The Goldfinch. My review.

The Goldfinch is a painting by Carel Fabritius from the 17^th century. You should gather some information about it to better understand and enjoy the novel. It’s a really impressive art piece, totally unusual for its time; simple, plain and yet so enigmatic and beautiful.

The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius

I will start with the novel’s narrative. Despite being a rather lengthy book, the Goldfinch is easy to swift through. The writer made a good job keeping the story always interesting and making readers want to find out more about the main character’s adventures, much in the way Daniel Brown does (though slightly inferior in my opinion). There are indeed slow, somewhat boring passages, but they’re rather few.

I like classic, 19^th or early 20^th century novels and reading this totally recent book made me realize why: old novels have the magic that it feels like you’re listening to people from another time age; classic books are like time traveling in a way. They make me realize how different life was. Things we take for granted, like cars or telephones, didn’t exist at all. Reading how people back then communicated or traveled never fails to amaze me. Contemporaneous books lack this charm. And it is hard for me to seize their value. Like political or historical heroes, it is only after a time that the true dimension and grandeur of a literary masterpiece can be fairly appreciated. 

There is also the question between movies and books. I like both, but I believe some stories are more suitable for reading and others for watching. Being the writing style a major aspect for me to evaluate in a book, a contemporaneous book with an interesting storyline, like the Goldfinch, is in my opinion better enjoyed in a movie theater. In short: the story being told is interesting, but the literary value gained by reading is not that high.

The story flow is straight. The first 30 pages are so charged of events and emotions that you just want to keep reading. They are surprising, unexpected, thrilling, heart-touching, sad. And it goes on in this fashion throughout the book. However, the more pages you are into the book, the less I liked the main character. At first I felt compassion for him, and admiration for holding up so well after such a great loss. He seems to be a down-to-earth young boy, but this image is deceiving, as I discovered later on, and the dislike grew so much that, at the end, I didn’t like him at all.

I don’t like the image portrayed by the author that drugs and alcohol are not really that bad, and that you can succeed anyway; that money comes easily; that fooling is alright. Another thing I don’t like is that Theo, the main character, doesn’t want to progress in life, he’s stuck there, waiting for things to just work out on themselves. Surely losing his mother is a great loss, I totally understand that, I would like that to happen to me at all, it’d be the worse, but, to honor my mother, I would try my best to succeed, to show the world that she raised me well, to make her proud of me up there in heaven.

The story as a whole goes quite well until about page 600, with events that could totally happen in real life. And then there is a sudden twist. A sudden turn to surreal and unlogical and cheap Hollywood-ish ending, with guns, gangs, clueless police. Why in the world did he have to go to Amsterdam? How did he allow to be convinced so easily? Why all so sudden? I had the impression the writer wanted to just wrap up his novel, realized she had no more time (maybe her train was departing) and switched from a reasonable narration into a hurried, fictional and impossible series of events. I felt she wrote the first 500 pages in 1 year and the rest in 2 hours. Or that she wrote the first 500 pages herself and delegated the last ones to a teenager on the street.

The last 10-20 pages are a real masterpiece though. They are powerful and so charged with meaning. It definitely makes you analyze your own life and gives you good energy vibes. I can only recommend them.

As to the Boris character, I think it was exaggerated so that it made him seem a tiny bit unreal. If you are picky enough, you can find incongruences in his life story, there are things he couldn’t have done at the mentioned times.

Hobie is by far my favorite character. He is humble, genuine, very honest and has a huge heart. In real life he might be a little bit boring; I wouldn’t go out to a party with him, but definitely a good friend to rely on.

Another good thing: the idea of having something hidden that no one should see, otherwise you would get into trouble. I had the same feeling as a child, of course I hid no treasures, but still.

In short: first 500 pages or so, nice story, enjoyable, amusing, good quality. Pages 500 to 10 pages before the end: lame, forced ending. Last 10 pages: magnificent reflections! Life lessons! I would have to underline them all. I would definitely read them again and again. As a whole, however, I definitely enjoyed reading the book.