A
former pupil of Rembrandt, Fabritius is regarded as a lost genius; barely a
dozen of his works survive following the 1654 explosion in the Delft gunpowder
Arsenal which killed hundreds of people including the young artist. One
painting, often acknowledged as his masterpiece, is an exquisite tiny oil of a
goldfinch, chained lightly by the ankle to its metal perch, affixed to a
wall.
As
with Fabritius’s own sudden demise, The Goldfinch opens with catastrophe: an
explosion at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, where 13-year-old Theo Decker and
his mother have dropped by to see an exhibition of the Dutch Golden Age. She is
killed in the disaster, her last words to her son seem prophetic: “I guess that
anything we manage to save from history is a miracle.”
Theo’s
coming-to in the wintry stillness of the bombed-out galleries, his fear,
disorientation and claustrophobia, the still lifes on the walls staring glassily
down on the dust and rubble-covered scene, is a shocking opening to the
book.
Initially
Theo stays with ultra-polite, wealthy Manhattanites the Barbours, the family of
a nerdish school friend. He also meets and develops a sort of father-son
relationship with Hobie the partner of the old man in the museum, and a lifelong
romantic affection for Pippa who also survived the explosion. After a few months
his estranged alcoholic gambler of a father, accompanied by the lovely Xandra,
abruptly whisks him to the parallel universe that is Las Vegas, where at first
Theo’s only companion is a yapping miniature dog. Later he meets Boris, the boy
who will become at the same time both his best friend and worst nightmare and is
the character who brings a much needed element of black comedy to what would
otherwise have been unrelieved blackness.
When
his father dies while fleeing his creditors Theo runs away back to New York and
becomes Hobie's business partner. This goes well until some shady characters
find out that he has been passing off restorations as original pieces of antique
furniture. Then Boris turns up to say that he had taken the Goldfinch from
Theo's hiding place and lost it while using it as collateral in drug deals. They
go to Amsterdam, kill some baddies, rescue the painting and claim the insurance
reward which Theo uses to buy back the mis-sold antiques and so protect Hobie's
good name.
The
novel concludes with several pages of high-minded whimsicality along the lines
that the deathlessness of a work of art can make the keenest losses more
bearable. THE END!
Almost
everyone enjoyed parts of the book. Most people's favourite sections were the
explosion at the beginning and the gangster bit in Amsterdam at the end. There
were mixed feelings about the schooldays in Vegas with Boris, but the years in
New York through his twenties dragged a bit. The characters were all well drawn
and interesting but the story could have been shorter. At the end of our
discussion we were left with one big outstanding question:why did the silly boy
take the painting in the first place?
Marks.
Average 7
Range 6-8
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