Der Distelfink

Mir lag nur die deutsche Übesetzung von Rainer Schmidt und Kristian Lutze vor. Schwer zu sagen also, auf wessen Mist Sätze wie dieser gewachsen sind: "Mit ihnen zu wohnen war, als teile ich mir eine Wohnung mit Leuten, mit denen ich mich nicht besonders gut verstand."

Das erinnert eher an den Deutschaufsatz eines Zwölfjährigen, der seine Seiten vollkriegen muss, als an Literatur. Was man in Der Distelfink zu lesen bekommt, ist jedenfalls "unfassbar wie ein schwarzer Tintenklecks über dem Horizont". Man liest von einem "lautlosen Puff", von Oberkörpern, die "lang gestreckt und schmal über der Taille herauf" ragen - "wie bei einem eleganten Wiesel" (nicht zu verwechseln mit dem gemeinen Wiesel), man liest vom "Licht von der Straße", das "in schwarzen Streifen über den Boden" weht, von "zerbrechlichen, zigeunerhaften Mädchen im Rollstuhl" und davon, wie "die schwarzen Ringe um die hellblaue Iris" den "Augen etwas leicht Wildes verleihen, wie bei einem jagenden Geschöpf mit scharfem Blick, allein in der weiten Prärie".

Wenn Donna Tartt versucht, sich in die Rolle ihres in armen Verhältnissen aufgewachsenen Protagonisten hineinzuversetzen, der sich als Kind in den Trümmern eines terroristischen Bombenanschlags wiederfindet, dann schreibt sie: "So seltsam es auch erschien, ich hatte den Eindruck, im ummauerten Innenhof eines gottverlassenen Sozialwohnungsblocks zu liegen." Letztendlich erhält der Leser mehr Einblick in Tartts hoffnungslose Bürgerlichkeit als in die Gefühlswelt des Protagonisten.

What I would give the book, is something like 3.4 stars - but as that isn't possible, I mathematically decided on the lower rating.

In the book, we follow the life of Theo from age thirteen, when he is severely traumatized by a bomb attack on a museum in New York, his mother dying in this and he witnessing the death of an old man, to his late twenties. In the aftermath of the bomb attack, Theo steals and conceals a famous Dutch painting, The Goldfinch, because he was told to do so by the dying old man. There is a lot of drama, and drugs, and sins of the past catching up with him until someone else does the right thing for the wrong reasons, and Theo is redeemed.

I was in absolute awe when I read "The Secret History" earlier this year. There wasn't that much happening at all, the general tone of the novel was subdued and nostalgic in a way I cannot quite describe adequately. It didn't even matter that the narrating character grew more unlikable with time.

The last bit is the main thing the two books have in common for me, with the difference that Theo started getting on my nerves seriously. Starting at feeling sorry for the poor boy, I ended up being annoyed by his selfishness and egotism. These two are the only reasons I could give for his behaviour after puberty, apart from stupidity - which I felt wasn't what the author was aiming at.
Theo is so absorbed in his loss of his mother, and all the unfair things happening to him, that he never actually sees anyone else, except in relation to himself and what the person does to do him good. He never thinks of the needs of others, thus putting the old man who takes him in on his return to New York, Hobie, and his business in danger of being sued for fraud; thus never realizing that his fiancée is in love with someone else; thus never even thinking about what his "best friend" in Vegas tries to tell him when he runs of to New York again; thus never thinking about what he does to the fragile girl he professes to truly love by forcing his love on her.

I had high hopes for this when the old dying man in the museum, Welty, gives him his ring to take to his partner, Hobie, and talks him into stealing the painting - there were mystery, nostalgia, secrets there. It felt like the atmosphere I had been so taken with in the first book. Also, there were glimpses of this in the early scenes at the antiquities shop. But in the end, none of this came to bear much significance.
His teenage-junkie-friend Boris actually takes the painting from him in Vegas already, which the reader suspects from that moment onward. He continues to live a life of drugs and deceit, though he gets all the chances and care anyone could wish for from Hobie. While the painting begins a career as a security in large scale drug deals, he begins to deceive all those who wish him well, going as far as getting engaged to his dead school friend's little sister in spite of his feelings for another woman (which basically is what he blames his fiancée for in the end).
He is reunited with Boris in the end, after a big gangster showdown in Amsterdam, only to have Boris, the criminal, give the authorities the vital hints to recover the actual painting and claim the reward to give to Theo. Theo, then, reconciles with Hobie by paying off all those customers he has practised fraud on with fake antique furniture, makes peace with his fiancée and her family and then goes on a world trip to reflect on his new-found enlightenment and philosophical esotericism in a final monologue of greater length than I would have needed.

All's well that ends well, or some such thing...

This said, the book still has redeeming qualities, such as the style of writing. Also the story isn't boring as such, although the drug escapades take up more space than I'd have needed to get that Theo does actually have a drug problem.

Maybe I would have liked this book better if I hadn't read the previous one first.