Chapter 4: A Book With More Than 500 Pages

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

Before I even begin discussing this book, let me tell you how this happened.  See, one of the trickeries of this challenge is that some books fall into multiple categories.* And some of them may not even exist. So, I originally selected this title to check off Pulitzer Prize-winner. The problem with checking out ebooks from the library is that you might not pay attention to the length and end up with a 700+ page novel. Enter, The Goldfinch.

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine talks about how The New Yorker comics are actually not funny, but no one will admit it because they don't want to sound dumb? That's how I felt reading this book. Among other things, Tartt relies heavily on place names around New York City, which mean nothing to someone who has never been. There is also much talk about art history and appreciation that go beyond an average reader's grasp. More importantly, the details are not important to the story and could easily be edited down. Too many pages are wasted saying, "Look how learned I am!"

Ok, that's annoying enough. But what about the story? Well, it's okay. Pretty much everyone dies. The main character, Theo, should be sympathetic since his beloved mother dies early on and he survives the terrorist bomb that kills her. But he's not. He's surrounded by deeply flawed people who put way too much effort into helping him and he does not appreciate it. Still, the arc of the story is interesting and has several twists, but it could be whittled down by a few hundred pages.

For as many pages as Tartt splatters with depictions of drug-induced teenage antics (how many ways can you describe lights?) and benign, insignificant details of daily life, she then skips over 8 years completely. Theo runs away from Las Vegas as a minor and then, blink! is an adult in New York again. Running a business with a longtime friend and seemingly living a normal life minus some PTSD-related dysfunction. Eight years. Gone. Almost no indication of what happens during that time. Since a large portion of the conflict is psychological, this gap is disturbing. It's not an epilogue where we get a glimpse into the future. Oh no. There are still hundreds of pages to read.

Besides being long, I did not find this to be artful writing. It's repetitive. It's incoherent at times. Completely wrong words are used (cramps instead of clamps, for instance). And the foreshadowing is in no way nuanced. One chapter literally ends with "It would be a long time before I saw Boris again." Seriously? Well, sure, at least 8 years because we are blacked-out from that time in Theo's life. But perhaps the reunion would be sweeter if we didn't know it was coming. Same with the gun images in the hotel in Amsterdam. So much attention is drawn to it that the reader can't help but know that people are going to be shot. Soon. It's clumsy and clichéd. Writing a series of connected events is not the same as storytelling. I much prefer a good storyteller.

So, after the story has reached a final resolution, and you're feeling like things turned out pretty well, you are subjected to a couple of chapters of philosophy from the viewpoint of a drug addict. This guy, who has done tons of bad things and still lived a fairly charmed life, concludes that life just basically sucks, but he's okay with that. People have picked up after this guy for decades, and he acts like he's some victim of cosmic injustice. I just don't like him. Here, too, we discover that Theo has kept journals for years that are essentially letters to his mom. That format, to me, would have moved the story along better and really gotten at the anguish that Theo never confronts. That would have been compelling and sympathetic.

Now, the nit-picking. There are things in the story that are just completely unbelievable. Theo, at 13, is worldly enough to break into people's homes and smoke pot, but he doesn't try to pick up a newspaper on the streets of New York City. He walks away from a bombed museum, covered in blood, speaks with a policeman, but is never taken to a doctor and walks home by himself without being noticed. Even with being completely sheltered from the mysterious articles about the bombing and about him specifically, Theo never Googles himself or the attack. He never shows any interest in finding out what happened the day he lost his mom.

After plowing through over 700 pages of rarely-interesting script, I feel disappointed. The Goldfinch is The Telltale Heart with a stroke of Macbeth and The Basketball Diaries thrown in for good measure. I care much more about the supporting characters than the main one. They all seem to be people fighting their own demons, while doing what they can to help the poor, orphan boy. What's interesting is that they do it in such different ways. Boris, the criminal best friend, is loyal to a fault. He pays his debts with interest and really loves Theo. Hobie, the steady father-figure, provides sanctuary, even as Theo self-destructs. And Pippa, the other-Theo, loves him enough to keep her own poison from his well.

Maybe the book is too academic. Or maybe I am too simple a reader. But this one falls short for me. If I needed a novel to take up large amounts of time, this would suffice. Since I have a lot of other things I need to attend too, The Goldfinch is a bit of a waste. Rather than making me feel dull, though, it just makes me glad I'm not among the literary elite who sing its praises.

* The challenge graphic never actually states that you must read 52 different books. At this point, I'm not ready to use the loophole to check multiple boxes for a single title. But I reserve the right to do so later.

Chapter 3a: A Trilogy

Divergent, Veronica Roth

Post-apocalyptic Chicago is now home to four factions: Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. The fifth faction, Amity, lives on a farm outside the fence, raising food for all citizens. Children are raised within their parents' faction until age 16, when they undergo a screening process and then choose which faction to join. If they survive initiation, they officially join their faction. If they fail, they are doomed to roam factionless, homeless, and jobless.

