The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

This novel is the perfect example of how a traumatic event in your life can change the trajectory of your future for good and for bad.  The story of Theo and the Goldfinch painting is a parallel of how we are bound to an event, like tragedy, and how we cannot escape it unless we set ourselves free.  In the final pages, Theo reflects and says: “if I could go back in time I’d clip the chain in a heartbeat and never care a minute that the picture was never painted (page 765).”

The explosion, the painting, the guilt, the bad relationships and Theo’s addiction were his chains.  All of the negative elements stemming from that final moment with his mother seem to be that catapult from which everything bad would continue to plague him.  But was it really the explosion that cast the spell?  Theo was being suspended from school and his parents were separated.  Maybe the explosion propelled and set into motion all the negative things that were going to happen to Theo…the literary “fork in the road.”

A big part of this book was based on relationships, good and bad.  Theo seemed to have people in his life that were either trying to help him and love him or he had those that were doing him harm.  The main source of negative relationships started with his father.  How could a parent be so conniving and narcissistic at the expense of their own child?  But on the opposite side of the spectrum, you have strangers (Hobie and the Barbour’s) who love and protect Theo just as his mother would have.

Now for Boris, he was the good and the bad all together.  He was Theo’s only friend after Andy.  Boris took care of him but he also fueled the additive nature in Theo.  Boris stole the only thing that Theo valued after his mother died.  Boris got Theo into trouble as a teenager and as an adult.  Boris was extremely influential on Theo’s life and seemed to “appear” when life seemed bleak.  I’m still not sure how I feel about Boris.

I thought this book was very well written.  The characters were fully developed and had depth to them.  There were just a few characters like Kitsey and Platt that never truly revealed their intentions but maybe that was the point since they were peripheral characters.  It was a long book and I really felt that there were some lengthy periods that might not have needed so much attention but overall I enjoyed reading this.  It dealt with the desperation of tragedy in an honest and real approach.

Do you feel that fate brought Theo and Welty together in order to lead Theo to Hobie?

What was the purpose of Theo marrying Kitsey?  Why did Kitsey want to marry Theo and not Tom?

What were Platt’s intentions?  Did he have an ulterior motive?

Do you think that Mrs. Barbour always loved Theo?  Why did she seem so cold when he came to live with them?

After the tragedy of his mother’s death, why did his father, Mr. Barbour and Andy have to die?  What was the significance in those deaths?

Why was Hobie so understanding and accepting of Theo’s lifestyle?  Was Hobie just a loving “dad”?