July 19, 2014 Meeting

The rankings from those who voted ranged from 2 to 5 and I thought we had some of the best discussions of a book that we’ve ever had. Through various mathematical computations, treatises and discussions, the score was 3.689 out of 5 or 75% or, since we round up, it was a 4. We discussed using deviant computational methods, mean (current method), median, statistical deviation and logarithms, but it all seemed to come back to the same result. We debated throwing out Kathy’s rating of 2 as we reasoned that if Kathy were here, we would have, through masterful discussion and sheer force of will, convinced you to better the score. But we didn’t throw it out and the score was still 4.

The discussion of the Goldfinch went from critique, to recap, to quoting it’s quotes, the best being “We have art in order not to die from the truth” and back again to critique. We generally agreed that it was a long and artistic tome where we learned heaps about art, the art world and the art underworld, furniture making, furniture faking and rich people taking, drugs, crime and human morality. It was a deliciously convoluted story with some literary failings that were outshone by the brilliantly articulated plot and prose. Most thought that the novel would have benefitted from additional editing and the long monologues and background development (or “info-dumping”, as one review I read put it), and page after page of Theo’s (Tartt’s) view on life could have been reduced without significantly altering novel’s best feature, her beautiful writing.