1. Plot

2. Reception
    European reception 

3. Awards and honors
    Sales 

4. Film adaptation

5. References

6. External links

The novel is a coming-of-age tale told in the first person. The protagonist, 13-year-old Theodore Decker, survives a terrorist bombing at an art museum where his mother dies. While staggering through the debris, he takes with him a small Dutch Golden Age painting called The Goldfinch. It becomes a singular source of hope for him as he descends into a world of crime.

The painting is one of the few surviving works by Rembrandt's most promising pupil, Carel Fabritius. (Almost all of Fabritius' works were destroyed in the Delft explosion of 1654, in which the artist himself was killed.)

Plot

The Goldfinch is told in retrospective first-person narration by Theodore "Theo" Decker. As a thirteen-year-old boy, Theo's life is turned upside down when he and his mother visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see an exhibition of Dutch masterpieces, including a favorite painting of hers, Carel Fabritius' The Goldfinch. There, he becomes infatuated with a red-headed girl who is accompanied by an elderly man. However, a bomb explodes in the museum, killing his mother and several other visitors.

In the rubble, Theo encounters the old man, Welton "Welty" Blackwell, who gives him a ring and delivers an enigmatic message before dying. Believing that Welty is pointing at The Goldfinch, Theo takes it during his panicked escape. Theo moves in with a school friend, Andy Barbour, and his wealthy family in their elegant Park Avenue apartment. He carries out Welty's last wishes and returns the ring, becoming friends with James "Hobie" Hobart, Welty's partner. He also briefly encounters the red-haired girl, Pippa.

Theo's life is disrupted when his deadbeat dad, Larry, arrives with his new girlfriend, Xandra, and whisks him away to Las Vegas. Theo secretly takes the painting. In Las Vegas, Theo makes a new friend, Boris, the cosmopolitan son of a Ukrainian émigré. The two boys, who both have absentee parents, spend most of their afternoons drinking, smoking marijuana, and using other illegal drugs. After gambling himself deep into debt, Theo's father gets drunk and dies in a car crash. Theo decides to return to New York. He packs his things, including the package containing The Goldfinch, and leaves. With nowhere to stay in New York, he heads to Hobie's, who welcomes him and give him a place to stay. Pippa, now enrolled in a school for troubled teens in Switzerland, is visiting on break.

The narrative then skips ahead eight years. Theo has become a full partner in Hobart's antiques and furniture-repair business. He has concealed The Goldfinch in a storage unit because he is afraid of being accused of theft. He is still in love with Pippa, but she is living in London with a boyfriend. He is engaged to a childhood friend and they are planning to marry. Over the years, he becomes addicted to prescription medication and saves Hobie from bankruptcy by selling fake antiques. One of the buyers attempts blackmail, believing Theo knows the whereabouts of the painting.

Theo is racked by guilt and fear over the fakes and The Goldfinch. Boris reappears in Theo's life, now a wealthy man on the proceeds of various dubious unspecified activities. To Theo's astonishment, Boris reveals that he had stolen The Goldfinch from Theo while they were in high school; the painting has since been used as an object of barter by various criminals and dealers. Boris feels guilty and has devoted himself to recovering the painting and returning it to Theo. At Theo's engagement party, Boris suddenly appears with a plan to return The Goldfinch. They fly to Amsterdam to meet with the dealers who are holding the painting, upon which Boris and his associates promptly steal the painting from the dealers, dragging the shocked Theo with them. However, the plan goes awry when armed henchmen confront Theo and Boris. In the resulting conflict, Boris is shot in the arm and Theo fatally shoots Boris's shooter, while a boyfriend of one of the dealers escapes with the painting.

Boris disappears, leaving Theo in his hotel room, where he drinks and takes drugs, afraid that police will discover him. Unable to return to New York, he feels trapped and contemplates suicide. After several days, Boris returns, and reveals that he has saved the situation by phoning the art recovery police to inform on the dealers. Not only has the painting been saved for the museum, but Boris has received a huge reward, which he shares with Theo.

After arriving in the United States, Theo travels the country, using the reward money to buy back the fake antiques from various customers. In a lengthy reflection, Theo wonders how much of his experiences were unavoidable due to fate or his character. Finally, he contemplates The Goldfinch and of "the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire".

Reception

Critical reception of the novel was mixed.^[3] Early on, the trade publications Kirkus Reviews and Booklist both gave the novel "starred" reviews.^[3] Booklist wrote, "Drenched in sensory detail, infused with Theo's churning thoughts and feelings, sparked by nimble dialogue, and propelled by escalating cosmic angst and thriller action, Tartt's trenchant, defiant, engrossing, and rocketing novel conducts a grand inquiry into the mystery and sorrow of survival, beauty and obsession, and the promise of art."^[4]

In mid-2014, Vanity Fair reported that the book had "some of the severest pans in memory from the country's most important critics and sparked a full-on debate in which the naysayers believe that nothing less is at stake than the future of reading itself".^[8] James Wood, book critic for The New Yorker, argued that the novel's "tone, language, and story belong in children's literature".^[8] The London Review of Books called The Goldfinch a "children's book" for adults.^[8] The Sunday Times of London said "no amount of straining for high-flown uplift can disguise the fact that The Goldfinch is a turkey."^[8] The Paris Review said: "A book like The Goldfinch doesn't undo any clichés—it deals in them."^[8]

European reception

The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant printed a five star review and called it "a Bildungsroman written in a beautiful and often scintillating style. […] A rich novel and an impressive reflection on sadness and solace. And about the crucial, timeless role of art therein".^[12] De Limburger^[13] Cutting Edge^[14] also gave it a five-star review, and De Limburger suggested Tartt had "written the best novel of 2013. It will completely blow you away." ^[13] Another Dutch newspaper, Het Parool,^[15] sums it up as a "beautiful, exciting novel, filled with fascinating characters". Belgian weekly magazine HUMO^[16] called it the 'book of the year,' and the news website NU.nl praised Tartt as a "writing magician who is generous with detours, reflections and characters".^[17]

Other Dutch reviews were mixed in their reception. NRC Handelsblad rated the book two out of five stars,^[18] writing that it was "like reading a twenty-first-century variant on Dickens", with the characters being "cliché" and not fleshed-out.^[19] Vrij Nederland and De Groene Amsterdammer were also critical, arguing that the book was too drawn out.^[20] De Telegraaf argues that it is a "rich, very readable novel".^[21] This is echoed by Financieele Dagblad{{'}}s assessment that "Donna Tartt is an extraordinary writer and Het puttertje is a beautiful and rich novel".^[22]

Awards and honors

Amazon selected the novel as the 2013 Best Book of the Year.^[24]

It was shortlisted for 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award^[25][26] and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.^[27] It was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for 2014.^[28] The book was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the editors of the New York Times Book Review.^[29]

Sales

The novel spent over thirty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list^[30] in the U.S. and on the Sunday Times hardcover fiction bestseller list in the UK.^[31] It attained the number one position for Editions Plon^[32] in France in January 2014^[33], and in Italy the novel reached number ten on the list of bestsellers.^[34] It was a number one bestseller in Finland in June 2014^[35] and in Germany, The Goldfinch reached number two on the Der Spiegel bestseller list.^[36]

Film adaptation

References

External links

• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt on Goodreads.com

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