Is Donna Tartt's THE GOLDFINCH a great novel?

Honest question from a person who hasn't read the novel but is interested in doing so in the near future: Is Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch a great novel?

I know it won the Pulitzer Prize. I know it received positive reviews from both critics and reviewers. I know it's hailed in some circles as an heir to the best of Charles Dickens's novels. But the polarized reception everywhere makes me a bit anxious with regard to reading it.

Some high-profile literary voices such as James Wood and Francine Prose panned the novel. A lot of readers complain about how they didn't like the book or how it needed a good edit because it was too long.

So I have some questions: Is this book really great and worth my time? Did it hold up since it released? And did it deserve the Pulitzer Prize? And will this go down as a modern classic of the 21st century?

Seems like you've already done your due diligence in researching pro and con reactions to the novel. Can anyone else offer better answers to your questions than you've already found? At this point, I'd say you're stalling. :).

In the end, nobody but you can decide whether you'll like the book or not, so just crack the thing open and start reading. If you like it, keep reading. If not, stop.

^ thanks brah. I intend on reading it

The short answer is that The Goldfinch is an engrossing and often moving novel and well worth reading. It's probably about 100 pages too long, but that didn't bother me when I read it. Tartt has the narrator keep blabbing well after the plot has wound down. I enjoyed the ideas (s)he was rambling on about. I love long books, though. If you're not used to them, this one may be a challenge. Just set your mind to reading it, don't worry how long it takes, and enjoy yourself.

The slightly longer answer is that part of reason for the "bipolar" reaction you mention is that she is a reclusive character (rumored for a while to be dead) who has sometimes suffered "bad vibes" with the publishing world by not playing the celebrity for their promotion purposes (the industry wants hot authors, not aloof intellectuals); and by keeping notebooks for years without submitting a draft for publication (hence the rambling at the end of The Goldfinch). A small number of academic elites have joined the fun, too, because they certainly never gave her leave to act like she was above the system--who does she think she is, J.D Sallinger or someone?

As an example of how it all works together, the opinions I just mentioned were not widely reported until Tartt refused to do a feature piece on The Goldfinch for Vanity Fair; so Vanity Fair came up with an article about the divergence of reviews instead. It was a rather hand-wringing piece--oh how unfair of academia to say these things!--but it got the things said, and you and I came to hear about them, unfair or not. Business is business. (And to readers who couldn't make it through a long book like The Goldfinch, such reports are eminently face saving).

Personally I think that comparisons between Tartt and Dickens are largely facile. The Goldfinch has more in common with Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, a book it often references, than with David Copperfield or Oliver Twist (Boris is more Rogozhin than the Artful Dodger). But Tartt is very much sui generis. One of the supposedly cutting criticisms of The Goldfinch was that it is a children's tale for adults. I'm not sure I disagree with that, nor am I sure Tartt would. In a way, her ability to write like that is her gift--and likewise for Dickens.

If you get a chance, read The Secret History, too. It is not as artistically mature as The Goldfinch, but it is funnier and just as much fun to read. Long books become short books when you are having a good time. Enjoy!

^ interesting.

I have been hearing about how The Goldfinch was too long and needed editing. I guess that may be so if one wanted to make a more "perfect" novel. However, many of the greatest novels are arguably "too long" (War and Peace, Les Miserables, The Brothers Karamazov, etc.) and I think that excess is not a vice. I haven't read Goldfinch yet, so I have yet to make a case as to whether the excess is bad or not, but I think that in the attempt to condemn excess I think people fail to realize the goodness or even greatness of excess properly done.

Perhaps it may very well be less flawed with less pages, but I would venture to say that "less flawed" doesn't always mean "greater."

Perhaps not. But I think Calidore has the pertinent point: quit stalling and start reading! :)

Or if The Goldfinch seems too intimidating, try The Secret History. That's a college story, though, so if you're younger than that (sorry, I forget) you should stick with The Goldfinch for now. They're both a lot of fun.

^ I am 16. When I get me to a bookstore, I will search for The Goldfinch. I already have the Ebook for The Secret History

Good luck with it. Like I said, stick with it and don't worry about how long it takes to get through. I'll be happy to talk to you about it as you read. I really think it's great that a teenager's got the pluck to do this. Let me know how it goes! :)

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

(And to readers who couldn't make it through a long book like The Goldfinch, such reports are eminently face saving).!

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yes because the only reason someone would give up on a donna tarrt book is the length

