Hey, what’s up guys? Today, we are going to review one of the best books by Donna Tartt. She is famous for the epic novel “The Goldfinch,” which was released in 2013. This story is about the hurdles of Theo in his life after his mother died in a bomb explosion.
I went through this book 2 years ago and a second time two weeks ago, so why don’t I share it with you guys? Before reading this novel, I will tell you everything you need to check if the book is for your type or not by covering the book’s summary and highlighting the main characters. So, let’s start without wasting time.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt Overview:
This is the story of a boy named Theo, whose mother died in a bomb explosion in an Art gallery. Before she died, she liked a painting of Goldfinch, but at the same time, the bomb exploded, and everything collapsed. When he went home, he took the painting with him and started waiting for his mom, but after some time, he realized that her mom had died and would not come back to him.
He went to stay with his friend as no family member remained with him. There were only grandparents who did not have the strength to grow him up and take care of him. Before the bomb explosion, he saw a girl named Pippa and fell in love with her. Her father also died there.
In the art gallery, men, before passing, give a ring to Theo and tell him about his business so he can return this ring. One day, he thinks of replacing it when he goes to his business, where they sell old things. He returned the ring, and he saw Pippa staying there. He started the company with Hobie. Police began arresting the people who stole the paintings from the art gallery that day. Theo returns the painting to the police, gets a cash reward, and starts his new life.
Age Rating:
This is a suspenseful, romantic, sad, and thriller novel. This novel includes pure love among different characters and is for older adults and teens; anyone can go through this.
Main characters:
Now, we meet the important characters of this novel from chapter one, which are the following:
Theo: He is the protagonist of this novel, and he tells his story from the first-person viewpoint.
Theo is 13 years old, and now Theo, who is in the present, is 22 years old. He goes back ten years and narrates his story from there.
Audrey Decker: She is Theo’s mother and a very caring mother.
Lord Acker: He is Theo’s father and is a very charming man, but he is an alcoholic, and his relationship with his wife and son is not good. He also beats his son quite often.
Hobie Joe: He has a business and a partner named Welty Blackwell, so they have a company called Hobart and Blackwell where they sell old antique things.
Pippa: She is Theo’s first love. Her father died in a bomb explosion.
Andy Barbour:Â He is Theo’s friend and his classmate.
Naman Silver: He is a blackmailer; he blackmails Theo’s father.
Sandra: She is Larry Dekker’s GF, the girlfriend of Theo’s father.
Kitsey Barbour: She is the sister of Andy Barbour, Theo’s friend.
Plot summary:
It’s morning time. One day, Theo and his mother hurry out of their small Manhattan apartment because they have to meet with Theo’s school principal because Theo has been suspended from school. Theo’s mother is very upset by this; she books a cab and quickly leaves for school, but in the cab, Theo’s mother has motion sickness and car sickness, and she decides to walk to school, but as soon as she gets down from the cab, it starts raining.
She goes to a nearby museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, so she can return to school when the rain stops. There is an exhibition there. Some paintings of the Dutch Golden Age from that time are kept in that museum. There is a painting made by Carel Fabricius, and Theo’s mother likes that painting very much.
But now she has to go to school, and she is getting late, so she starts descending the stairs to the museum. Anyway, Theo wants to stay there because there is a girl named Pipa. He becomes very engaged in seeing her; hence, he likes Pipa. She has come to that museum with her Uncle Welty, but suddenly Now, Thio’s mother comes down the stairs, and Thio remains upstairs; there is a bomb explosion.
Theo is very shocked by this bomb explosion, and he starts leaving in a hurry when suddenly he sees a man on the floor who has suffered a lot of injuries and is about to die. And he forcefully puts a ring in his hand and tells him the name of his business before he dies, whose name is Hobart and Blackwell.
Now, before he dies, he tells him the name of his business. What Theo does is that as the person dies, there is Pippa with him, the girl whom Theo was staring at. He cannot see that girl, so he picks up The Goldfinch painting from there.
Theo quickly goes back home from that museum because he is in shock due to the bomb explosion. He thinks his mother will return home, but it does not happen. He understands that his mother has died now. Because Theo’s father is not there with him, his mother has died, and his grandparents are unable to take care of him.
