After encountering James Woods scathing review of Donna Tartts The Goldfinch in The New Yorker (October 21, 2013), I almost took the novel off my to-read list. There are actors some good ones, too, well known and less so. The above represents my attempt to convey to you, without taking up too much of your time because we barely know each other and I see your eyes darting over to the review of the Jennifer Lopez stripper movie what its like to watch The Goldfinch, John Crowleys earnest and utterly flummoxing adaptation of Tartts 2013 book. "The Goldfinch" is not about ideas or capturing the zeitgeist, and some of the most important characters are little more than caricatures. Subscribe to OregonLive. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Hey! It's about story. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). All rights reserved (About Us). Pulitzer Prize or no, The Goldfinch is a fundamentally and massively flawed book. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review ). 2021 Advance Local Media LLC. No? New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani liked it, calling it "Dickensian," but a handful of other taste makers, namely James Wood of The New Yorker, Lorin Stein of The Paris Review and author Francine Prose have called the writing shoddy, citing Tartt's use of clichs as the main offender. And using his spittle to bring up the grain on the mahogany is very much what he learned hands-on himself. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Imagine youre at a party a fancy, catered thing with hors doeuvres floating by on trays and golden light suffusing a vast, elegant room. The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Oct 22, 2013. by Donna Tartt. So you come around on Hobie when he is actually beginning to handle the furniture and touch it. Thats why we set up that shot between those two chairs and end with the pair of them framed between them. So this idea of touching the antiques. It's a big book with a lot going on in it, but its influence is not Dickens, not really, but movies. The thing is, many other critics pointed out the same flaws that Prose, Wood and Stein noted -- but they loved the book anyway. The let-the-masses-decide ethos of the Internet era is indeed making the sophisticates bitchy. People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump?". ". It was good however. Review: The Goldfinch Is a Stolen Opportunity The only achievement in transferring Donna Tartts The Goldfinch from page to screen is that its a botch job for the ages. The light grows dim. Here, at this moment, he is literally passing on in a tactile fashion how to recognize what is real or authentic piece of period furniture, as opposed to a reproduction one. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). You run into someone you sort of know, maybe someone from college or an old job or who used to date a former roommate. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review ). Here's how she finished the paragraph: "'The Goldfinch' far exceeds the expectations of those of us who've been waiting on Tartt to do something extraordinary again, ever since her debut novel, 'The Secret History,' came out in 1992. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Other people you recognize drift toward the conversation then, wisely, retreat from it. Denis OHare. Upon finishing this well written and deeply affecting novel, I returned to Woods review and found it spiteful, gratuitous, and, most of all, dead wrong. ", Plus, it's full of clichs and other crimes of the everyday, mediocre writer. Admit it: you didn't sip your tea, re-cross your legs and luxuriate over the prose. It sold more than a million copies -- and more are selling as you read this -- and won the Pulitzer Prize. In many ways, The Goldfinch approximates what we normally think of as a movie. Over the summerVanity Fair magazine set out to discover why the backlash against "The Goldfinch" was so forceful and sustained. Our literary standards were at stake. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). (Because see the other girl, the one hes engaged to, is the sister of the kid he lived with after his mother got killed in the bombing, and then her mother. "Its tone, language, and story belong in children's literature," wrote The New Yorker's critic, James Wood. You kept going, going, going, as if someone were about to snatch the book from your hands, which someone probably was -- your spouse or your best friend or your office mate, whoever had claimed dibs on it when you were done. Jeffrey Wright brought such a gorgeously tactile quality to this scene, which I think he spotted in the expert who came in to talk to him about the antiques. As acclaimed screenwriterWilliam Goldman puts it in "Adventures in the Screen Trade," his classic book about Hollywood: "There is no time in a screenplay where we can lose them. Snooty critics are supposed to dump on popular entertainment. Will people be reading it 100 years from now? Wood expanded on his opinion for Vanity Fair: "Tartt's novel is not a serious one -- it tells a fantastical, even ridiculous tale, based on absurd and improbable premises. So, see, the bird is actually a painting of a bird, and theres this kid named Theo. The Goldfinch spent more than 40 weeks as a New York Times bestseller, with critics at both The New Yorker and London Review of Books likening it to a children's story. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. And so perhaps the backlash was inevitable. That glow thats hundreds of years being touched, used. We also have added in a piece of music, which is embedded into the background there a piece by a Zydeco accordion player called Boozoo Chavis which has a sort of warmth to it and is not like the musical identity of any other part of the film. Tartt needed an editor to cut out a lot of the repetitive detail (Like several other reviewers, I too found myself page skimming -- sometimes the detail is fascinating, oftentimes it's unnecessary and just slows down the story.) "Everyone was saying this is such a great book and the language was so amazing. Grown-up Theos face is remarkably smooth. Kirkus called it an exemplar of "the literature of disaster and redemption" -- an unofficial genre that, by definition, is all about story. It's about story. " Please support high-quality local journalism. How will Theo get out of the latest untenable situation he's gotten himself into, and how will he grow up to become, to steal Wolfe's title phrase, a man in full? I felt I had to make quite a case against it," she said. