Theo of Golden

A charming, foreign, elderly man arrives in a small town in Georgia and begins a project that connects people with portraits that have been made of them by a very talented artist. Each time he bestows a portrait he spends an hour getting to know the person.

‍

Over the course of a year, a web has been woven of disparate people who feel connected to each other by their admiration and respect of the elderly gent.

‍

Sitting there, Theo imagined the men who built the structure: the muscles and motives, the sweat and swearing, the tools and tempers that, taken together, had produced so remarkable an edifice. He pondered the stresses that held arches in place, those and other invisible forces that, properly understood and employed, brought grace and symmetry to such spaces.

‍

The story has some dynamics, there are difficult experiences shared and intense moments, but there isn’t a problem to be overcome or a villain to vanquish. There is a climax but it’s not a peak, it’s more like a caldera: the absence of a peak.

‍

The writing is expressive; there are some lovely passages and turns of phrase, but overall, it's simplistic, like it was written for the very young or the very old. Further, there is quite a lot of mention of angels and heaven and He who manages everything.

‍

There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.

‍

This book was originally self-published before being picked up by a major publisher two years later. It’s the author’s debut and it feels like it. I didn’t dislike it, but I wished I would have spent the week or so that I spent on this on something more intellectually challenging.