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Challenge January 2015 - Your Plans
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By PDXReader · 27 posts · 64 views
last updated Jan 07, 2015 09:49AM
Sally's eclectic reading challenge 2015
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What Members Thought
I finished this book last week, and since then, I have been struggling with how I want to write my review. This book represents something incredibly special to me. I have so much love for it, that nothing that I write here will give it its due.
What's it about?
It's about the loss of family and the relearning of what that word means.
It's about unrequited love.
It's about beauty's relation to the individual.
It's about the moral complexities that we face when there are no black and white answers.
It' ...more
What's it about?
It's about the loss of family and the relearning of what that word means.
It's about unrequited love.
It's about beauty's relation to the individual.
It's about the moral complexities that we face when there are no black and white answers.
It' ...more
I listened to this while jogging; an hour or so at a time. The story is slow, deliberate, detailed and interesting. It lent itself well to these hour or so long intervals. I enjoyed most of it immensely.
The story of losing one's focus or purpose in life and the need to find another is so well told. When Theo loses his mother, the only person and thing in his life of importance and stability, he loses that focus and purpose. He's lost and focusses instead on a painting, The Goldfinch.
There's so ...more
The story of losing one's focus or purpose in life and the need to find another is so well told. When Theo loses his mother, the only person and thing in his life of importance and stability, he loses that focus and purpose. He's lost and focusses instead on a painting, The Goldfinch.
There's so ...more
Really weird reading experience. On the one hand, it is very well-written. So well-written that you really don't feel the burden of the 770+ pages, and stylistically, it's charming and fun. But...
And here's the 'but', while each pages individually reads easily and well, somehow the impression from the whole book together is of this lump of stuff that really needed to be cut down. And I honestly don't know how to explain it better.
I also couldn't get to connect to any of the characters. They nei ...more
And here's the 'but', while each pages individually reads easily and well, somehow the impression from the whole book together is of this lump of stuff that really needed to be cut down. And I honestly don't know how to explain it better.
I also couldn't get to connect to any of the characters. They nei ...more
First, I just want to say I <3 all my GR friends! I know so many of you liked this. I read The Goldfinch and I can see the draw, but my cynical side got the best of me on this one.
First, an equation:
(Harry Potter quirkiness - magic) + (Trainspotting - consequences) + (Age of Innocence) + (an art heist) + (deluge of beautiful yet ultimately mind-numbing prose a la Edgar Sawtelle) = The Goldfinch
The Goldfinch is a celebration of excess, whether it's the drugs, or the *feels* & jerking around of em ...more
First, an equation:
(Harry Potter quirkiness - magic) + (Trainspotting - consequences) + (Age of Innocence) + (an art heist) + (deluge of beautiful yet ultimately mind-numbing prose a la Edgar Sawtelle) = The Goldfinch
The Goldfinch is a celebration of excess, whether it's the drugs, or the *feels* & jerking around of em ...more
My profound “thank you” to VanityFair. I have been struggling with this book for months now, and I don’t seem able to move forward.
As it is, I put too much energy into it and it feels wrong to give up when I “listened” to 25 or so hours of it. But reading this article from Vanity Fair has helped me to move along.
Yes, count me among the literary snobs, but The Goldfinch is a bore. I am sure that are other books out there more deserving of my ears and I am heading out to find them…
As it is, I put too much energy into it and it feels wrong to give up when I “listened” to 25 or so hours of it. But reading this article from Vanity Fair has helped me to move along.
Yes, count me among the literary snobs, but The Goldfinch is a bore. I am sure that are other books out there more deserving of my ears and I am heading out to find them…
I really did enjoy parts of this book, but they were ultimately swallowed up by all of the pointlessness and bloat. Pretty disappointing.
And he lived happily ever after. (insert smirk--I am not a fan of the ending)
I am conflicted about this book. On the one hand, Donna Tartt is definitely a prime example of great literary authors. Her writing sweeps you up into the story, her descriptions are lush and vibrant, she creates a mood that stays with you long after you put the book down. And the first 500 pages or so is a story about a boy that is poignant and searing and overwhelming yet subtle.
Which leads me to the other hand, I hate ...more
I am conflicted about this book. On the one hand, Donna Tartt is definitely a prime example of great literary authors. Her writing sweeps you up into the story, her descriptions are lush and vibrant, she creates a mood that stays with you long after you put the book down. And the first 500 pages or so is a story about a boy that is poignant and searing and overwhelming yet subtle.
Which leads me to the other hand, I hate ...more
Everyone will call this novel Dickensian, which is a just comparison. Tartt outdoes Dickens, however, in her philosophical, ruminative mode. If you know Victorian literature, you will see our hero, Theo Decker, as Oliver Twist, as Pip (could this have been the inspiration for the character of Pippa); as Heathcliff even, as a bit of John Dowell from "The Good Soldier" (but much more in control of his narration and his insights, as Kafka's Josef K. and you will find nods to Little Nell and even Mi
...more
What the hell Donna Tartt? What the hell world at large?? I went into this not expecting a masterpiece, not expecting a Pulitzer Prize work (especially since I was reading it when it did actually win the award) but thought it would be a fun, fast-paced, well-executed piece of fluff; something lighter and trashier that I would have a good time with. Blegh. And I loved her other two novels! Were they the same as this? Did my reading tastes mature? I don't know. But I really wonder if it would have
...more
I really wanted to love this book. It came recommended by a reader I respect. I loved The Secret History by Tartt. This won the Pulitzer after all. But this book felt like swimming through molasses. I believe it takes greater skill to carefully select a handful of perfectly placed details which convey a sense of the characters or setting, to offer two or three precisely chosen scenarios to draw the reader in, enable the reader to know the motivations and heart of the characters than to provide d
...more
Well, this is certainly one well-written book. I gave up lots of other things today, in order to have enough time to complete reading it. A strange thing for me was that, despite being so well-written, I didn't feel particularly affected emotionally by it. That is, until the last 100 pages, which I found extremely moving.
...more
I just finished The Goldfinch. It could have as easily been 350 pages and been twice better. I love art and reading books about art and had most of the art-related stuff came closer to the beginning, I would have loved the book. As it was, I skimmed the last. The beginning and the action parts throughout the book were great; the rest, no so much and the ending was . . . well, anti-climatic.
Finally finished! this is a really long book, parts of it go by quickly, and parts of it just drag. The story in and of itself is quite interesting, it is the drawn out explanations of the meaning of life in between that bog it down.
Originally I gave this work a 5 star review. There was a section that continued to nag at me so I have decided to change that to a 4 star rating.
(Feb 2014) I gave up! I read about half of the book. Too much teenage drug-abuse!
Jan 13, 2014
Zadignose
marked it as not-now
Jun 19, 2014
Kai Coates
marked it as to-read
