The Goldfinch (novel)

''The Goldfinch'' is a novel by the American author Donna Tartt. It won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Published in 2013, it followed '' The Little Friend'' in 2002.

''The Goldfinch'' follows 13-year-old Theodore Decker, and the dramatic changes his life undergoes after he survives a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that kills his mother and results in him coming into possession of Carel Fabritius's painting '' The Goldfinch''.

Background

Tartt has stated that she had been wanting to write about Amsterdam for 20 years, having lived for some time in the city after the success of ''The Little Friend''.

She was partly inspired to write ''The Goldfinch'' after hearing about the Taliban’s destruction in 2001 of the historic statues of Buddha in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. She says: "There was nothing to write about, there was not really a story – but there was an idea that something so beautiful, a light at the heart of the world, could be just taken away, destroyed, deliberately."

As a child, she used to make little books written around images taken from magazines; one of these featured a painting, a portrait of the Infanta by Velasquez. She says in interview: "With ''The Goldfinch,'' in some ways, I'm going back to those earliest construction-paper books and the childhood technique of choosing a picture and writing a story around it."

In the novel, Theo, having lost his mother to a terrorist attack, finds himself in possession of a small Dutch Golden Age painting called ''Het Puttertje'' ('' The Goldfinch''). The painting is one of the few surviving works by Rembrandt's most promising pupil, Carel Fabritius (almost all of Fabritius's works were destroyed in the Delft explosion of 1654, in which the artist himself was killed). By an extraordinary coincidence: the ''Goldfinch'' painting, which is rarely exhibited outside of its country of origin, was shown in New York for a show at the Frick, opening on the very day ''The Goldfinch'' was published.

Plot

''The Goldfinch'' is told in retrospective first-person narration by Theodore "Theo" Decker. Thirteen-year-old Theo's life is turned upside down when he and his mother visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see an exhibition of Dutch masterpieces, including a favorite painting of hers, Carel Fabritius's ''The Goldfinch''. There, he becomes intrigued by a red-headed girl in the company of an elderly man. A bomb explodes in the museum, killing his mother and several other visitors.

In the rubble, Theo once more encounters the old man, who gives him a ring and delivers an enigmatic message before dying. Believing that the man is indicating ''The Goldfinch'', Theo takes it during his panicked escape. He moves in with a school friend, Andy Barbour, and his wealthy family in their Park Avenue apartment. He carries out the old man's last wishes and returns the ring to his business partner, James "Hobie" Hobart. Theo learns that the old man's name was Welton "Welty" Blackwell, and that he and Hobie ran an antiques shop together. He becomes friends with Hobie and encounters the red-haired girl, Pippa, who lived with Welty and Hobie after her mother (Welty's half-sister) died of cancer.

Theo's life is further disrupted when his deadbeat father arrives with his new girlfriend and whisks him away to Las Vegas. Theo takes the painting with him, and in Las Vegas, makes a new friend, Boris Pavlikovsky, the cosmopolitan son of a Ukrainian émigré. The two boys, both with absentee parents, spend most of their afternoons drinking, smoking marijuana, and using other illegal drugs. According to Boris, Theo has drunken blackouts during which he forgets practically everything, although Theo denies this. While hounded by a loan-shark, Theo's father gets drunk and dies in a car crash. Fearful of what his father's death may mean to his living situation, Theo flees to New York via cross-country bus. With nowhere to stay, he heads to Hobie's, who welcomes him. Pippa, now enrolled in a school for troubled teens in Switzerland, is visiting on a break.

The narrative skips ahead eight years. Theo has become a full partner in Hobart's business. He has concealed ''The Goldfinch'' because he is afraid of being accused of theft. He is engaged to a childhood friend but is still confused and obsessed with Pippa, who is living in London with her boyfriend. Over the years, he becomes addicted to prescription medication and saves Hobie from bankruptcy by selling fake antiques.

