After Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is the another more than 500 page novel I have read in the span of 15 days which I normally never do.

The book is written in the first person and the thoughts of the protagonist Theo runs from one trail of thought to another. Sometimes it is so confusing whether it is thought or realty.

I started reading the novel with expectation that the plot would revolve around the painting Goldfinch and sub plots supporting the main plot. But it was other way round.

The story started with Theo loosing his mother in a bomb blast and he was forced to live with his father whom he never trusted and loved. The painting was only referred sometimes with no role to play even when I have half completed reading the book.

Verdict: I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed reading the book.

The summary or plot of The Goldfinch is as follows

The author of the classic bestsellers “The Secret History” and “The Little Friend” returns with a brilliant, highly anticipated new novel.
Composed with the skills of a master, “The Goldfinch” is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity.
It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
“The Goldfinch” is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher’s calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.
courtsey: BAM