Yes! I keep track! 771 pages and nearly 24 hours!

“The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt was a book I picked up on a book buying binge at Barnes & Noble a few months ago. It’s my favorite way to buy fiction, in person at bookstore! No reviews, no suggestions, just pure infatuation with a good cover. I go in to intentionally succumb to mass marketing. It’s an indulgence.

Why did I choose this book? One reason…well…maybe two. The cover, the ripped away piece revealing the bird, pulled my eye. And then Stephen King called it “A triumph.” How can I resist?

In my book notes, at the end of all those 771 words, all I wrote was, “Deep. Wow” The ending must have been impressive, although I can’t remember a lick of it without thumbing through it a bit and getting some reminders. And when I do thumb through and look at my notes…there it is… Some people may be appalled, but I’m glad I write in my books!

I both loved and hated this book at the same time. Typical, right? At first I was drawn into the story, mostly because of its intensity. She has a serious way with words. You can feel every scene. It’s very emotional. But then, I started to wonder where in the world the story was going. Would it ever end? What was the point of all these details? There better be some huge surprise at the end that wraps up all these little pieces and makes me want to read it all over again to catch them in action! I was not disappointed.

Some things I truly hated. There was a negative description of homeschoolers that triggered me to anger. I almost put the book down right there. How can I trust someone with my heart that so easily stereotyped my own education choice? That’s what we do when we read fiction, trust a stranger with our heart. It’s a relationship like any other, one we do not fool ourselves about. We know it’s a tryst, a few hours of adventure and it will be over, to be remembered forever and maybe returned to from time to time, if it proves itself to be exciting or fulfilling enough. I decided to love her anyway. I know my heart is pretty resilient. It will heal if broken and we’ll have our memories to look back on. I had to know how it all ends!

Hobie was one of my favorite characters. He repairs antique furniture and at first I thought that was completely irrelevant. Sweet and pretty, yes, but probably irrelevant. You’d think I’d have learned by now that nothing in fiction is irrelevant! She goes into so many details about how he repairs things and why, what pieces are worth saving and for what reasons, how they became damaged in the first place and how it could have been avoided. Different pieces, different eras, different kinds of wood, all take a different touch. Humans are very similar. Each of us has a reason for being here. We’re all damaged in different ways, by different usage. And we’re all savable for one purpose or another. Just beautiful.

And then there was this, “Even though a copy Proust was able to re-dream that image, re-shape reality with it, pull something all his own from it into the world. Because – the line of beauty is the line of beauty. It doesn’t matter if it’s been through the Xerox machine a hundred times.”

We are all copies. Not one of us is an original. But each time we go out in the world in our own way, whether just living, creating, or dreaming, we re-create that “line of beauty” for the world. Like an image of an image of an image, we are a link in the chain into the future. Don’t break that chain. Go out into the world, either in person or virtually, and share your joy so that someone else sees it and reflects it further.

“…good doesn’t always follow from good deeds, nor bad deeds result from bad, does it? Even the wise and good cannot see the end of all actions.”

“Because, if bad can sometimes come from good actions – ? Where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions – ? Maybe sometimes  – the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be? Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?”

“As long as I am acting out of love I feel I am doing best I know how. But you – wrapped up in judgement, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’”

It’s been a long standing idea of mine that all of us are doing the best we can with the information we have at the moment we made the decision. There are no perfect answers. There are no perfect decisions. If we live looking back, we’ll never see what’s right in front of us. Don’t miss your life by looking backwards or by looking too far into the future. You’re life is right now.

And from the very beginning of the book…which seals the deal on reading the whole thing again, and soon, “Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life – a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple – the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last – it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they are called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer – there it is.”

I had underlined it right there on page 24. It gave me chills then, but not for the same reason it did just now, after 747 more pages and a month of reflection. That’s what makes life worth living, the fact that it is only temporary. Live it right now. Don’t wait. And don’t despair, because when one joy ends, another begins. No regrets, just love.

I’ve added her two other novels to my reading list!