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. When it won the prestigious Pulitzer in April, some literary observers simply could not sit back and observe any longer. There is much more to wonder about, beyond the basic what-why-and-how of the story. So said the critics at some of the most important literary journals in the land: The New York Review of Books, the Paris Review, The New Yorker. Clutching what must be the evenings third or fourth glass of Champagne, this person excitedly tells you about staying up all night to finish The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, which is the most amazing book. All at once and in succession. And these criticisms of the novel -- "fantastical," "clich-ridden," "coincidence-laced" -- didn't rise up only after "The Goldfinch" jumped to the top of the bestseller lists. 13-year-old New Yorker Theo Decker's life is turned upside-down when his mother is killed in a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It looks and sounds like a movie without quite being one. At nearly 2 hours, The Goldfinch asks a lot of its viewers, and gives precious little back in return. Donna Tartts best-selling novel gets a long, lavish adaptation, starring Nicole Kidman and Ansel Elgort. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. , Hours pass. The Goldfinch was conceived with a dark Amsterdam and New York mood. NPR's Maureen Corrigan called Tartt's plot"jumbo" and "coincidence-laced." Its more like a Pinterest page or a piece of fan art, the record of an enthusiasm that is, to the outside observer, indistinguishable from confusion. the magazine asked in its July issue. [INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]. It's almost entirely about story. But for our purposes here, let's stick to "The Goldfinch": will it be remembered -- should it be remembered -- as 2014's book of the year? John Crowley narrates a sequence from his film, featuring Oakes Fegley and Jeffrey Wright. It's making us cheap punks -- that's not who we are! There is furniture. Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission. The relentlessness of the plot was something the poobahs of literary criticism could latch onto. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt review The story of a boy who loses a mother and gains a painting, Donna Tartt's longawaited third novel is an astonishing achievement Donna Tartt: I didnt read the book so the movie didnt make a lot of sense. My 13 year old came and saw it. They just cant, given two and a half hours of the viewers time, quite manage to explain why. The Goldfinch far exceeds the expectations of those of us who've been waiting on Tartt to do something extraordinary again, ever since her debut novel, The Secret History, came out in I should say that I admire the novel, a best seller and a Pulitzer Prize winner, though not as much as I like Tartts others, The Secret History and The Little Friend. And its clear that Crowley (director of the lovely Brooklyn) and the films screenwriter, Peter Straughan (of the risible Snowman), also admire it. It was as if the Nobel Committee had declared"The Bridges of Madison County" the greatest novel of all time. Probably not. The Goldfinch Review: Strictly for the Birds Donna Tartts best-selling novel gets a long, lavish adaptation, starring Nicole Kidman and Ansel Elgort. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review).Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. To be honest, it sounds kind of interesting. Mainstream publishers these days send off advance copies not just to established professional critics but to amateur book bloggers and Goodreads members. For one thing, technology continues to shrink our attention spans, and it's hard to see that train being called back into the station. Have you read it? Theo, a New Yorker whose mother is killed by a bomb at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who goes to live with a patrician family on the Upper East Side and then with his no-account father in the Nevada desert, who befriends a furniture restorer and a Russian latchkey kid, who takes a lot of drugs and treasures the tiny 17th-century Dutch painting he snatched from the rubble at the Met, who attempts suicide in Amsterdam and occasionally resorts to voice-over, is played as a boy by Oakes Fegley and in early manhood by Ansel Elgort. There are fake antiques (not like totally fake, but not strictly authentic either), drugs and drug dealers, terrorism and romance. That would be a strange thing to say about a 700-plus-page novel, but it describes "The Goldfinch" pretty succinctly. When Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch was published in 2013, The New Yorker 's James Wood scathingly dismissed it as "a virtual baby." Donna Tartt's"The Goldfinch," published late in 2013, was the novel everyone wanted to talk about this year. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review ). It's almost entirely about story. Ryan Foust. She enjoyed it a lot but I did think it can be overwhelming for immature kids. 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. But even if "The Goldfinch" doesn't stand up there in the literary stratosphere with the best of Joyce and Fitzgerald and Faulkner, so what? ), My name is John Crowley, and Im the director of The Goldfinch. So in the scene, we have young Theo who is played by Oakes Fegley, who is in Hobie, who is played by Jeffrey Wright, in Hobies basement workshop, which is a place that restores antiques. It begins with a boy. Hell, I feel like I've been waiting for a novel like this to appear not only since I read 'The Secret History,' but also since I first read 'David Copperfield.'". Not everyone was quite so "The Goldfinch" is not about ideas or capturing the zeitgeist, and some of the most important characters are little more than caricatures. The chief complaint about the novel is that it represents itself as serious fiction but really it merely mimics serious fiction. Does he never shave, I found myself wondering, or does he shave all the time? The Goldfinch Review: Strictly for the Birds. I Prose has been accused of being unnecessarily nasty in her review, but she later insisted she had no choice but to put the knife in deep. Stephen King called it "a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind." ( 33,714 ) $13.99. