Book Review – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Sometimes a book comes along that makes you feel many things at once. Happiness. Sadness. Anxiety. It makes you wonder how naive one person can be until you remember you were young once too.

The Goldfinch is one of those books. It follows the life of a boy, Theo, who was in an art museum when a bomb went off. In the moments after, he is told by a dying man to take a famous painting (real painting The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius)before it’s lost forever so some other thief or another bomb. He does, but later realizes this theft was not his to make even if he did it for honorable reasons.

His mother died in the explosion so after living with his school age friend, Andy, and his wealthy family for a time in NYC, his alcoholic father comes to collect him and takes him to Las Vegas. Theo meets Boris, a Ukrainian boy who gets him addicted to drugs and helps him through his grief over his mother’s death. After his father dies suddenly trying to escape a financial situation brought on by gambling, Theo goes back to New York and moves in with old friends who he knew from the bombing. The very friend he was supposed to give the painting to, but didn’t.

As the years pass, Theo helps his friend with a furniture business that restores antique furniture. Theo, to get the business out of the red, lies about some of the pieces to get more money from them. The family he stayed with after the explosion comes back into his life as well, but he finds them living with the grief of two dead family members. He gets engaged. A man threatens to take down the business because of the fake furniture. Boris pops back up – and this is when Theo discovers that Boris had the Goldfinch painting the whole time, but Theo never knew because he kept the painting wrapped up and locked in a storage locker.

In Amsterdam, Boris and Theo try to get the painting back. People are shot. Deals go bad. Theo finds himself trapped without a passport. Guilt gets the better of him and he’s about to confess to stealing the painting when Boris rescues him. Still, Theo has to go home and explain it to his business partner and friend who reacts to the news exactly and differently than he expected at the same time.

I’m not doing the book justice, for Theo’s story is one that can’t be paraphrased. I know I said that he was exceedingly naive, and he really is. He understandably wants to believe his dad will do better, but it never happens. He blindly puts his faith in Boris who, despite being a stand up friend, also gets him involved with drugs and dangerous situations. Theo, blinded by the grief over is mother and then his father, believes he can bus across the country with a stolen dog and pop up at an old friend’s house as if it hadn’t been years since their last meeting. Fortunately for Theo, there are still good people in the world and that is what really keeps this kid going.

Theo also falls in love with a girl he met at the museum. While she never seems to love him the same way, Theo never loses hope even when he gets engaged to someone else. Perhaps that is why he still shows up the his engagement party after catching his betrothed with another guy.

Through all this is the painting. A piece of art so beautiful, so enthralling, that giving it up seemed impossible but keeping it felt unacceptable. It was the connection the to last place he saw his mother alive and to the girl he grew up loving. Hanging on to the painting was hanging on to them. Letting the painting go was finally moving on.

I highly recommend this long, winding road through one man’s life. It’s filled with the pains of growing up and the tragedy of being an adult. It’s weighed down by grief, addiction, and guilt, but lifted up by love, friendship, and redemption. At over 700 pages it seems daunting, but the audiobook is quite good. The narrator even acts out the Ukrainian accents.

5 out of 5 stars.