Not long ago I was having a philosophical conversation with a friend about the existence of idolatry for today’s Christians. (I know, pretty deep.) She stated that most Christians in the U.S. today do practice some type of idolatry, though not necessarily consciously. When pushed, she explained that idolatry is anything that is given priority in your life over God.
As an example, she asked me how many hours I had spent in the last week reading fiction books. Between time in the car listening to Audible books, lunch hours at work and commercial breaks during Saturday College Football games, I bet I read around 8 – 10 hours a week. Then she asked me how much time was dedicated specifically to God, whether prayer, worship, study, volunteerism or services. On my best weeks, I’m probably clocking in a little over half of the hours I regularly dedicate to books. While I don’t “worship” books or authors, it was clear where my priorities were and it was a great eye opener for me.
I was reminded of this conversation every day that I listened to the lines of The Goldfinch: A Novel
12 year-old Theo was in big trouble. He had been caught hanging with a kid who was smoking on school grounds and now was facing suspension pending a parent/teacher conference between his mother and the school principal. With the weather turning and his mother’s car sickness getting the better of her in the back of a stinky NYC cab, the duo decide to hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to wait out the rain during their commute to the school.
While there, a bomb explodes at the museum and Theo is separated from his mother. While searching for her among the rubble and bodies, he runs into an old man he had observed chaperoning a young girl his own age. The man is badly injured and Theo stays with him until he passes. His final words were to give Theo a ring on his finger and point out the painting, The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, asking him to take both back to a person of his past.
Unable to find his mother, Theo takes the painting and the ring and follows his mother’s emergency plan to meet back at home. By the time he reaches his silent, empty apartment, Theo knows that nothing will ever be the same. Not only is his mother gone, but he has unwittingly become an art thief.
We follow Theo over the years as he is bounced from home to home. His first home is that of his nerdy friend, Andy from school. The Barbours are a wealthy, high-society family and look to Theo as another charity project. Regardless, soon Theo begins to fit into the family dynamic. Then his dead-beat father shows up and whisks him away to Las Vegas, NV. If the Barbours had nurtured Theo’s goodness, love of art and intellectualism, his father and the people he meets in Vegas nurture his addictive personality, depression and criminal tendencies. Eventually, Theo’s father also passes away and he uses the opportunity to take off for New York City where he talks his way into rooming with a friend of the old man from the museum, Hobie.
Everywhere he goes, Theo desperately clings to The Goldfinch painting. Even locked in an art-storage locker on the Upper East Side, Theo cannot go one day without obsessing over it and the fact that deep down inside he’s nothing more than an art thief.
As an adult, Theo runs into an old childhood friend from Vegas, Boris, who is now some sort of international crime lord. Over a reunion dinner, Boris confesses that when Theo left Vegas for New York, Boris was in possession of the painting. He has switched the painting with a text book of similar size and weight a few weeks before Theo’s father had died. In fact, using the painting as collateral, Boris had financed his more lucrative endeavors as a young man to get him to the criminal status that he was today. But the painting had been stolen from him as well and now he needed Theo’s help to get it back.
At this point the book takes you on an international crime rollercoaster in which art stings, gun fights, drug-induced hallucinations and criminal behavior run rampant. It’s hard to explain without giving a lot away, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.
By the time that Theo returns to New York City, it’s obvious that it’s time to face his past and make amends for his criminal behavior beginning with Hobie, the father figure who had entrusted so much to him when he showed a knack for the antiques business. And somehow, the painting needs to be dealt with.
Donna Tartt is an amazing author. It’s no wonder that The Goldfinch was a 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winner and is now being adapted into a movie. It’s full of twists and turns as we see Theo’s ultimate fate unfold before our eyes. The characters from Mrs. Barbour, to Andy, to Boris and Theo’s father are so vivid and colorful. The story itself takes you in directions you would never expect. It’s amazingly complex and yet has us wanting more and more every time. I especially enjoyed the Audible version as each character was given their own voice and cadence (audibly) and I think it added even more to the richness of the story. I honestly think this book is on its way to becoming a classic novel that multiple generations will read and appreciate.
What modern books have you read and think are destined to become classic literature one day?