Theo is wracked by guilt and fear over this, and over his theft of ''The Goldfinch''. Boris reappears, now a wealthy man thanks to dubious unspecified activities. To Theo's astonishment, Boris reveals that he stole ''The Goldfinch'' from Theo while they were in high school; the painting has since been used as collateral by criminals and drug dealers. Boris feels guilty and has devoted himself to recovering the painting and returning it to Theo. At Theo's engagement party, Boris appears with a plan to retrieve ''The Goldfinch''. They fly to Amsterdam to meet with the dealers who have the painting. Boris and his associates steal it back but the plan goes awry when armed henchmen confront them. In the resulting conflict, Boris is shot in the arm and Theo kills Boris's attacker while one of the dealers escapes with the painting.

Boris disappears, leaving Theo in his hotel room, where he drinks, takes drugs, and recovers from illness, and is afraid that police will discover him. Unable to return to New York because Boris has his passport, Theo feels trapped and contemplates suicide. After several days, Boris returns and reveals that he has resolved the situation by phoning the art recovery police to inform on the dealers. Not only has the painting been saved for the museum, but Boris has received a huge reward, which he shares with Theo.

After arriving in the United States, Theo travels the country, using the reward money to buy back the fake antiques from customers. He realizes that Pippa loves him, but she was not able to openly reciprocate his feelings because she believes they both share the same damage and flaws, having both survived the trauma of the museum explosion and both having resorted to self-medication to ease their psychological scars. In a lengthy reflection, Theo wonders how much of his experiences were unavoidable due to fate or his character, and contemplates ''The Goldfinch'' and "the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire". The novel ends on a curious note, as Theo's contemplation demonstrates both a hard fate still ahead and a sort of redeeming immortality through the admiration of beauty.

Themes

Critics have remarked on the number of references to Dickens in the novel, and have noted the author's Dickensian approach to her themes. As with ''The Little Friend'', ''The Goldfinch'' deals with themes of obsession, coming of age and the uncertainties of the adult world and the "randomness of existence". Art, as represented by ''The Goldfinch'', becomes "a touchstone of order," and the "transformative power of art", one of the main themes of the novel.

Reception

Critical reception of the novel was polarized. ''Kirkus Reviews'' and ''Booklist'' both gave the novel starred reviews. ''Booklist'' wrote, "Drenched in sensory detail, infused with Theo's churning thoughts and feelings, sparked by nimble dialogue, and propelled by escalating cosmic angst and thriller action, Tartt's trenchant, defiant, engrossing, and rocketing novel conducts a grand inquiry into the mystery and sorrow of survival, beauty and obsession, and the promise of art."

Stephen King praised the novel and called Tartt "an amazingly good writer". In ''The New York Times'', Michiko Kakutani pointed out what she saw as the novel's Dickensian elements, writing, "Ms. Tartt has made Fabritius's bird the MacGuffin at the center of her glorious, Dickensian novel, a novel that pulls together all her remarkable storytelling talents into a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading." Woody Brown, writing in ''Art Voice'', described ''The Goldfinch'' as a "marvelous, epic tale, one whose 773 beautiful pages say, in short: 'How can we? And yet, we do.

In mid-2014, '' Vanity Fair'' reported that the book had "some of the severest pans in memory from the country's most important critics and sparked a full-on debate in which the naysayers believe that nothing less is at stake than the future of reading itself." Both ''The New Yorker''s James Wood and the ''London Review of Books'' claimed the book was juvenile in nature, the former arguing that the novel's "tone, language, and story belong in children's literature" while the latter called ''The Goldfinch'' a "children's book" for adults. ''The Sunday Times'' of London said that "no amount of straining for high-flown uplift can disguise the fact that ''The Goldfinch'' is a turkey"; ''The Paris Review'' stated, "A book like ''The Goldfinch'' doesn't undo any clichés—it deals in them," and ''The Guardian'' called it "overlong and tediously Potteresque."