He goes to the house of his classmate Andi Barbour. Now, the Barbour family is very wealthy, and they give Theo a stay in their home. Theo is also happy with his family, but the sorrow of his mother’s death does not diminish from his heart. He packs that goldfinch painting and keeps it, which means there are a lot of tapes on it. So that he can keep it secure and he does not even unwrap it; he keeps that painting with him in the memory of his mother.
| Publisher | Little, Brown |
| Publishing Date | First published September 23, 2013 |
| Language | English |
| Pages | 864 Pages |
| Series | The GoldFinch |
| Literary awards | Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2014), Audie Award for Literary Fiction (2014), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction (2013), Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) Nominee for International Book (2014), Women’s Prize for Fiction Nominee (2014), Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction (2014), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2013) |
| Characters | Boris Pavlikovsky (The Goldfinch), Theo Decker, Pippa, Hobie |
| Settings | Amsterdam (Netherlands), Las Vegas, Nevada (United States), New York City, New York (United States), Upper East Side, New York City, New York (United States) |
| ISBN-10 | 0316055433 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0316055437 |
Meanwhile, what does he do that the guy who has given him that ring and tells him the name of his business. He visits that business at Hobart and Blackwell, and after going there, he returns that ring. Then he comes to know that antique furniture or antique things are sold and restored in this business.
Now, Welti’s partner business is Hobie. He and Theo become good friends. Pipa, Welti’s niece, is staying with Hobie; he is taking care of Pipa. There again, Theo sees Pipa, but she is traumatized due to the bomb explosion, is in shock, and has many physical injuries. So, she is in the process of healing her. Theo has fallen in love with Pipa, but their relationship does not progress much.
Before this, Hobie sends Pipa to his aunt’s house in Texas. Later, whenever Theo comes to meet her, he sometimes sees Pipa there. So Theo and Pipa meet. Meanwhile, the Barbaur family decides to adopt Theo, but then Theo’s father arrives from somewhere, and he takes Theo with him and goes to Las Vegas. Now, in Las Vegas, Theo meets Zandra, who is Theo’s father’s girlfriend. Theo starts a new life in Las Vegas.
There, he meets Boris, a Russian immigrant. Boris and Theo have one thing in common: both have the same background. Both of their fathers are alcoholics, and their father beats them a lot, so both of them have gone through childhood trauma.
Boris’s mother has also died, so their friendship becomes very deep. Both of them spend all the time together; Theo is the one who keeps the goldfinch painting hidden all the time; ever since he picked it up from the museum, he keeps it packed away, and he takes care that it should not fall into anyone’s hands. He does not know what to do with that painting. He does not even feel like leaving that painting because that painting is somewhere the last memory of his mother.
Theo and Boris spend all their time together in Las Vegas, sometimes drinking alcohol and taking drugs, and by taking these drugs, they try to change what is happening in their lives. Loneliness is their loneliness or the love that no one has given them, so they must forget all that. Theo notices that there is a person who comes to the house daily and blackmails his father many times and asks where Larry Decker is, so he does not understand what has happened and why this guy is coming back to the house again and again. Theo’s father says to him one day that you have your trust fund, which you believe was kept in a college savings account.
Please take out a big amount from it and give it to me by talking with your lawyer as Theo is innocent, he doesn’t understand, he talks to his lawyer, and he says that he wants a large amount from it, but being the lawyer, he refuses. Theo’s father has taken some money from Naman Silver and cannot return it, so Naaman Silver starts blackmailing him; then Larry does not get money from Theo’s Trust. He tries to run away by car and causes an accident. Now, he is completely alone; there is neither father nor mother. He takes his neglected dog with him and leaves for New York City.
From Las Vegas, he goes to the door of Hobie’s business partner. Hobie welcomes him much later, after eight years. He also becomes a partner. Theo thinks of doing a scam without telling Hobie. He starts selling the valuable antiques, passing them off as originals, but he starts selling that painting in his journey. Even after a few days, the GoldFinch is seen reading somewhere in a newspaper that something has happened. People who stole the paintings in an explosion have been arrested. This process is still going on, so as soon as he reads the news, he gets scared; he takes a storage locker on rent and keeps this painting in it.
