The Day I Finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

courtesy of blogs.independent.co.uk

This book. This book. This book...

(Check it out on Goodreads)

Donna Tartt is nothing short of amazing. Her writing is so beautifully descriptive without overdoing it. The details. She nails them with an enviable ability to set up images in your mind allowing then the plot and characters to flow over you. Such subtleness.

I have several favorite parts but they aren't story/plot related necessarily. They have more to do with the general message she is conveying. Things that made me think about life. My life. My place here. Maybe it's more to do with loving her writing style for me. And these parts I mention occur in the last 150 or so pages. Yet there is no patience required to get to "the good stuff". I was "all in" from the very beginning.

Sometimes I don't mind when I turn the final page of a book (even if I've liked/loved it). This was not the case with The Goldfinch.  Actually, I rationed the last 100 pages over 3 days, then the last 25 over several hours taking breaks even though I wanted to press on. I saved the final 10 pages for this morning. To savor with a cup of coffee and plenty of time to reflect. And I still wasn't ready.

I am seeing her tonight (in Chicago) and I hope, as she signs my copy, I have a chance to say something to her. I've practiced the words. I had to because I will be very nervous (because it's not often you meet a "crush" in person). I hope to say, "I can't remember when I've read a more satisfying final page and a half of a book. Ever." I mean this.

Salon.com

Read it. It takes a while (or it did, me) but it's worth every word. And I'm happy she doesn't write novels too often. I can spend years anticipating the next one. You know, the whole bated breath thing.

Editor's note: I even had my nails done (for her). A very sassy, almost black, purple. Lincoln Park After Dark...

Trifextra: It's Still The Eyes

This weekend’s Trifextra challenge is really different. We aren’t doing the writing because they would like us to scour through our favorite pieces of literature and give us the best 33 words we can find. We may not use one that another Trifectan has already posted.

This was intensely hard for me. First, I narrowed it down to three favorite books (A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes). Then to two quotes from each book, then one.

My final choice was the one that touched me, very much, the moment I first read it but again when I deleted all others. It is very simple. And it wasn’t, at all, chosen for its creative wording or sentence structure or literary profoundness. It’s one that means something to me.

And I just read it, actually, one week ago today in The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes:

 “…the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.”