4⭐️— “I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.”
Well. That was an entire effort and a half! THE GOLDFINCH honestly & truly did not to be as long as it was. I felt like there were sections that were filled with mostly unnecessary information, unending thoughts from Theo, or long, meandering conversations he had with any other character. The novel could have easily been 200 pages shorter.
THAT BEING SAID: I still really liked it! Tartt, while long-winded, is an incredible writer and the way she weaves together words and sentences is masterful. The good parts are really a delight to read. She writes grief and angst really well; I could feel Theo’s heaviness when he was a child and I could feel his desperation as an adult.
I am really excited to see the movie! I think that it might be … (stay with me) better than the book 😬 But only because they’ll probably cut out all the things I found unnecessary. (Hopefully!!)
“That life – whatever else it is – is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
tsundoku 