Let’s throw a party, because I FINALLY finished Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch.” I don’t mean it to sound bad — it was a good book, but it was also very long — and I’ll tell you this: I may have a fantasy about being able to curl up in bed with a good book, but lately? I read two pages and am out like a light.
Blame it on the old age.
Anywho, The Goldfinch. Wow. What a detailed story filled with emotion; it’s very intense! I can’t imagine the research and the time it took Tartt to create such a piece; and I wonder how much of it was just drummed up in her imagination.
I won’t give away any spoilers, but I’ll tell you that The Goldfinch is the story of Theo. He attends an art museum with his mother in New York City, when a terrorist attacks the museum, via bomb. Theo’s mom, doesn’t make it out alive, but her favorite painting — that of a famous goldfinch — does, tucked under Theo’s arm.
The entire book is the remainder of Theo’s story, as a motherless child, and as a theft. It is a tale with many, many twists and turns.
Some of my favorite excerpts:
- I started off loving the bird, the way you’d love a pet or something, and ended up loving the way he was painted.
- Despite what I’d seen — what I knew — somehow I’d still managed to nurture a childish hope that he’d pull through, miraculously, like a murder victim on TV who after the commercial break turns out to be alive and recovering quietly in the hospital.
- Light climbed and burst through the wild desert clouds—never-ending sky, acid blue, like a computer game or a test pilot’s hallucination.
- But when I think of you, it’s as if you’ve gone away to sea on a ship—out in a foreign brightness where there are no paths, only stars and sky.
- A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.
There were so many good lines in this book (many more than what I put here). I’ve been reading this book for so long, it felt a little weird when I finished it around midnight earlier this week. But, there’s a massive list of books I’ve been dying to read, so I’m ready to dive into something fresh.
To find out more on The Goldfinch or its author, Donna Tartt, check out my previous blog post here.
The Bitter Lemon 