitimate to me was Boris because I once knew a crazy Russian guy like that.

This type of writing seems common to "how to write" techniques. Use a lot of words, tons of adjectives, use plenty of metaphors, push the description, run it into the ground, describe the photograph in your mind, etc. Every sentence is your playground. It doesn't work for me. It feels amateur.

I can't really explain how the publishing process works since I don't know. Obviously many many people loved this book so they recognized something that I did not. They gave it the Pulitzer so again there is something there that many people love and enjoy and respect. My critique is that this was published because she was a recognized author and they knew they could sell a lot of copies regardless of quality because it had the "look" and "feel" of something substantial (it's really long!), that many people would read. Transformers is one of the top grossing films of all time! I would say her writing style is popular but not original or meaningful. She does not convey new meaning or understanding. She does not unfold new ways of untying the knots. The world she has created is uninteresting to me.

As far as being self-absorbed, this relates to my feeling that Tartt lacks as certain humility in her writing to put things more simply in order to build a more unique world for the reader. It feels like: "look at all these words! Look at all my metaphors! Look at all my adjectives! I know Dutch! I know about drugs! I know about art! I know about furniture restoration! I know about New York!"

I think the reason why so many people loved this book is that it is a great story. The reader wants to know what is going to happen next and is often surprised by what does happen. Also,just when you think the book is going to end in disaster, Tartt brings all the strands together at the end in a way that delights the reader. I don't understand all the comments of people who seem to have missed the overall pleasure of the book and seem to be down in the weeds, criticizing so many things about it. I loved it and got a lot of pleasure out of following this completely original story.

I agree with you Deborah although I think there is sort of a false advertising element with some books. If this had been advertised as a Grisham-type book, then I probably could have taken some pleasure from it. But with it being hailed as a Pulitzer winner and Tartt being hailed as a genius, etc., my expectations were much higher and I was sorely disappointed.

Here' a paragraph from Gone Girl, published a year or so before Goldfinch, where Nick describes his sister Go. Again for me this to too much description, it basically tells me everything except what the person looks like. Everyone can think what they want but I'd rather the author be bold enough to say it shorter unless by adding more words they add more meaning.

"My sister was at work behind the bar, her hair pulled back in nerdy-girl barrettes, her arms pink as she dipped the beer glasses in and out of hot suds. Go is slender and strange-faced, which is not to say unattractive. Her features just take a moment to make sense: the broad jaw; the pinched, pretty nose; the dark globe eyes. If this were a period movie, a man would tilt back his fedora, whistle at the sight of her, and say, "Now, there's a helluva broad!" The face of a '30s screwball-movie queen doesn't always translate in our pixie-princess times, but I know from our years together that men like my sister, a lot, which puts me in that strange brotherly realm of being both proud and wary."

but i take your point Lasharell that in the case of Goldfinch, Theo is writing about his mom who at the time of his writing presumably has been dead for a while (I think that's what he reveals at the end of the book, that he started the journal in Las Vegas) and maybe he's struggling to remember and piecing stuff together from memory.

that's too funny. definitely a hemingway fan :)
pink arms is definitely for me best part of the description. the most unnecessary sentence is this one:
"Her features just take a moment to make sense: the broad jaw; the pinched, pretty nose; the dark globe eyes."

here's something from Gilead. obviously not a great comparison because she just describes these two people in passing to go onto another point.

i guess i'm not sure why it's so important to know exactly what someone looks like in certain pieces of literature unless some more important point is being made.

"I really can't tell what's beautiful anymore. I passed two young fellows on the street the other day. I know who they are, they work at the garage. They're not churchgoing, either one of them, just decent rascally young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and there they were, propped against the garage wall in the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They're always so black with grease and so strong with gasoline I don't know why they don't catch fire themselves. They were passing remarks back and forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it. I see that in church often enough. So I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent."

I still haven't gotten over ORION being in the summer sky in Nevada!

How hard is it to take the time to check facts? And what does it say about critics and award committees that these things are acceptable? I think, for me, what happens is it calls into question the veracity of the author. If she lies about this, or is uninformed about it and passes it off as fact to the reader, she is untrustworthy. If the intention was to set up the narrator of the story as unreliable, that should be obvious from the beginning.

I bought Tartt's other two novels (are there more?) based on reviews of her work and her reputation as a writer. Right now I can't bring myself to read them. I started the first one, The Secret History, and couldn't get into it. Granted it's more than ten years old, but it seemed stale, another story about the sociopathic behavior of young people in a school group. But, to be fair, I haven't read very much of it.

I do respect Tartt's writing ability though. So I will give her other books another chance eventually.

I was one of the commenters earlier on this thread, and I have been following it. For me these discrepancies are not significant and I can roll over them (and did) but they are distracting, and that is not good.

Okay, I know that The Goldfinch was not on a special display at the Met, and know that there was no bomb at the Met, but for those details we allow for a willing suspension of disbelief, because they are critical to the plot. The rest of the discrepancies (e.g., like when Orion appears in the sky, mentioned immediately above) are not okay because they detract from the story and story-telling.

I really wish the publisher had gotten a fact checker on some of this, because I want to focus on the details of the actual story, not be distracted with this petty stuff that could have been right.

Exactly. If it pulls you out of the story for no reason, it's just sloppy.

I wonder if there are similar issues in her other books?

Victoria, very well stated, and much more succinct than my explanation!

I'll come back to the point I made above that, supporting the arguments of many others, Theo is an unreliable narrator. Do these factual errors diminish from the novel? Not in my opinion; actually, they allow Tartt to imbue the novel with deeper meaning as we are constantly reminded that this is the world as seen through Theo's memory. They could represent false memories or they could be intentional distortions on his part in the telling of the story. Consider all of the great paintings that have grossly distorted historical truth in the name of evoking meaning. None of Jacques Louis David's paintings are historically accurate, yet he is considered a master. Idk if Tartt is at that level yet but we have to accept that art is not reality but rather an interpretation of reality. Did Hemingway get every detail about the Spanish Civil War corect?

I've noticed that too with Kindle versions of books. Is it something that happens when the books are put into that format?

I have no problem with people speaking grammatically incorrect. I don't have a problem with ignoring rules particularly when writing letters and emails etc. Look at those that 2 sentences. Tho the errors in the book pulled me out of the story, they didn't prevent me diving right back in again. I enjoyed it enough to want to read other books by Tartt.

So apparently it took Tartt seven years to write. If she wrote the beginning of the book, where she mentions the Iphone around 2006, the iphone wasn't even on the market. I have a hard time believing that this was just a simple mistake.