Theo Decker is in major trouble!  The principle called his mother and they have an appointment with him this very morning and Theo is sure it will mean suspension at the very least and maybe even more if they have found out what he has really been doing.  His mother, who has been struggling since his dad left, doesn’t need this added pressure and as she drags Theo along to go to their appointment, he is surprised and a bit relieved when she suggests that they wait out the rain in her favorite place, the Metropolitan Museum, before going on to the school.  As they wander through the galleries, Theo’s mother points out a small painting of a goldfinch by Fabritius, which she says is one of her favorite paintings.  But Theo is distracted by an elderly man and a girl who are in the gallery, and as his mother chatters on about the painting, Theo keeps on checking out the girl.  Eventually it is time to go and his mother decides to stop by the gift shop to get a birthday gift for her boss and tells Theo to meet her at the front door of the museum in a few minutes.  Taking this opportunity, Theo begins to follow the girl who caught his eye and then suddenly there is an explosion that rips through the gallery and Theo is knocked to the ground. When he comes to, there is smoke and debris everywhere and he recognizes the old man on the ground not too far away, alive, but in considerable pain.  As Theo watches over him the man gives him his ring, and an address to take it to, and then tells him that he should take the The Goldfinch which is lying on the ground next to them for safe keeping.

After the explosion Theo’s life is never the same, and he comes to imbue the painting with the power of a talisman, a marker for what his life was before and what it is after the explosion. As he navigates his life in the aftermath, living with a family of one of his friends and then with his father and then back again to New York, Theo struggles to find meaning and purpose to his life and the painting becomes a a burden, a secret and a symbol of bad choices.  Boris, Theo’s friend, a wonderful character whose exuberance and skewed moral compass becomes the counterpoint to Theo’s fearful, and judgmental way of looking at life tells Theo, “What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?” For Theo, these words offer some glimmer of hope as he struggles with how to release himself from the power of his mistakes and to live more fully in the present.

Tartt has written an excellent book, which although long (p. 755) is peopled with richly developed characters, wrestles with important questions of who we are and why we matter and creates a sense of  urgency with her pacing so that you are certain that you can see the train wreck coming even as you resist and don’t want it to happen.  Theo grabs your attention and although initially his tragedy is heartbreaking, Tartt does a good job in tracing his life as he grows up and matures, so that in the end we see a fully developed person, who although still feels the ramifications of what happened to him as a boy is still able to say:    

That life—whatever else it is—is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 Stars out of 5) 

Recommend this book to: Keith, Sharon and Marian

Book Study Worthy? YES!

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