The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

There is something special about reading a book by an author you have enjoyed before. When I heard that Donna Tartt the author of The Little Friend had brought out a new novel I didn’t rush out to buy it, and with it numbering at 863 pages I thought I would wait until I had some time in the holidays to savour it.

Donna Tartt’s first novel, The Secret History, created quite a following after its release.

Embedded in Greek tragedy, the dark murder mystery tells the story of a college cult and poses the question: What would happen if the characters in the Dead Poet Society embarked on Bacchic-style orgy?

Her second book The Little Friend sits high on my favourite books list and is a gorgeous coming of age Southern Gothic jammed packed with beautiful descriptive prose. 

With a ten year gap between them (which I don’t mind if the break produces great fiction) The Goldfinch appears to be penned with the same ink.

It is dark and gothic. It retains the same danger of its predecessors with its exploration of a murky drug-fuelled lifestyle. 

It is boldly poetic. Donna Tartt has a gift which all writers aspire to achieve; The Goldfinch has sentences I read and re-read. Her words glide into passages which possess a startlingly smoothness and clarity relating to real life experiences such as grief and trauma.

It is full of the descriptions that I love and seek out in any book. There is a hoarding of objects, possessions and antique furniture which do not sit around like useless clutter but enrich the book with an enjoyable eloquence.

It is full of life and colour. In Theo Decker, Donna Tartt provides a compelling character study which I felt looking at me directly in the eye as if to say “Here I am. I am more like you than you think.” 

Without giving away any spoilers, The Goldfinch is about the protagonist Theo Decker’s lifelong obsession with the painting of a chained bird.

On the inside back of the book there is a copy of Carel Fabritius’ famous creation and I often found myself engaging in a read-along with Theo; while he gazed at the painting so would I, asking myself “What does this mean? What is this trying to say?”

How can I, an English female, relate to a story about the rich upper classes of New York, collecting beautiful antiques while carrying out their secret and self-destructive behaviour?

However in a final magnificent brushstroke by Donna Tartt, Theo provides a monologue that is that clinches the accolades and Pulitzer Prize which have been presented to this book and its author. 

I would strongly suggest after finishing the last page to revisit Theo’s and his mother’s trip to the Met and her discussion of the paintings on page 26 as it brings into light the book as a whole.

The Goldfinch is about the universal appreciation of beautiful things. 

Like a famous painting which thousands flock to see each year searching for interpretation, I see this book being studied in English workshops as a piece of fiction that moves with a steady beating heart.