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)

Great story

A wonderful story. It kept me entertained and the characters were fully developed and in depth.

The writing is also wonderful.

The biggest downside, for me, is the over reaching and sometimes wholly unnecessary descriptions.any times I’d find myself fast forwarding to get past the seemingly never ending descriptions. It’s not that they were poorly worded, just soooooo drawn out. I like a writer who can draw a picture with words, allowing you to see the room, the person, the scenery and setting; but, in many ways Tartt goes overboard with her attempt to set the scene. I found it distracting and eventually annoying.

meh

Its fine. she's an immensely repetitive writer in need of a thesaurus and I think she left some very interesting ground untilled but its a solid story. if a little heavy on the foreshadowing.

Life is short, Fate is cruel.

This story is heart-rendering and emotionally encumbering on multiple levels. The syntax of the story is beautifully woven and David Pittu speaks excellently for each of the characters. While long, the narration continues to draw the listener/reader toward Theo's destructive life. If you find beauty in the details, Donna Tartt's story is meant for you.

Story great, narration terrible

The story is fabulous, and I need the hard copy to read it through again, because the narration was horrendous

It could have been at least 10 hours shorter....

Good Lord, when I first chose to read this, it was totally because of the motion picture being produced.

Well, 30+ hours is going to make one very long production, can’t wait to see what parts are trimmed.

Overall, I think Boris carried the book... our long suffering hero - who survives a great loss... and that portion of the book is the grasping hook - was enticing. But, it drags through a mountain of poor me’s, and constant piles of drug induced self realizations.

The ending lead to no earthquake realization - except that I wasted 4 days listening to it.

I try not to read the reviews first..... I shall in the future.

I’ll update after I see the results on the screen.

I never write a review

This book was amazing!! I loved it totally awesome a must listen.. just wow, wow

Loved It!

I'm not sure I could have read this book, as some of the scenes dragged on and my ADD would have sent my mind wandering. but the vivid descriptions of visual and mental happenings were amazing to the ear - i could see it and feel it. I am a new fan of this author - her style hooked me. I will listen to more of her books.

I will definitely listen to other books by this narrator, just because he is the narrator. His accents are fantastic - a Russian talking to a German and I could tell who was who. His tone was always appropriate to the situation. I never had to guess how a character was feeling. The collaborative effort that combined the words from the page with the voice of the character pulled me into the lives of these characters. I always knew what they were thinking and how they felt about it.

I still have four hours to go and I don't know what I'm going to do when its over... :-(

I didn’t want it to end

A wonderful performance of a great story. The character development was so good, they’re still in my head, many days after finishing the book. I usually confine my listening to when I walk the dogs, but I found myself so involved with the story and characters that I found myself listening for hours on end.

just okay

okay but not amazing. a good deal if you're looking for hours per dollar spent.

David Pittu gives a world class performance.

A completely unexpected story filled with fully fleshed characters. This author uses words in the same way a great Chef turns basic ingredients into a symphony of flavors. It has been many years since I’ve read anything so beautifully written.