The Goldfinch is certainly not short on acclaim. It won the Pulitzer, and was ranked one of the 100 best novels of the century by the New York Times. It has the kind of premise other writers would die for: a young man visits the Metropolitan Museum with his mother, and when a bomb goes off in the building, walks off with her favorite painting.
Theo Decker is the boy in question. Theo is 13 and it’s just him and his mom at home after his alcoholic father abandoned them. When his mother is killed in the blast, it starts Theo on a wide-ranging course searching for benefactors, mentors, and other parental figures. The blast makes Theo skeptical of crowds, events, and on a deeper level, the notions of right and wrong. Theo is, unfortunately, rather easy to sympathize with but also rather hard to actually like. He treats others poorly, lies, cheats, steals, abuses drugs and alcohol, and, most irritatingly, refuses to take action in his own benefit. His decision to take the titular painting off the wall is understandable as a child’s impulse, and his continued possession of it explicable as the result of fear, but it still rankles the reader as he dithers the years away instead of making something more of himself.
There is also a rotten apple at the core of The Goldfinch, a rotten apple by the name of Boris. Theo’s best friend during his high school days, Boris is the definition of a bad influence. He’s a character certain kinds of writers love. He’s bold, impulsive, and loves hearing himself talk without actually saying much of anything. He’s a chaos agent and comic relief.
What’s he’s absolutely not is likeable. The reader eventually notices that Boris is little more than a time-waster, complicating the plot with his nefariousness and inability to speak plainly. He is a plot generator, causing huge messes for Theo to get involved in before creating even bigger messes getting Theo out of them. While some will delight in him, Boris is a lot to take.
The problem is, without Boris there’s no story at all. Theo’s not the kind of character who initiates anything, so the novel has to basically cede control to Boris. When he returns with some 200 pages left in the book, the plot kicks into high gear and my interest in the story flatlined. Suddenly, the novel devolves into an action-movie level shoot ’em up out of nowhere. It’s an ignominious ending, and one that tarnishes the vast stretch of story that came before.