I was reading The Goldfinch with such eagerness! In the beginning, I had doubts that I will read the book till the end (the book published by Litera has 1108 pages!), but the small painting’s story really captivated me, it’s that kind of book which will not let you sleep, eat or do anything else than reading. I’ve finished the book in almost two weeks. The book was realized in 2013, is the third novel written by Donna Tartt and was awarded Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2014. The Goldfinch is an impressive novel about art and love, about longing for lost people and sadness, about survival and fate. Theo Decker’s story is a thrilling retrospect narration.

Theo Decker is a thirteen years old teenager living in New York, who miraculously survives an explosion in the Art Museum. Following this incident, his mother dies. After the tragic event, knowing not so much about his father who abandoned him when his parents separated, Theo has to live with the rich family of a good friend, Andy Barbour. Impressed by his new home on Park Avenue, not finding himself among the classmates and especially tormented by longing for his mother, Theo cling to what was reminding him the most of her: the favorite painting of his mother, the one which he took from the museum after the explosion, urged by an elderly man, seriously wounded. He had met the man in the museum, shortly before the explosion, accompanied by a girl with red hair, Pippa, with who Theo falls in love. His name was Welton (Welty) Blackwell.

A few months later, Theo is taken by his father in Las Vegas, where he will meet Boris, the son of a Russian immigrant who works in a mine and, together, alone and abandoned by those who should be responsible for them, drink, steal and take drugs. After his father dies, Theo returns to New York, looking for Hobbie, Welty’s partner. Theo met Hobbie after the explosion when he had to bring him a ring given by Welty together with the painting. Years later, Theo, an adult working in an antique store with his old mentor and benefactor Hobbie, has links with the richest art collectors in town. He is hopeless in love with Pippa, without friends and the painting, carefully hidden for years, suddenly becomes the gateway to the world of illicit art traffic.

The painting, The Goldfinch (in Dutch, Het Puttertje) was painted in 1654 by the Dutch Golden Age painter, Carel Fabritius, is an oil painting on panel and in reality, it was never stolen. It is one of the few works that have survived the explosion in Delft in 1654, which killed Fabritius. He was only 32 years old. Carel Fabritius was the most promising pupil of Rembrandt. The small painting can be admired in Mauritshius in The Hague, Netherlands. The painting has a more exciting history in Donna Tartt’s book than in reality.

The Goldfinch entered the bestsellers top of the New York Times directly to the second position, immediately reached number one and stayed in the top 10 for over 40 weeks. The publishing rights of the novel were sold in 32 countries.

I read also reviews less favorable to this book, but I liked very much to read about the young Theo Decker becoming the adult Theo Decker, having the same troubling thoughts of depression, same hopeless love for Pippa till the end of the novel, the permanent longing for his mother he adored so much. I liked that the story is sprinkled with references from art, from music and literature. I wished however a slightly different end. Do not be frightened by the number of pages, the book will captivate you and it is easily read.

“Because: if our secrets define us, as opposed to the face we show the world: then the painting was the secret that raised me above the surface of life and enabled me to know who I am. And it’s there: in my notebooks, every page, even though it’s not. Dream and magic, magic and delirium. The Unified Field Theory. A secret about a secret.”