His fake antique pieces business is still running. He has sold some such fake antique pieces to a guy named Lucious Reeve. He starts blackmailing Theo because he sold him the fake antique piece, he says I know you have the masterpiece called the goldfinch if you want me not to tell your business partner, Hobie, about this whole scam of yours, that you sell fake antique pieces as originals. So you give me that painting which is there, then Theo refuses this, says that he does not have any such painting, and denies this thing further.
One day, Theo learns that his classmate Andy Barbaur’s father has died due to drowning. He is quite shocked and goes to meet the Barbour family again.
Reconnects and begins a relationship with Andy’s younger sister, Kitsey, and both get engaged. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Boris stole Theo’s Goldfinch painting when he was in Las Vegas. He goes and checks his painting, and in the storage, he sees only a textbook. It is wrapped, and there is no painting; Boris stole it when Theo was in Las Vegas. Now, when he asks Boris about it, Boris says that he was using that painting as collateral, meaning in drug dealing, when you buy something, if you do not have money. You give him something in return for a few days unless you can return the money; he uses that painting as collateral.
Boris feels very bad that he did this to Theo and decides to bring that painting back. He tells Theo a plan. Due to this, both of them decide that they will get that painting back. Now they meet a Horst who is an art dealer, and he tells them where that painting is and how he can meet them before he goes to Amsterdam because the Horst has said to him that the painting is in Amsterdam, so before he goes to Amsterdam, what he does go and meet Kitsey.
But at that time, Kitsey is with another man; he suspects that Kitsey is having an affair with someone else. He asks Kitsey if it is so, and Kitsey says that yes, she is having an affair with someone else.
Kitsey requests Theo not to break this relationship. Actually, Theo also loves Pippa from his heart, but the relationship between Pippa and Theo cannot move forward.
The reason for this is that Theo and Pippa have experienced the same experience of the bomb explosion, and those bitter memories do not go away from the hearts of both of them.
The second thing they have in common is that they have no one of their left in this world; Pippa also has no one; she also has to go here and there.
Neither of them has their own home, which they can call their own, so the relationship between them becomes strong because of these bitter memories. However, a romantic relationship does not develop because those memories are fresh whenever they see each other. Hence, Pippa is not very interested in taking that relationship forward.
So Theo quickly leaves with Boris because he has to return the painting to Amsterdam. At the airport, Marty is there. He is Horst’s art dealer; he is a close friend of Horst, and he has told the address of that painting. But not so easily. Meanwhile, Horst dies. In all this, Horst has already passed, so to avenge his death, Martin goes after both of them.
Now, a shootout happens there, and what happens in that event is that Theo’s friend Boris gets shot in the shoulder; and Theo kills Martin, then Theo and Boris run away. Theo stays in the room in Amsterdam and is now a drug addict and has suicidal thoughts in his mind. After two weeks, Boris took that painting back and approached the authorities with the painting. The painting was returned to the authorities, who rewarded him with a lot of money.
And he has given half of the money to Theo.
Theo comes back to New York City, and he meets Hobie. He tells Hobie that he used to sell the old fake antique things by calling them originals. After this, Hobie tells him that all the things you have sold are fake antiques, buys them back by saying original, and repeats this business, which we must restore. It almost takes a soul to collect all those fake antique things.
My Review:
This is one of the best books I have gone through. The sections in this novel are amazing and creative, and the suspense is great. The way the author represents us with the character is outclassed. Every character is linked with others very well without storming our minds. The writing style of this novel is pretty good compared to other books. The character I like the most is Theo, who is the character of this novel.
Everyone is important, but he is more. The way he tried to find the painting by making the plan was amazing if there had been no shootout at the airport. I liked the book, and I recommend you guys read this before you read other novels. Don’t leave this pending.
Conclusion:
Overall, this Book is exciting and thrilling, with a small amount of romance, which keeps the readers reading. The suspense increases as the new chapter arrives. This novel encourages the readers to read next. The Book includes the story from a teenage age till a young age. This Book should be read by every person who likes suspense and thriller novels. So, if you are one of them, go through this most epic novel as soon as you can. Just grab the Book, start reading in your free time, and enjoy the story.