When I read the above about The Goldfinch winning the Pulitzer and being compared to Dickens, I almost fell off my chair. Let me tell you all why.
In the early 1980s, I was a student at Bennington College. As some of you may know, Bennington had a reputation for producing great and famous writers, among other things. (Bret Easton Ellis was a classmate and acquaintance of mine and, while he may not be a great writer by any means, he wrote and published Less Than Zero while we were there and it exploded onto the scene and made him a celebrity overnight.)
I stayed at Bennington through two of the summer breaks to take writing workshops, one of the things the school was famous for, because their reputation enabled them to bring some heavy hitting authors to the school to teach these intimate (twelve people in a group, maybe) workshops in which you'd get to bring in your work and have it read and critiqued by these authors as well as your fellow students. Which brings me to my tale about Donna Tartt.
I didn't know her personally, but at a school of only 600 students, everyone sort of knew everyone, at least a little, by name or association, and she was in one of these workshops I was in. I remember her as this very quiet, pale, red-haired girl who I always saw hanging around with the same one friend, another very quiet dark-haired girl who was also in the workshop.
So, the day came when the rest of us had all brought in our works in progress and now it was her turn. She brought in two finished chapters of something she was working on which would become The Secret History. The author leading the workshop responded to it very differently than to any of ours, telling Donna it was "word perfect", that she shouldn't change anything and even offering to show it to her agent. A couple of years later I was sitting in front of the tube on evening, and there was Donna on Charlie Rose, talking about The Secret History.
So while I'm not entirely shocked by the reaction to The Goldfinch, given all this and the response to The Secret History, The Pulitzer...I mean, **** me. ;-)
And here I end my tale, and prepare to drink myself into a stupor sufficient to believe my own bullcrap about my actually being an undiscovered genius who could have achieved all the same as Donna Tartt and received the same accolades, but who simply *chose* not to. :-0

While reading *'The Goldfinch', I came to wonder just how far literary standards have fallen.
It is not a great book, there is nothing great about it; not the prose, plot, characters, thematic resonance.. it explores (in excruciating depth) pedestrian emotions that will only resonate with pedestrian readers. I could not finish the book. Goodness knows how bad the last half is.
I read more than my share of trash, but I know it's trash and I know the difference between trash and treasure. 'The Goldfinch' is a preposterous story; great fiction deals in the truth, and 'The Goldfinch' cuts corners and when not cutting corners... it is profoundly tedious and boring.

*I was loaned the book by my next door neighbor, who I thought had better taste in literature.

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Originally Posted by Tyrion Cheddar

When I read the above about The Goldfinch winning the Pulitzer and being compared to Dickens, I almost fell off my chair. Let me tell you all why.
In the early 1980s, I was a student at Bennington College. As some of you may know, Bennington had a reputation for producing great and famous writers, among other things. (Bret Easton Ellis was a classmate and acquaintance of mine and, while he may not be a great writer by any means, he wrote and published Less Than Zero while we were there and it exploded onto the scene and made him a celebrity overnight.)
I stayed at Bennington through two of the summer breaks to take writing workshops, one of the things the school was famous for, because their reputation enabled them to bring some heavy hitting authors to the school to teach these intimate (twelve people in a group, maybe) workshops in which you'd get to bring in your work and have it read and critiqued by these authors as well as your fellow students. Which brings me to my tale about Donna Tartt.
I didn't know her personally, but at a school of only 600 students, everyone sort of knew everyone, at least a little, by name or association, and she was in one of these workshops I was in. I remember her as this very quiet, pale, red-haired girl who I always saw hanging around with the same one friend, another very quiet dark-haired girl who was also in the workshop.
So, the day came when the rest of us had all brought in our works in progress and now it was her turn. She brought in two finished chapters of something she was working on which would become The Secret History. The author leading the workshop responded to it very differently than to any of ours, telling Donna it was "word perfect", that she shouldn't change anything and even offering to show it to her agent. A couple of years later I was sitting in front of the tube on evening, and there was Donna on Charlie Rose, talking about The Secret History.
So while I'm not entirely shocked by the reaction to The Goldfinch, given all this and the response to The Secret History, The Pulitzer...I mean, **** me. ;-)
And here I end my tale, and prepare to drink myself into a stupor sufficient to believe my own bullcrap about my actually being an undiscovered genius who could have achieved all the same as Donna Tartt and received the same accolades, but who simply *chose* not to. :-0

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You were Judy Poovey, weren't you? ;-)

ajvenigalla: Another problem with Tartt's reception was created by a rave review that Stephen King wrote about The Goldfinch in The New York Times. It gave many Stephen King fans the idea that the book was, you know, Stephen King, when it's obviously nothing of the kind. That makes for some ugly blowback from time to time, but to each his own.

Anyway, in case you're interested, here are a couple posts I wrote about Tartt--mostly about Secret History--on the Modern Classics thread (and here's the whole thread: http://www.online-literature.com/for...r-New-Classics)

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Donna Tartt is a sentimental favorite. I read The Secret History when it came out, not long after attending a somewhat similar school. I reread it this year and noticed all the hilarious black comedy I missed when I was a dumb kid and mostly interested in the thriller aspect. The Goldfinch was about a hundred pages longer than it needed to be, but I loved its prose and didn't care. I like Tartt herself, too: the way she ignores the publishing world (and it's marketing machine) for decades at a time, then comes back after everyone's forgotten about her. I appreciate her limits as a writer, though, even if I like the way she bucks post-modern theory. If her books survive at all, it will be because the people love her and not academia.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

As far as Donna Tartt goes, I reread The Secret History this year (I hadn't read it since it came out) and got all the black comedy I had missed as a kid. The epilogue, which I remember finding long and anticlimactic the first time, was particularly hilarious. There was also a relatively minor character named Judy Poovey--a promiscuous airhead--who I found unnecessary and irritating on the first reading (the type was an all too fresh memory from college at the time). It turns out Judy Poovey is a riot--although strictly as a lampoon. That's why she is always turning up unnecessarily: she's comic relief. Judy Poovey is now my favorite character from The Secret History. And her section in the epilogue is the funniest part of the book.

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^ thanks Pompey

Bump.