Still about The Goldfinch

I am still dwelling on some parts of The Goldfinch that particularly caught my attention. The book is full of interesting observations so AC Observes is compelled to notice and make her own conclusions and parallels.

I stopped and pondered on Theo’s reflection regarding people who loved him and supported him. There were two people in his life that cared for him exceptionally much, they were guessing his needs and his worries in attempt to fulfill the first and remedy the second. This is a very special type of love and our mothers usually give us that. Good mothers, that is. Mine was a good mother and she smothered me with guessing what may worry me or what may hurt me. Sometimes this was even irritating and I tried to shake off her affectionate caring. I wish I could experience such moments again, I would take it in a different way. Unfortunately, I do not think that it will happen, not my age and not with my mother passing away. Not all her caring was particularly clever. She may have helped me to become a hypochondriac or at least thinking about my health too much. It was also unfortunate that she did not appreciate value of physical fitness. Very few people did in Poland in the time I was growing up. One day we had a running competition at school and I won the run for 100 meters. It was exhilarating but my mother checked if I did not get by any chance sweaty as the result of my sporty achievement. I did. This was the end of my running carrier and I obediently took her council. Silly and funny. For many years I followed old saying “in healthy body lives a healthy cow” and kept away from sport and redirected my efforts to intellectual pursuits. I wish I could reverse the time and correct mistakes.

My mother was right caring for me the best way she knew. 

                                                          

Lives turn in unexpected ways. We plan, work towards some goals, go about our days as usually and then suddenly something happens that changes the course of our life. If we only knew, we may have chosen different path and our life would be different. Maybe better, maybe worse. Theo’s life changed dramatically when he and his mother on the way to Theo’s school went to the Met Museum to see a particular exhibition. There are many “if onlys” that Theo deliberates on. Things could have been different and his mother would have been alive, if only… Many of us have such situations in life that from a distance of time we see that we could have changed the course of our history. I do. And sometimes we blame ourselves; the right steps are so obvious when we look at the situation later on. We are now aware of the signs that should have redirected our steps and actions. We feel guilty that we were not able to correctly foresee the future, use our intuition to protect ourselves. Theo does in hard times of his life. He realizes that he had at least partial knowledge that could have taken his life in a different direction. I, myself sometimes experience similar feelings. One of such moments was my last goodbye to my mother at the Warsaw airport. If I only read the signs, stayed with her maybe she would not pass away so early. She left such a big gap in my life.  And here Donna Tartt comes to the rescue. She says that sometimes after the events we think we knew what we should have done but this is not so. We had only partial knowledge, nor sufficient to make different decisions. We did not know enough. Later, we found new pieces of the puzzle and only this information would have allowed us act differently. Then it was already too late. For a person like myself this is very uplifting explanation.

Quo Vadis?

                                               

I perhaps read too much into the book’s messages but I still maintain that this is the beauty of the book that takes us on our own tangents, things that are significant to an individual person.