Review of "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt - Richly Deserving of The Pulitzer Prize for Ficiton

Like the fine work of art that is at the heart of this novel, Donna Tartt's masterpiece, "The Goldfinch" benefits from being viewed both from near and from afar.  I rapidly plowed through the first half of the story of Theo Decker and his life after a terrorist bomb in a New York museum changed his prospects forever.  I then slowed my pace of reading and took time to linger over the growing complications of his life.  I followed his physical and emotional pilgrimage from living with the rich but emotionally distant guardians, and then being dragged to the outskirts of Las Vegas to subsist with his alcoholic father and the father's self-absorbed girlfriend.  An unlikely best friend enters into the picture in the person of Ukrainian-born Boris.  Theo's saga now enters the world of drugs, of the Las Vegas underworld, of physical abuse and neglect, and of seemingly endless peregrinations

When his father dies unexpectedly, he returns to the Greenwich Village furniture store that had served as his second home after the bombing.  Pippa, a fellow victim of the bombing, had become the love of his life - although that love was returned only in the form of friendship.  Pippa's guardian, Hobie, becomes a surrogate father to Theo and teaches him the trade of restoring rare antique furniture.

All the while, Theo harbors a secret - that in the confusion following the museum bombing, he has taken a rare painting of a Goldfinch, which becomes a talisman he is reluctant to let go of.  The fate of that painting and its impact on all of those touched by it makes up the bulk of the plot of the second half of this novel.

On top of the intricate plot that she weaves for almost 800 pages, Ms. Tart treats with a long list of themes:

• The nature of family
• The nature of loyalty and friendship
• The role of art in private and public lives
• Growing up amid tragedy and chaos
• Living in a world of monetary privilege and emotional poverty
• The source of personal identity
• Is that such a thing as one true love?
• How does one grieve irreplaceable loss?

Part of her genius as a writer is that Ms.Tartt has created characters whose fates I was deeply interested in - even those characters that were largely unlovable.  She is richly deserving of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Enjoy!

Al

Review of "Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame" by Ty Burr

I love Ty Burr's writing and his deep insights.  So when I learned that he had written "Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame" I immediately ordered the book.  When it arrived, I placed it in the queue on my "To Be Read" shelf, and there it sat for far too long.  Each time I would reach for it, another title near Burr's book would whisper to me: "Shouldn't you be reading something IMPORTANT - history, biography, a classic novel, a business book?"

I finally pulled the book from it place on my shelf and dove in.  I am sorry that I waited so long.  This book is IMPORTANT.  It is not a fluff piece about Hollywood, but a reasoned examination of the arc of stardom and fame from the Silent Film era to the era of Selfies and Twitter.  It is also a very well thought-out philosophical examination of the nature of identity.

As always, Mr. Burr writes with artistry and clarity.  His prose is beautiful and provocative.

Here is a sample to help to convince you of the truth of what I aver:

"Here, in the end, is the revelation that all of stardom works to deny, the dirtiest and  most unfathomable secret . . .It's that identity itself is the grandest illusion of all.  What if the sum of who we are is not a magical inner seed that only fame or self-actualization can cause to bloom?  What if we're not all the things we wish for or blog or project, but simply the actions we take for ourselves and for others - our marks upon the waking world?  What if we are what we do, not the other way around?  Stardom is the best dream we've yet invented, a luxurious fantasy of the fixed self.  The question we need to ask ourselves is how long we want to keep sleeping, and what we'll dare to do when we finally wake up." (Page 352)

Enjoy!

Al