Even at its grittiest, this book has an underlying tone of hope and love of beauty.
My favourite character was Hobie: a sophisticated, simple and elegant man, a craftsman and restorer of furniture, a lover of beauty, a truly generous person.
The narrator of "The Goldfinch" tells us: "it's not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn't understand. That first glimpse of pure otherness, in whose presence you bloom out and out and out." p. 761
That passage reminds me of a favourite passage of mine from Robertson Davies' "Fifth Business", in which he describes Mrs. Dempster: "She lived by a light that arose from within; I could not comprehend it, except that it seemed to be somewhat akin to the splendours I found in books, though not in any way bookish. It was as though she were an exile from a world that saw things her way, and though she was sorry Deptford did not understand her, she was not resentful." p. 52
"The Goldfinch" is a thrilling and exciting tale, but it is much more than that:
"Whatever teaches us to talk to ourselves is important: whatever teaches us to sing ourselves out of despair." p. 771
This book can teach us to sing ourselves out of despair.
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