I will admit now that I haven't finished the book - it was much longer than I anticipated (reading on a kindle hard to judge length, when you don't have the physical wedge of paper in front of you), the final 3rd of the book wasn't discussed in much length. Difficult to review in one short paragraph as the length of the book and the convolutions in the tale make it hard to precise but I will try.
The book opens with a gripping epilogue as the main protagonist, Theo Decker, sits in a Dutch hotel, scanning a Dutch newspaper, looking for mention of his name as he has murdered someone....the story then starts. How did this happen? Slowly through the narration: starting with the death of his mother in a terrorist explosion at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, his survival, his theft of a piece of art The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius on the instruction of a dying old man - the picture remains a totem throughout the book and the life that Theo lives as a consequence of the death of his mother. I won't give a full precis of the story, but Donna Tartt's prosaic descriptions of the loneliness and isolation that the boy experiences, his wonderfully anarchic friend Boris, crystal clear prose with elegiac descriptions of scenery, people and situation are all beautifully evoked. One review I read mentioned that each third of the book was supposedly written in a different style: florid Dickensian, Kerouacian and sparse modern - but we didn't spot that!
The discussion about the book wasn't so much, I liked it, I didn't like it - we all liked aspects of the novel, some more than others. The length of the book was a difficulty for many (which is why so many people didn't come to the meeting). In this age of instant gratification and short attention span, perhaps the concentration required to carry the storyline and characters and nuances of story in our minds is difficult, our busy lives intrude so much on our mind time. Having said that we all enjoyed it, even though it wasn't an easy read.
Words used to describe it:
too long, compellingly drawn characters, captivating storytelling, elegiac tome.
Marks out of 10 between 6 and 8.5.
Next Book
Jumping the Queue by Mary Wesley (an easy read after this last one)
although we nearly chose
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
Next Meeting
Thursday 13th March
72 Kingwood Road
8.00pm
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