The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

There are two halves of this story. One is a half of grief and trauma. Of secrets and lies, debts and thefts. It is a dark, winding road into rooms with no windows. It is being chained in an inescapable corner. The other half is of friendship and love, trust and belonging, and unmistakably, of art and truth. Layer upon sparkling layer of golden paint. Finding the way back.

Thirteen year old Theo stands quietly at the center of this story. He is haunted by a lingering sense of doubt. What if? What if he'd never stepped foot into the museum with his mother that rainy morning? What if she'd been standing a few feet away from the gallery before it exploded? What if they'd been a few minutes early or a few minutes late? The premise of senseless destruction that Tartt opens with is pointedly distinct from the moment of beauty that it was supposed to be: a young woman admiring a painting. This painting, The Goldfinch, becomes the eye around which all the storms of Theo's life rage.  His mother's death marks the beginning of unsettling times for Theo, living with strangers, anchorless in an unfriendly world. But through every upheaval, the painting is the thing that he latches on to, the metaphorical light at the end of the infinite tunnel. 

Over time, his desperate longing for a second chance with his mother makes it seem as though he is numbed to any other sensation, watching mutely like audience as his life passes him by. But as he grows into himself, he meets people that he is fated, almost, to have profound connections with, and his depth of feeling gleams through in his relationships with them. It is tragic, and yet refreshing, how the author painstakingly changes Theo, with every person he meets, and loves, and loses. I suppose it starts with Welty, who passes Theo at the edge of life and death, and changes everything forever. Hobie, the closest thing Theo has to a parent, under whose care and indefatigable optimism he finds an oasis ; Pippa, his muse, undying, obsessive, unattainable love; Andy, his friend, succour in the tumult.

But his bond with Boris is easily the most enigmatic; deeper than he understood, and probably meaning more to him than he could admit to himself. Boris showed him what it meant to be wild and free, and to dream. He brought Theo out of his shell, and floundering, together, they learnt how to laugh.

Perhaps the most poignant narrative that this story establishes is man's relationship with art: the unearthly wonder of still life speaking different languages, over centuries and over generations. A painting is, to some, a flood of memories from childhood, and to some it is a sigh of relief, grand placebo, the joy of possession.

"I hear only too well what's being said to me, a psst from an alleyway, across four hundred years of time, and it's really very personal and specific... Paint is paint and yet also feather and bone. "

Tartt is quite the painter herself, blurring the boundary between word and image. She builds pictures of Christmas eve in Amsterdam, holiday cheer ringing vacant in the ears of a murderer. Late nights, words said and forgotten. Glorious intoxication and laughing the days away, forgetting what it feels like to be afraid. Hour after hour of working with wood, lines of veneer hiding its age. What makes this book truly unforgettable is this phantasmagorical imagery, meaning pouring out of words, waiting to burst through the cracks. Isn't that, after all, what real art is?