The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt is her third novel written in 2013 after a long gap of eleven
years, in 2002 she published The Little Friend. The Goldfinch won her Pulitzer
Prize of 2014 and some other honors as well.
It is a coming-of-an-age
story where the author has shown the psychological and moral growth of the
protagonist from youth to adulthood. The protagonist is a young (13 years) boy
Theodore Decker, known as Theo. His life takes an unprecedented turn when he goes
with his mother to visit an art museum in New York displaying Dutch masterpieces.
There bomb
explosion takes place, his mother dies and many other people. In a nervous
state he encounters a mysterious old man who gives him a message and a ring. Theo
wakes up dazed and bereft, while staggering to save his life, in total chaos,
misunderstands the old man’s message and then picks up the Dutch golden age
picture called The Goldfinch, a rare work of Carel Fabritius. From there on
Theo takes a different life and often broods about his past life, especially
loathes his father who leaves them a year before the explosion. The character
transformation that is shown in this book through Theo is remarkable. Theo
himself doesn’t know that the two items that he has taken from the museum at
the bomb site are going to change his life forever.
Tartt let us
experience love and grief, in compelling voyeurism, as we stay with Theo and
see him cry, see him hold back his tears, see him fight and see him feign
normalcy. Like her other two works, Donna Tartt is an exemplary creator of the
less-than-ordinary male protagonist - they are never the smartest guys in the
room and they never quite land the girl, yet they are so extraordinarily
humane, with a heart that makes more mistakes than the head.
Her style is
so extravagant and gleaming, with the backdrop of austerity in circumstances
and setting, that the blend turns out deeply immersive. This book is a must
read.
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