Book Review: The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

    The six-word summation of this book is: "Rich man makes bad life decisions."

    I mostly enjoyed this book, although it is perhaps the whitest book I have ever read. Imagine, if you will, this synopsis: The father of a young teenage child deserts his family. Later, the boy and his mother are the victims of a terrorist bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The mother dies; the child grabs a famous painting and escapes.

   

It's a lot of book

      Picture that happening to a black child. Now, as in this book, imagine the child is white. Yep. Two different stories, never meeting nor crossing paths. 

    This story is the white one.

    Simply put, it's about a child with an obsession about the stolen painting. Or more accurately, it's about a child cum man with an obsession about his obsession about his stolen painting.

    It did win a Pulitzer Prize, and it's not hard to see why: It's a grand, overarching book about family, love, desire, hope, and hopelessness. It's a sprawling book that moves from New York to Las Vegas, back to New York, and then to Europe. It's about the lifestyles of the wealthy, and the privileged way they walk through life.

    But it's also overwritten, meandering on for 771 pages. Just about every experience is overdone, every scene over-described. For someone who prefers tight writing, as I do, it's a slog to get through. At the end, Tartt grows increasingly philosopical, and you wonder if she is furiously adding on pages as you read. You fear the book might never end.

    That all said, however, it is a good story, with a handful of interesting characters; albeit none very likeable. It's no doubt a good book for the times we are in -- something that will remain with you through the long, shut-in days of quarantine.