Dear Bookclub,
Wanda has chosen Café Merlot for our meeting next Wednesday, July 2 at 12:30. We will discuss Donna Tartt's, "The Goldfinch".
OK... you decide: Tartt/Dickens ...... actually, aside from the jumbo literary style (and similar hair), the parallels end.
At age 58, Dickens died of a stroke, leaving behind 10 children. Over his lifetime, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms. Dickens also thrived on his book tours, traveling the world and doing hundreds of readings.
At 50, Tartt has written three huge novels, taking about 10 years to complete each. She is actually quite private (and has no children to support), skipping the book tours, etc. In her own words from a November interview with Irish Independent:
"I think there's an expectation now, possibly because of
Facebook and those sorts of things, that everyone should share the
Facebook vision of the world but people have different ideas of what
makes them comfortable and what makes them uncomfortable.
"Was
it Emerson who talked about the great freedom of American life as the
freedom not to participate in the life of the culture, the freedom to
shut the door, to close the curtains? American heroes are almost always
solitary figures in our literature.
"Joan Didion writes a beautiful essay about Howard Hughes who was a lonely recluse but also a kind of weird American hero who
built the whole city of Las Vegas and Joan Didion said, 'he's the last
private man, the dream we no longer admit'."
I just love that Emerson thought on the great freedom of American life.
full article:
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/interview-the-very-very-private-life-of-ms-donna-tartt-29780543.html
And, recently there is the highbrow literary backlash - (hey Donna, it is a mean world)..... Please check out this quick little article describing not only Tartt's polarized critics, but other authors' adventures with pundits.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0624/Donna-Tartt-s-The-Goldfinch-is-the-newest-bestseller-to-weather-backlash
OK, I must get back to reading....
Enjoy!
LK
