The Goldfinch

I really wanted to like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. People I know and like read it and, frankly, raved about it. It won the Pulitzer Prize for goodness sake! And I couldn't even bring myself to finish it...

The Goldfinch opens with the grown-up Theo Decker on the run in Amsterdam. The reader knows he's in some trouble - too nervous even to venture to the lobby other than in the dead of night. How did this happen? Theo begins his story where all good tales begin: at the beginning. And in the beginning, Theo Decker is 13 years old and the victim of a bomb attack that kills his mother and leaves him, essentially, orphaned. From here the story becomes, frankly, evermore unlikely and, frankly, bizarre.

The biggest issue for me is that I simply could not connect with Theo - or any of the other characters - on any level. I became annoyed with the ceaseless pages of descriptive minutiae that did little to move the story along. I mean, it's not like I didn't try: I read over 400 pages of this book. And I'd waited for months to get a copy from the library. But with nearly 400 more pages to go, I simply couldn't do it.

Browsing through the reviews on GoodBooks, I found some sage advice I wished I'd stumbled on 300 pages earlier: "To anyone wondering if they should still read this book, since reviewers are so divided (e.g. you either LOVE it or HATE it): by all means, YES. Read it! But: if you find you are hating it within 100 pages, just put it down and walk away. Because it won't ever get better for you (Really. do as I say and not as I do: Put. It. Down.)." If only I'd known...