The Goldfinch

[Becky Lindroos]

I mean I was looking at "The Goldfinch" as more or less a fun story, well enough written, interesting but not challenging on any (normal)  level, hopefully better than Tartt's prior book, "The Little Friend,"  maybe (possibly) as good as her best, "The Secret History" ( which was extraordinary but no Against the Day!). "The Goldfinch" was in the middle somewhere, a bit baggy but magical in some way - More on a level with Mark Helprin's new one, "In Sunlight and in Shadow," but nowhere near as good as his best,  "Winter's Tale."  Like Richard Powers' "The Echo Maker," but nowhere near "The Gold Bug Variations." 

The only Pynchon resonating amongst these good and not so good books is Bleeding Edge with the also rans and Vineland with the best. 

Specifically, I can't compare further. Only DeLillo's best, maybe Morrison's 1 best, can compare with Pynchon's 3 best (maybe 3 of Faulkner's,  McCarthy's Blood Meridian"). 

Still! Yes, I enjoyed The Goldfinch although it was too long by about 60 pages, dragged there for awhile and got rather out of control, sprawl-wise, but generally, it was a fun book. 

Bekah 

On May 12, 2014, at 9:58 AM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

Hi Bekah,

Your post made it to the list, but I don't know what you mean by "skewed my approach to The Goldfinch." Made you not like it? MAde it seem better than it was?

LK


-----Original Message-----
From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: May 12, 2014 12:51 PM
To: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
Cc: Rebecca Lindroos <bekker2 at me.com>, pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: The Goldfinch

I've read both GR and The Goldfinch and a comparison never entered my mind until you brought it up. I've read all the others by both authors and that may have skewed my approach to The Goldfinch. 

My posts don't seem to make it to list, Laura. If this one also disappears, please forward? Thanks.


Bekah

On May 12, 2014, at 9:00 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

Good to see you back on the list, Bekah! So what did you think of The Goldfinch?

Laura


-----Original Message-----
From: Rebecca Lindroos <bekker2 at me.com>
Sent: May 10, 2014 3:19 PM
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: The Goldfinch

I've read both GR and The Goldfinch and a comparison never entered my mind until you brought it up. I've read all the others by both authors and that may have skewed my approach to The Goldfinch. 

Bekah

On May 9, 2014, at 5:57 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

If you have read it, and you have read the opening of Gravity's Rainbow some multiple of the times you have read Gravity's Rainbow, is the influence on Ms. Tartt's opening chapter very clear---with a " there, there" homage to Catch-22---or clearly projected by this reader

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