Beatrice never feels fully comfortable in Abnegation. Her test results are inconclusive, so she shocks everyone and joins Dauntless. From here, we follow "Triss" through initiation and her discovery of a plan of violent revolt by one of the factions.

Aside from the Harry Potter series, I'm not usually a big fan of YA novels. Divergent is decent, and I am interested to see where the story leads. Even though it follows the basic coming-of-age saga formula, it's written well enough to keep me turning the pages. It's not challenging or particularly original, but I still recommend it for some good, mindless reading. It's dark, so probably not a beach read, but suitable for a snowed-in weekend. I can definitely see why it is so popular, and I do like that the hero is a girl (sorry, heroine just sounds too druggy).

So far in the trilogy, the writing is still fresh. Despite the regular reminders that Dauntless wear black and have tattoos and piercings, I didn't find myself rolling my eyes at overused phrases. At least she uses new ways to convey the same information. And while the novel itself is not challenging, it could lead to some deeper thought and discussion of virtue.

Since each faction is based on a single virtue, Roth plants at least one member in each who uses that characteristic for evil instead of good. Here one could argue that the bad guys don't truly belong to their faction. Or perhaps any virtue can be used for malicious purposes. Throw the Divergent- those who have more than one virtue- into the mix and you add many shades of gray to a black-and-white world.

My major annoyance with the novel is quite petty. I don't like the names of the factions. Why? Because they are not synchronous. I know it sounds silly, but I would like them all to be nouns or all to be adjectives. The mix of both rubs some part of my brain the wrong way.

The next post will not be Chapter 3b. I'm going to have to split the trilogy up and weave some other reading in between. So stick with me and check back to see what else I'm poring over.

Chapter 2: A Book By a Female Author

Ruby: A Novel, Cynthia Bond

This book should come with a trigger warning in bold letters on the cover. Spoiler alert: everyone in it is abused in some way. Everyone.

It's unlikely that the Texas tourism board will add Ruby to any of its recommended reading lists. Set in the tiny, all-black town of Liberty, the novel is overstuffed with tragic tales of human and supernatural depravity. It is difficult to read just for the sheer volume of violence. There is a weight of authenticity that makes it all the harder to bear.

Focusing on the main characters, here's the basic story. A little girl is sold into prostitution and survives decades of torment at the hands of men, women, whites, and blacks. She is hardened yet vulnerable and either driven insane or possessed or both. She returns to her childhood home and falls down a rabbit hole of filth, sorrow, and torment.

Enter the hero. A slow and steady man. The town fool. Emasculated in his youth and raised by his socially powerful sister. In love with the title character from their only meeting in adolescence, he makes a plodding and blundering path to save her with the power of love and patience. And cleaning supplies.

Their histories wind through the pages as he carefully courts the woman deemed unworthy by the rest of the town. With each rising conflict, we flash back to some revelation about the handful of families that form Liberty.

It's difficult to say that I do or don't recommend this book. To recommend it would be to inflict a form of abuse on the reader- the pain etched on each page. But to not, would be to ignore the real plight of people who are abused. Her own story and those of survivors she has worked with are threaded through the chapters.

I have pretty strong feelings about ownership of stories (if you haven't heard my thoughts on The Help, stay tuned for another episode). Ms. Bond definitely owns enough of these tales to be an authentic storyteller. Even those she borrowed from friends and family are close enough to her own. She is probably compared to Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou for superficial reasons when more genuine ones exist. Her debut shows potential for adding her to their ranks in time.

There are a few points of criticism to note. A well crafted description tarnishes with use. What begins as poetic becomes tired by the end of the novel. There are a few phrases that are used a few too many times for my taste. Rephrasing or omission would polish it.

Paradoxically, the authenticity noted above, is also a weakness to the overall story. The descriptions of abuse and murder are all painfully realistic, but there are so many that it becomes difficult to suspend disbelief. In this town of a half-dozen families, there are hundreds of murders, mostly unsolved. And, while Ms. Bond is credible as a voice of the abused, her characterization of poor blacks in the rural South falls short. If it were funny, it would be satire. Instead, the townsfolk are so one-dimensional that I sometimes wondered if they had been drawn by an ambitious and overstepping white woman. In a word, they are simple. That lack of detail works to dehumanize in some ways.

Despite the difficult subject matter and my fairly minor technical critique, this is a well written story. Some twists come as expected and some are surprises. There is beauty in words depicting hideous acts. The structure and pace seem to conjure a spell over the reader, making it move nicely. If you can stomach what my friend politely calls "soul crushing fiction," Ruby is worth the effort.