Let art speak to you. {The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt}

Let art speak to you.

About The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt*: It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-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 combines vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

My two cents

Theo and his mother love living in New York. Thank goodness his good for nothing father is out of the picture. The humdrum life all changes in a flash. On this day, Theo and his mother take a side trip to the museum - a distraction from a parent teacher meeting that could only mean more trouble for Theo. This is a coming of age story that shows life's contradictory nature, bringing out the beautiful and darkest sides of people, set against the contrasts of the beauty and corruption of the art world.

Ever since I read The Secret History (my review), I knew that I was bound to pick up another book by Donna Tartt. And so it came to be.

***

Fresh from a trip from New York, I reveled in The Goldfinch because I had walked the halls of the Metropolitan Art Gallery, wandered the streets of the Upper East Side of Manhattan (and beyond) and took the subway many a time. This is Theo's world and it became tangible to me when I was reading it.

The Goldfinch is a book that I sorely needed to remind me why I read and why I love to blog about books: it's a story like this that reminds me that books contain life's truths. I've become absorbed in desire to book blog like a madwoman, I've done so many book tours, done all the bloggy and bookish memes. I've burnt out. I've returned. And now, I reiterate to myself: make peace with my book blogging lull and simply go for the ride.

Why I loved The Goldfinch

This forced me to slow down. This is a classic case of a book finding me when I needed it most. I needed to read it, and more importantly, to feel it. The first hundred pages or so begs for attention. Tartt's prose is incredibly immersive: you're there in the museum. You feel Theo's pain. You feel the angst, the hunger for sympathy and kindness. I dare you to want to be absorbed in this story.

It's highly relatable. I have very little in common with Theo. But I do have a lot in common with his foray of emotions and the mental state he is in through various incidents, often traumatic. I absorbed his tribulations, maybe a bit too much.

The painting "The Goldfinch"
From Wikipedia

The art, the art. I have a soft spot for anything involving art and the fact that this story delves into this world was a special treat.

The story revolves around the painting The Goldfinch (in Dutch: Het puttertje) by Carel Fabritius (1654). This piece seemingly begged to be saved by a dying man, and it called out to Theo as well. To me, the metaphor of art "speaking" to someone in a profound, sometimes even mystical way, is a testament to the power of art in general.

It polarizing. I love the fact that this book gets lovers and haters and thus makes for great discussion. If you love reading blogger's opinions, you'll get both swings of pendulum on this one. I was starting this and posted on Instagram. I got mixed reactions from "oh this is so good, you're going to love it" to "I couldn't get into it."

Don't read this ... If you're looking for action and a fast pace, put this down. If you hate chunksters, put this down. If you listen to other book bloggers negative reviews and are easily swayed, then don't read this.

Verdict

One of the most moving stories I've read in a very long time, this coming of age story set against the art world of New York forced me to slow down and immerse myself. My review is highly based on emotion, and I am not ashamed to say that sometimes some books hit me at a very raw level - similar to how art speaks to our souls. In short, The Goldfinch spoke to me. Will you allow it to speak to you?

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The historic, horrific lives that the Forest built and destroyed {Barkskins by Annie Proulx}

Barkskins by Annie Proulx*: From Annie Proulx—the Pulitzer Prize-­ and National Book Award-­winning author of The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain,” comes her masterwork: an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests.

In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters—barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet, crafty and ruthless, runs away from the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years—their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand, under stunningly brutal conditions—the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over again, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.

Proulx’s inimitable genius is her creation of characters who are so vivid—in their greed, lust, vengefulness, or their simple compassion and hope—that we follow them with fierce attention. Annie Proulx is one of the most formidable and compelling American writers, and Barkskins is her greatest novel, a magnificent marriage of history and imagination.

My two cents
An ambitious novel spanning over 300 years, Barkskins presents the history of logging and the deterioration of the world's forests -- from widespread unapologetic clearcutting to today's alarm over global warming -- through the family histories of two men.

Barkskins were servants brought in to clear vast tracts of land in New France (now Canada) during the late 17th century. The politicized history of the world's forests is told through the family histories of barkskins,  René Sel and Charles Duquet.

Sel took on the backbreaking work. Despite his loyalty, he is forced to marry an older Mi'kmaq, Mari, the mistress of his signeur. Over generations, the Sel's lives tell of great hardship and toil, exacerbated by the fact that Native Americans bore the brunt in a white man's world. There is a continuous battle to hold on to their lifeways but were marginalized and moreso impoverished in the process.

Duquet, ambitious yet unused to hard work, runs away. Duquet makes a fortune, mostly on furs and lumber, but mainly through unscrupulous means. He marries the daughter of his rich Dutch business partner. Anglicizing the family name to Duke, he builds the Duke and Sons timber empire who wreaks havoc on the untouched forests in other countries over the next century.

*** 

I've not read any of Annie Proulx's work but she looms large in the literary world. So can you really blame me for wanting to read this ... and love it? I had built this up in my mind but I ended up getting a mixed bag. I loved the beginning up until about three fourths of it, before I started to feel I was slogging through. The tone changed to preachy and everything suddenly felt rushed.

Let's not overlook the fact that this is a chunkster (700+ pages). Prepare yourself for the experience. And don't dare rush this one if you're keen on getting something from this, because Proulx has a lot to offer.

The heart of this book is humanity's ever-conflicted relationship with nature. There are two contrasting views about resource utilization: the "to hell with it" extract as much as possible, profit to the hilt and move on, or the more measured (and informed) way where extraction is based on need and allowing the resource regenerate naturally. Today's return to sustainable resource utilization is borne out of the realization that resources are not limitless and is, too, a return to the holistic views of many indigenous cultures.

This is about the politics of forests. I can't help but applaud at Proulx's decision to write this highly politicized and polarizing book. It is seemingly inevitable as white man conquered and colonized and took lands for their own leaving native American tribe of the Mi'kmaq severely marginalized, poor, and socially and culturally unmoored.

Delving into the politics of the extraction of natural resources, only confirms an age old modus operandi -- there will be the moneyed and powerful who will get as much as they can from from the earth and take advantage of people to succeed. Capitalism can be greedy, rapacious, ruthless. At stake are indigenous cultures and their harmonious relationship with nature. But Proulx attempts to bring this story full circle, a conscientization of her readers: what have we done, and what shall we do about it?

This was very well researched, rich in the detail not only of the history and cultures, but more importantly of the science behind the story. Foresters, ecologists, historians, sociologists, I know you will delight in the details! However, the devil is in the details: it's easy to get lost and distracted in them (good or bad, that is totally up to you).

The earlier portion of the book made the characters feel real with horrific descriptions of the mental anguish and physical hardships they had to endure. But character upon character came into the cast and with the varying lengths by which they appear in the story, the sense of time was easily lost on me. Despite having the family tree, it did little to ease how I followed along in the characters' lives.

Verdict:
I can't help but applaud at Proulx's decision to write this highly politicized and polarizing book. Well researched and rich in detail, this was a mixed bag for me in terms of the reading experience. I loved the beginning but Proulx lost me towards the end. However, I still recommend this book and suggest reading in short bursts lest 700+ pages intimidates you!

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