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. "Nowadays, even The New York Times Book Review is afraid to say when a popular book is crap," Paris Review editor Lorin Stein told Vanity Fair. The bar shimmers like a mirage on the horizon. And moving from there around to the side was all about which is the key piece of information thats moving forward. The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. The Goldfinch is a brilliant story with memorable characters and most of the book is incredibly well done and fun to read. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). "Most" being the operative word. "No novel gets uniformly enthusiastic reviews, but the polarized responses to 'The Goldfinch' lead to the long-debated questions: What makes a work literature, and who gets to decide?" Fall in love or be asphyxiated." Will "The Goldfinch" stand the test of time? The book-industry magazine Kirkus Reviews, which publishes reviews before books hit shelves, wrote that the "symbolic echoes Tartt employs are occasionally heavy-handed, and it's a little too neat that Theo discovers the work of the sublime Dutch master Carel Fabritius, (himself) killed in a powder blast, just before the fateful event that will carry his mother away. There had to be a response. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. The story of teenaged Theo Decker -- who survives a terrorist bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while losing his mother in the attack, and walks off with the real-life 1654 Carel Fabritius masterpiece, The Goldfinch -- is a sprawling, Dickensian novel, with larger-than-life characters, dark deeds, surprising twists and, in the end, an emotional kick to the gut. The market is deciding more than it ever has before. Perhaps Aaron Sorkin -- through actor Judd Hirsch -- said it best inthe premiere episode of his failed 2006 series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip": "There's always been a struggle between art and commerce, and now I'm telling you, art is getting its ass kicked, and it's making us mean, and it's making us bitchy. Readers around the world agreed. Offered Francine Prose in The New York Review of Books: "Reading 'The Goldfinch,' I found myself wondering, 'Doesn't anyone care how something is written anymore?' with the late Norman Mailer insisting that reading it. Willa Fitzgerald. Whats up? Well-mannered soul that you are, you have nodded and smiled and tried to pay attention through various tangents and emendations as your friend leads you through a thousand pages worth of plot. Rated R. It takes a lot of drugs to get through this. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old N Who gets to decide: that, of course, was the crux of it. If its too even, like, here. So this one is fake. Well, no, its only fake if you try to pass it off as an original. The idea of the doubles is very important in the scene. Will anyone be reading 700-page books in the next century? A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). Confused in the rubble of the tragedy, he steals a priceless piece of art known as The Goldfinch. Because movies keep going, going, going -- it's not like a novel where you can go back and reread a section or a paragraph.". Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. And for now, at least, that's enough. Time was, a handful of critics decided. Thank the gods I didnt. Now the great unwashed do so. The younger version is said to look like Harry Potter his Russian pal, Boris (Finn Wolfhard, then Aneurin Barnard), calls him Potter but he put me more in mind of a miniature George Will. Vanity Fair, in its excellent essay, veers away from "The Goldfinch" to tackle the question of who actually determines what serious literature is. There are themes and feelings, like loss and grief and the love of beauty and the pleasures of taking drugs, smoking cigarettes and looking attractive. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). Sarah Paulson. review of the Jennifer Lopez stripper movie. Aneurin Barnard, above left, as Boris and Ansel Elgort as Theo in The Goldfinch, an adaptation of Donna Tartts best seller. Yet it all works." As Kirkus Reviews points out, it works. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. His adored mother is killed. Those in the crumbling citadels worry about their influence -- and about the ever-accelerating dumbing-down of our tastes, the chipping away at our standards. "The Goldfinch" won the Pulitzer Prize in April -- which infuriated some critics. A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). There is music. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your California Privacy Rights (each updated 1/1/21). The novel, Tartt's third, soared through the winter and spring on a frenzy of love, not just dominating bestseller lists but also award shortlists. At one point it goes off on a hilarious tangent about how literary lions responded to Tom Wolfe's hugely hyped second novel, 1998's "A Man in Full,"with the late Norman Mailer insisting that reading it was like having sex with a 300-pound woman: "Once she gets on top it's all over. (Oh but before he went to Amsterdam with the guy he knew from Nevada. (Good ol' Norm, always the charmer.) Stephen King, New York Times Book Review " The Goldfinch is a book about art in all its forms, and right from the start we remember why we enjoy Donna Tartt so much: the humming plot and elegant prose; the living, breathing characters; the perfectly captured settings.Joy and sorrow exist in the same breath, and by the end The Goldfinch hangs in our stolen heart. But there seemed to be something more at play here, something deeper. BOOK REVIEW: 'The Goldfinch' Follow Us is a 13-year-old New Yorker who survives a terrorist bomb in a museum. According to best-selling phenomenon Stephen King, who reviewed it for The New York Times Book Review, The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half Jeffrey Wright. But like those dodgy antiques changelings, as their maker supposedly calls them this film is inauthentic without being completely fake. Running time: 2 hours 29 minutes. The Goldfinch would have been better as a mini-series, in which the writers and actors could really take the time to flesh out its clown car of characters. Nicole Kidman. then its reproduction. Its the kid learning in action and being surprised and slightly delighted that his hands actually feel what Hobies pointing out to him. And the movie fails because it only exacerbates the flaws that were already there in the source material. ) Finally you are released into the night air, drained and bewildered, wondering what that was all about.