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Book Review - "The Goldfinch"
Friday, July 25, 2014 at 8:28AM Book Review
“The Goldfinch” - by Donna Tartt
771 pages - Little, Brown & Co.
Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur
When you pack a ton of material between the covers of a novel, the sheer volume, and range of emotions can become noteworthy in itself.
Trouble is, in “The Goldfinch” what Donna Tartt tries to pass off as a ‘…who would have thought it…’ ending is one we have assumed for five hundred pages. The result is downright insulting to the reader.
This is as unforgivable as a Dave Letterman routine wherein he implies (in the comic’s authoritarian way) that he’s just said something extremely funny – and what’s the matter with us? Don’t we realize we should be laughing?
True, Tartt absolutely nails the essence of the narrator as a little boy … but the ‘kid’ in her protagonist still dominates when he’s an adult, exposing the author as rather one-dimensional … a literary ‘one trick pony.’
And the boy’s memorable friend (boy’s … youth’s … man’s) — a Russian – speaks satisfyingly in typical Slavic idioms some of the time … and sometimes not. Example: “I don’t know what happened to you. But I can say that what happened to me is at least five thousand times more.” is immediately followed by “This has been one for the books.”
Now, the latter sentence would have been pleasing but for inclusion of “the” — which should have been excised by any copy editor at Little Brown worth his salt.
It’s the sort of thing that occurs hundreds of times throughout the book … to the point of distraction.
I am not a fan of the impressionist style of writing (my word). For example: at one juncture successive paragraphs lead with the spare, “Black birds.” … “Act of rebellion.” … and … “Bottle of chilled white in the mini-bar.”
I usually conclude (maybe unfairly) that writers who employ this technique throughout a work are plain lazy.
But can the author of a book totaling (by my estimate) a quarter million words be termed a laggard?
Absolutely! Conciseness in writing requires far more industry than does any presumptuous piling-on of verbiage.
Donna Tartt apparently figures that if she empties her whole bag of goodies before us, we’re bound to find something valuable among the detritus of countless hard drug episodes and teenage angst.
I did. But one night’s investment would have given me the same return that seven did.
Award-winning Smithtown writer Jeb Ladouceur is the author of eight novels, and his book and theater reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. In Ladouceur’s next thriller, “Harvest” due in late summer, an American doctor is forced to perform illegal surgeries for a gang of vital organ traffickers in The Balkans.
Reader Comments (2)
The 'Times' reviewer (Stephen King) said of 'Goldfinch' ... "Just don't drop it on your foot" ... swiping the quip from an earlier Jack Beatty critique of Michener’s 'Chesapeake.'
In fairness, King pre-states that crack with ... "Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."
Thank you for this review. It has been on my list of to-reads for awhile now and I've been avoiding it. Your review gives me permission not to read it--which is a gift. (A few years back I was trudging through THE HISTORIAN and one of the people working for me said that she thought it was one of the worst books she had ever read and didn't know why she finished it. At that point I was about four hundred pages in and miserable; her saying that gave me permission to go home, remove the bookmark, and give the damn thing away.)
JS