The thing is, I enjoyed every minute of The Goldfinch while I was reading it, yet when I wasn't and had time to think about it, the less and less I felt like I liked it. The writing is good, and enjoyable, but when you stop and ruminate, not that much happens, or at least, not that much in which the main character is actually involved. And this is a huge doorstop of a book. Good writing is great, but as far as plot and character go, it gets a little rockier.
Does that make it like certain paintings? Great up close, but not so great from a distance? Or am I reaching for a metaphor to suit the plot?
This is another Donna Tartt book about the world of the rich, or rather, the outsider in the world of the rich, who is there, but not of, who doesn't have a lot of money, who is desperate to stay there, but keenly aware of the vulnerability of his position. She's good at this, and it's interesting. But it also feels a bit repetitive.
The main character is in his early teens when his mother dies in a terrorist attack on a museum of art in New York City. (I haven't retained the name of which museum.) He was there too, and woke up after the explosions to find a world of bodies and dust, where an old man was dying. He shared the last moments of that man's life, gave him water, and was given a painting that apparently the old man had taken off the wall. Before the explosion, presumably, because he didn't seem able to move afterwards.
As Theo learns to live without his mother, first with the wealthy family of a school friend, then with his con artist/gambler dad and dad's girlfriend. He makes a friend in Las Vegas, a Russian boy named Boris, with an abusive, mostly-absent father, and they do a lot of drugs together. Actually, after this point, you can pretty much just assume that Theo is probably doing a lot of drugs. Then his father dies, and he runs away from home so he can't be placed in the foster care system.
He makes his way back to New York City, a place that is practically a character here, and eventually, to the home and shop and workshop of the business partner of the old man who gave him the Goldfinch painting that he's been hiding since the attacks that killed his mother. The business partner is terrible at business, a kind, gentle man who makes and restores beautiful furniture. Theo lives with him, eating his heart out about the granddaughter of the dead old man, who was also present in the museum at the time of the explosions. She and Theo are both scarred mentally, but she also carries physical scars.
Theo also reintegrates into the sphere of the wealthy family he stayed with in the immediate aftermath of his mother's death, putting him closer to the world of the wealthy, while always feeling slightly insecure himself. And this is all interesting, really it is, but it's all wrapped in a bookend of an art heist gone wrong, of big things happening that...do happen, but Theo doesn't have much to do with them. In a meditative tome on loss and insecurity and trauma, do the parts with guns really add much? I mean, they do bring Boris back in, and he's an interesting character, but overall I'm not convinced they add to the narrative, which may point to there being something off about how it is structured.
This book is made up of very short chapters, but it doesn't move quickly. It lingers, and the lingering could work, I think, does work in some ways. But the juxtaposition with blood and guns doesn't do the book any favours. It's such a small part of the narrative, so little of what's going on, and when the ending does arrive, it's not as satisfying as the process of reading was.
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