The novel was 15th in the decade-end list of ''Paste'', with Josh Jackson writing, Literary fiction' can sometimes be code for 'lightly plotted,' but every so often a book comes around that is as engagingly told as it is beautifully written. Donna Tartt's ''The Goldfinch'' is such a novel." Ema O'Connor strongly criticized the portion in which Theo is outside of New York, but lauded the first hundred pages highly and chose the book as one of the decade's 24 best: "It's a crime novel, an art history thesis, an LGBTQ coming-of-age story, and a meditation on toxic masculinity all wrapped up in 976 pages." Patrick Rapa of ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' listed it as one of the decade's 20 best. Kakutani listed the book as one of the greatest of the 21st century as part of a poll by Vulture, arguing, "In the hands of a lesser novelist, tsdevelopments might feel contrived, but Tartt writes with such authority and verve and understanding of character that her story becomes just as persuasive as it is suspenseful."

European reception

''The Goldfinch'' was described as "a great bewitching novel" by ''Le Monde'' and "masterful" by ''Télérama''. Belgian weekly magazine ''HUMO'' called it the "book of the year," while ''Le Point'' enthused that " mic and tragic, cruel and tender, intimate and vast, ''Le Chardonneret'' is one of those rare novels that require cancelling any social obligation." Tartt herself was praised as "a novelist at the top of her art" by ''Le Journal du Dimanche'' and as a "writing magician who is generous with detours, reflections and characters" by the news website ''NU.nl''.

The Dutch newspaper ''de Volkskrant'' printed a five-star review and called it "a ''Bildungsroman'' written in a beautiful and often scintillating style. ... A rich novel and an impressive reflection on sadness and solace. And about the crucial, timeless role of art therein". '' De Limburger'' ''Cutting Edge'' also gave it a five-star review and suggested that Tartt had "written the best novel of 2013. It will completely blow you away." Their sentiment was echoed in ''De Telegraaf'', which argues that ''The Goldfinch'' is a "rich, very readable novel", as well as in ''Financiele Dagblad''s assessment that "Donna Tartt is an extraordinary writer and ''Het puttertje'' is a beautiful and rich novel." Another Dutch newspaper, ''Het Parool'', sums it up as a "beautiful, exciting novel, filled with fascinating characters."

Other Dutch reviews were more mixed in their reception. ''NRC Handelsblad'' rated the book two out of five stars, writing that it was "like reading a twenty-first-century variant on Dickens", with the characters being "cliché" and not fleshed out. ''Vrij Nederland'' and ''De Groene Amsterdammer'' were also critical, arguing that the book was too drawn out.

Awards and honors

''The Goldfinch'' was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014.

Amazon selected the novel as the 2013 Best Book of the Year.
It was shortlisted for 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award. It was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for 2014. The book was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the editors of the ''New York Times Book Review''. In 2024, it was ranked 46th in the ''New York Times'' list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, and 4th on the list of readers picks.

Sales

The novel spent over thirty weeks on the ''New York Times'' bestseller list in the U.S. and on the ''Sunday Times'' hardcover fiction bestseller list in the UK. It attained the number one position for Editions Plon in France in January 2014, and in Italy the novel reached number ten on the list of bestsellers. It was a number one bestseller in Finland in June 2014 and in Germany, ''The Goldfinch'' reached number two on the ''Der Spiegel'' bestseller list.

Film adaptation

John Crowley directed a 2019 film adaptation for Warner Bros. and Amazon Studios. Ansel Elgort and Oakes Fegley share the main role of Theo, and Aneurin Barnard and Finn Wolfhard share the role of Boris.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldfinch, The
2013 American novels
Little, Brown and Company books
Novels set in New York City
Novels set in the Las Vegas Valley
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction–winning works
American bildungsromans
Novels set in Amsterdam
American novels adapted into films
Novels about museums
Novels set in museums
First-person narrative novels
Novels about alcoholism
Metropolitan Museum of Art in popular culture