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)

Beautiful until the end

The problems with THE GOLDFINCH are
A. It's way too long.
B. It can't make up its mind on what it wants to be
C. The ending is God-awful.
There are plenty of moments in this book that are beautiful and well-written, however the story itself takes forever to actually get started, and then it takes forever to actually end. And once you get to the end, you don't really care. It's a horrible ending too, just sort of lays out everything for you and tarnishes the work laid out in the previous 600 pages.
And don't get me wrong: it's an enthralling tale, just an extraordinarily maximalist one that doesn't have too much to think about, especially once she tells you why she wrote the book and points out the metaphors and themes she wanted you to see, but was too scared to leave to chance another interpretation.
It's much better to listen to this book than to read it. You can zone out on some of the more prolonged and unnecessary parts while you do something else. Reading it was very difficult, especially in the first 100 pages or so. And those pages aren't normal-sized.
Ultimately, it's up to you if you want to read this book, but just be warned: while it has beautiful imagery with very competent writing, it's too long and the end is one of the worst in recent memory. I'd tell Tartt to write pure philosophy, but all of her philosophy is copied.

Fantastic! (with lackluster ending)

Would you listen to The Goldfinch again? Why?

I don't really listen to audiobooks more than once until a lot of time has passed, however, I will say I really enjoyed this book, it was satisfyingly descriptive--with a unique and interesting story line, and the characters were well-developed. I thought it was very well done overall.

What about David Pittu’s performance did you like?

David had a great voice, and was dramatic without over-doing it. Some of his female voices were hilarious--as appropriate for the character.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I had two extreme reactions to this book, the first one was: I LOVED IT! The second was: I was very DISAPPOINTED by the ending. The ending felt very different from the rest of the book, as far as the perspective from which it was written, and honestly felt like a cop-out-- like the author just couldn't figure out a better way to end the book, so went with a lot of narrative, rather than staying in the story with the characters. Disappointing for a book that was so well-written up until that point. Still worth listening to, though. I still highly recommend it.

Narration was amazing

Where does The Goldfinch rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 10% of all books

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Goldfinch?

The ending was amazing how it all came together.

What about David Pittu’s performance did you like?

Amazing how he jumped between characters

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No - Not possible

Any additional comments?

no

Dense, swift, intoxicating drama

As intoxicating as this story is in its own right, the narrator does an exceptional job of bringing it to life. I highly recommend it.

Enjoyable!

I eventually loved the narrator. This was a deep and moving story. I would recommend it to any book lover.

Four stars because sometimes the story dragged and maybe it could have been wrapped up farther into the character’s future.

Amazing book, not so amazing reading

Donna Tartt is wonderful: I love how the story dips in and out of the past, relating the plot not in a linearly manner, but also not through simple old flashbacks. It's much more complicated than than, woven into a perfect canvas just like a real memory.
But please, dear producers, was it so hard to find a reader with a rudimentary knowledge of Russian, or even ask a consultant to explain the pronunciation? If it were a sentence or two, I'd understand, but a good deal of conversation in the book is supposed to be Russian! It doesn't occur to anyone to give Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache books to a reader who speaks no word of French; why did poor Goldfinch deserve to be slaughtered that way?

Great art story!

Great story. captivating characters. Especially satifying read if an art lover. Story would go on a tangent sometimes though.

Intriguing story.

Well written. Always kept me guessing as to what was really happening. It was a tad too long. Narrator was phenomenal.

Awesome narration

This is a very long book and quite a commitment to finish. The story moves along with some unexpected twists and turns, and often jumps ahead many years without a clear explanation of the lapse that has occurred. There is some philosophizing at the very end, but I’m not sure it really explains the whole story line.
The book has a lot of tragedy, drugs, some love, extortion, theology, and murder thrown in there. There is also A LOT of vulgarity. So there is a little something for everyone.
The best thing about the book is probably the narrator’s awesome voices and smooth transition from one person to another.

Wonderful!!!

I couldn't put it down. I was invested in all the lives of the main characters so much that when I would have to put to down I missed them. Like many really great books you feel as though you have met and know these people.