The Goldfinch by Donna Tart

I just finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tart.  This book has been on so many of the “Best Books of 2013” that it peaked my curiosity. The book revolves around the main character Theo Decker and all the characters he meets throughout his life.  When Theo is a child, he and his beloved mother are in a NY museum when it is bombed – Theo survives and his mother does not.  After the bombing, Theo wakes up and befriends an old man and takes a painting of “The Goldfinch” from the museum.  This act becomes the basis of the whole story.  Just like the goldfinch in the painting, he is chained by this event his whole life. 

Many questions are asked “What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No No-hang on- this is a question worth struggling with.  What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? “  My favorite “Who’s to say that coincidence was just God’s way of remaining anonymous?”  or “Can’t good come around sometimes through some strange back doors?”  “Beauty alters the grain of reality.  And I keep thinking too of the more conventional  wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorry, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful.”

So many times during the story of Leo’s life – I just want to shake him and tell him “NO – don’t do that, don’t hang around him, turn around, quit it!” .   Leo makes so many mistakes and his lifestyle is never one I would have approved of and so I’m surprised that I could relate to his character.  I so want him to redeem himself – maybe that’s why the reader keeps holding on to this long story.  Along the journey, there are people who keep coming back into his life – the family of Andy Barbour– a childhood friend, Hobie the furniture restorer, and of course the Russian best friend Boris. 

I do know that I want to talk about this story with others – is Leo redeemable?  I do know I want to see the painting of the goldfinch.  I would like to read more of Donna Tart’s books – but right now I think I need to read something light!  This won’t be a good book club selection for my book club–  most of our members want a shorter, lighter read – but they will be missing out on a marvelous read!  I will be thinking about Leo and The Goldfinch for a long time - which is always the hallmark of a great read!  I would give this 5 stars!

From Goodreads:

A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and determined to avoid being taken in by the city as an orphan, Theo scrambles between nights in friends’ apartments and on the city streets. He becomes entranced by the one thing that reminds him of his mother, a small, mysteriously captivating painting that soon draws Theo into the art underworld.