The Goldfinch

By: Donna Tartt

Narrated by: David Pittu

Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Winner, Solo Narration - Male, 2014

Audie Award Winner, Literary Fiction, 2014

The author of the classic best-sellers The Secret History and The Little Friend returns with a brilliant, highly anticipated new novel.

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.

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and at the center of a narrowing, ever-more-dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

©2013 Donna Tartt (P)2013 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

Narrator David Pittu accepts the task of turning this immense volume into an excellent listening experience. Pittu portrays 13-year-old orphan Theo Decker with compassion, portraying his growing maturity in this story of grief and suspense…Pittu adds pathos to his depiction of the troubled Theo as he deals with addiction and finds himself in a dance with gangsters and the art world's darker dealers. ( AudioFile)

"Dazzling....[A] glorious, Dickensian novel, a novel that pulls together all Ms. Tartt's remarkable storytelling talents into a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading." ( New York Times)

"A long-awaited, elegant meditation on love, memory, and the haunting power of art....Eloquent and assured, with memorable characters....A standout-and well-worth the wait." ( Kirkus, Starred Review)

Long but very impactful

I feel different after listening to this book, which I think is a good measure of how impact for any book. Donna Tartt is a great writer, although I will agree that she sometimes is long-winded, and some metaphors were a little forced, in my opinion. She does do a tremendous job describing scenes and setting the stage, which can be good for making sure the right details get noticed, without being too obvious. I very much enjoyed this story and I think there is a lot to learn in Theo’s journey. I’d highly recommend to anyone who is willing to get through a slow start.

The reader was amazing. The narrator’s voice is pleasant and carries you through the story easily, and each character had a distinct voice. I will say that I did not care for the music at the end. I thought it was unnecessary. Otherwise it was a wonderful performance.

I love this book and I love the narrator

This book doesn't feel as long as it is. David Pittu is a master at voices. amazing!

Overly detailed

Overly protracted story.
Depressing to read.
Overly philosophical.
Does keep your interest just to see how it ends.
Lengthy listening, over 30 hrs

Disappointing

The only reason I finished this book is because I felt too invested. would've have been much better if about 50 percent was cut out.

Absolutely perfect

Loved, loved this story. The production was pitch perfect and I could hear the personalities of each character.

At times I felt conflicted about the main character. He wasn’t perfect but he wasn’t immoral. Or was he? He was a product of his tragic childhood. I guess as children, we were all once an accident away from being destitute. This story tells what could happen when a boy grows up without a caretaker.

It’s Got It All

This book has it all! Tragedy, innocents, thugs, drug and alcohol abuse, Russians, socialites, etc. You name it, it’s in there! It’s the first book of this length that I enjoyed and it’s probably because it was broken up nicely into stages, which made it more manageable. More than anything, I appreciated the complexity of the main character and how flawed he was despite having the best intentions.

Wow! Just wow.

This story was beautiful and winding and surprising and just lovely. I didn't want it to end! And that's something to be said for a 700+ page book. David Pitou did such a wonderful job reading it as well. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a memorable listen or read.

Fluidity

Any additional comments?

The best thing about this book is the narrator and how flawlessly, seamlessly he flowed from one accent to another.

A story that I felt all over.

This story was so beautiful, and the characters so vivid, I would put it to the top of my list of favorites. The narrator did an amazing job. The voices he used sounded like individual people and not like someone trying to sound like a character. I loved it!

Perfect time killer with some pros and cons

It was my first audiobook so maybe I'm just getting used to it, but the narrator pulled me out of the story far more often than distractions do when I read and it was usually for silly things - mainly voices. I especially hated Boris, Xandra, Andy, and Pippa/Theo's mother (same voice, which was weird), and I probably would've liked their characters more if the voices hadn't annoyed me.

On another note, I like the Dickens parallels that many other readers have picked up on and especially the far-fetched coincidences that Dickens is known for. I'm a huge Dickens fan so I attribute any enjoyment I had of the book to those parallels. However, it probably could've been about half the length with the SAME effect and I did weary of listening for about the middle 10 hours.

That all said, I think I teared up listening to the last few minutes. That was some damn good writing and Donna Tartt may have won me over and convinced me to pick up another work one day based on those lines. But maybe not a 32 hour one...