Donna Tartt's new book has caused quite a sensation and received numerous accolades, comparing her writing and characters to those of Charles Dickens. I get that comparison because of the richness and depth of the depictions. I wanted to like this book more than I did, as I am a fan of Tartt's other books. Having said that, I plowed through this lengthy book with complete interest. My distaste for the main characters is what put me off loving this well written book. I appreciated the fullness of the descriptions of the settings in Manhattan, Las Vegas, and Amsterdam. They were very real. While I appreciated her writing, it seemed the Las Vegas section began to drag. As a reader, I wanted the characters to be nobler and better than they were. But, like real people, that part of their nature was elusive. Tartt did give us one noble character in James Hobart, Hobie, who reminds me the most of a Dickens character.
The story begins in Amsterdam as the main character, Theo Decker is holed up in a bland hotel room, suffering mightily from the consequences of his poor judgement. He takes the reader back 14 years when his nightmare began in the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he and his mother are victims of a shocking terrorist attack. Theo makes it out alive, his mother does not. Tartt is very hard on her main character. Except for a short time living with the Barbours, a wealthy Park Avenue family, his life unravels and spins out of control. Suffering from shock, Theo leaves the museum undetected with some idea of saving a beautiful and priceless painting that was connected with his last memory of his mother. He becomes attached to the the Goldfinch painting which is a real masterwork of Carel Fabritius, a Dutch painter of 1654 who was himself killed in an explosion at a nearby gunpowder factory. One way or another, The Goldfinch remains with Theo throughout the mess that his life will become.
Leaving the Barbours, he is taken away to Las Vegas by his estranged father who is an alcoholic and compulsive gambler. Living in a deserted area on the outskirts of the city, he forms a lifelong friendship with Boris Pavlikovsky, and equally damaged and lost boy. Their love and dependence on each other is so realistically portrayed that you want it to work to their benefit. Although their friendship was ultimately a destructive one, it the the most alive and real of all the relationships in the book. Alas, they are both so damaged that the friendship drags Theo down to depths a young boy should never have to experience. Theo's father and his girlfriend Xandra are so lost and needy themselves, that they add to the misery of Theo's life in the worst way. The reader becomes desperate for Theo to escape this life.
I was happy to see Theo leave the disaster of his Las Vegas life. When he washed up in New York, Hobie was his savior. Unfortunately Theo recognizes, as the reader does, that there is more of his father in him than Hobie can counteract in the following years. The adult Theo does a good job of destroying his own life when Boris again appears to finish the job. As the book neared its climax, I was reading into the wee hours hoping that salvation would come to Theo's messed up existence. I cannot say I enjoyed this book, but I can say, I was engrossed in Theo's story and did not find it improbable. I recommend the book for its excellent writing and realistic characterization and settings. Reader, it is not a feel good book, and parts of it are quite horrifying, yet you will find yourself rooting for Theo and wishing for some happiness in his tragic life.
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