Paula Hsiao//Sept. 27, 2020
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The Goldfinch fell short of any expectations I had for it, and that’s saying a lot because I went into the book blind. With only the blurb summary of the book in mind and an excitement to receive the seven hundred and eighty-four pages Donna Tartt had blessed me with, I jumped into the book and immediately landed on my face. After about the first thirty five pages, I already found myself struggling to continue reading it. Eventually I got back into the flow of the book, but it was a back and forth battle to continue flipping page after page. Why is that so?
The first fault that I have with this leviathan of a book is its seemingly disjointed timeline. This book was wildly unrealistic despite Tartt’s attempts to make Theo a realistic character. The juxtaposition of the situations Theo finds himself in with the monotonous and dull personality of the character himself creates a nonsensical contrast in the plot. It seems already enough for one book to just explore what happened in the explosion and the impacts of different kinds of trauma on Theo affecting his perceptions of morality, but to add a painting heist, suicides and murder, unrequited love for multiple people (including an engagement to a girl that has an affair and never loves him back that was not mentioned in the plot summary), the deaths of his childhood friend in boating accidents, etc, it all makes for a rushed and poorly-paced story. I would have liked to see them explore more in depth about each of the adventures Theo finds himself in and to learn more about each of the side characters, but the constant focus on Theo and what happens to him next inhibits any possible further exploration of other situations and the characters involved.
Theo is also arguably the character that goes through the least character development. He’s surrounded by rambunctious and colorful characters that all strive to be something better while Theo purposefully, albeit unconsciously, keeps himself in the past by holding on to fragments of that moment. He’s the one that holds himself back, but then never really learns from his mistakes. Although this could be an argument for how Tartt uses the realism of the mundane to paint a portrait of the truth of reality, this comes off as him being a static character. Another complaint I have with this book is the unnecessary length of it. Coupled with the constant stream of side adventures Theo seems to keep finding himself in, it makes this book so much longer than it needed to be. What could have just been a three hundred page adventure was beaten into almost eight-hundred pages of nothing in particular, but instead, too little of everything.
The most unsatisfying part of the book, but also my favorite part was the ending. The ending where Theo realizes that he doesn’t get the girl, he doesn’t get the painting, he doesn’t have anyone. Is it sadistic for me to like? Possibly. However, he comes to a melancholy acceptance of the uncertainty and cruelty of life and then chooses to seek and preserve whatever beauty there is. It is a synchronous happy and sad ending depending on how you perceive it. It isn’t a traditional happy ending where the main character suddenly finds meaning in life, but rather, one where the rejection of perfection helps the readers to also accept the flaws of not only ourselves and society, but that of the characters’.
Perhaps I was a little harsh in my condemnation of the book because all in all, I did enjoy it. The prose of Donna Tartt is one that never fails to make me contemplate the simultaneous beauty and cruelness of existence through the characters’ own scrutiny. However, I would just say if you were to read her books, particularly The Goldfinch, make sure to read that before you read The Secret History or you will be disappointed by the discrepancies in technique, plot, and structure between the two books. Because all in all, The Goldfinch wasn’t a bad book by any means, it was just a book that didn’t live up to the legacy of its predecessors.