The Goldfinch
I can’t now remember why or how, but about two months ago, Ireceived a free three-month subscription to Audible. For the first month, Ichose The Fault in Our Stars, the YAbestseller. It’s the first book I’ve ever read that puts me in the point ofview of a dying teen who does not process her trials through the lens of faith.
For my second choice, I did some research. What won the Pulitzerfor fiction this year? The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Oh? It also made the National Book Critics Circle Award finals.So I investigated further. In book form it ran 775 pages. In audio it ran 32hours, 29 minutes, and completely filled the memory of my iPhone S5. Ouch! But if I was going to get something free, Iwanted to really feel like I’d scored.
And indeed, I hit the jackpot with this one.
I started listening on the plane to Italy, where I had somebusiness last month. I’m scheduled to co-teach a course there in MedievalSpirituality and Art next May, and I had a list of monasteries to check out(less expensive lodging, more authentic experience).
By the time I headed home via Frankfurt, where I attendedthe International Book Fair, I was so hooked that I listened to the story forthe entire twelve-hour flight instead of sleeping. On Saturday morning I finished thestory.
Mid-way through the “book,” I frankly didn’t understand whyit won. I would have cut at least 100 pages of the Las Vegas section, which went on and on about two high-school-aged boys snorting drugs, smoking drugs,and drinking drugs into oblivion—rinse, and repeat. This part seemed tocontribute nothing to the actual plot.
But by the end, though, the author had my complete respect.She crafted a bildungsroman with a suspenseful story line, a touch of romance,a powerful portrayal of grief, a multi-sensory experience, worldwide travel, and a satisfying ending. And it turned out that theLas Vegas part, even if longer than necessary, did actually play into thefinale. (Yet another reason to besuspicious of reviewers who admit “I couldn’t make it to the end” and then goon to criticize a story they don't fully know.)
In The Goldfinch,Theo Decker, a 13-year-old kid who lives in New York City (isn’t that wheremost classic stories are set?) survives a bombing at The Met that orphans himbut leaves him in possession of an artistic masterpiece. The plot follows himand the painting as he wrestles on the surface with how to get it off hishands, but below the surface with growing up, despair, and beauty.
During Arts Week at DTS this past week, our speaker, Dr. RobJohnston, talked about truth, goodness, and beauty. Decades ago, we put thethree in that order. We could begin sentences with “The Bible says,” even onTV, and people would listen. But corrupt televangelists and priests contributedto a cultural shift that made us all say, “Show me your goodness before youtell me your truth.” That is, we shifted the order to goodness, beauty, andtruth. (It’s not a hierarchy; we need all three. Rather, it’s the order inwhich we usually prefer to access and process our world.) But lately we want beauty first.And for that reason alone, this book is a cultural artifact that demonstrateswhat we value. The Goldfinch is fullof beauty, both in its literary crafting and in the story itself in which artspeaks to the heart.
P.S. The narration by actor David Pittu won the 2014 Audie awardfor “Best Solo Narration–Male.” He certainly earned it. The character whomcritics decry as two-dimensional (“Hobie”) was actually my favorite, doubtlessthanks to Pittu’s multi-layered portrayal of him.