The Goldfinch(338)

And yet even after I got to New York, I kept writing. “Why the hell is it so much colder here than I remember, and why does this stupid fucking desk lamp make me so sad?” I described suffocating dinner parties; I recorded conversations and wrote down my dreams; I took many careful notes of what Hobie taught me below stairs in the shop.


eighteenth century mahogany easier to match than walnut—eye fooled by the darker wood

When artificially done—too evenly executed!



bookcase will show wear on bottom rails where dusted and touched, but not on top

on items that lock, look for dents and scratches below the keyhole, where wood will have been struck by opening the lock with a key on a bunch



Interspersed throughout this, and notes of auction results from Important Americana sales (“Lot 77 Fed. part ebz. girandôle cvx mirror $7500”) and—increasingly—sinister charts and tables which I somehow thought would be incomprehensible to a person picking up the notebook but in fact are perfectly clear: