The Gaugin book illustrates how some fantasies can only be maintained through self-delusion. The Gauguin book is first introduced when a young African American boy visits the library where Neil works and finds the art section. Neil sees him looking at a book of reprints of paintings by Paul Gaugin, particularly his idyllic paintings of Tahitian women. The boy dreams of going to Tahiti, fantasizing about a peaceful life among the women. He returns every day for more than a week to look at the book obsessively. Neil even takes on some of the boy’s fantasy himself, thinking about Short Hills (where Brenda lives) as though it is a Gauguin painting, and dreaming about sailing to Tahiti with the boy. But at the end of the novella, Neil recognizes how the boy’s fantasies (and by extension, Neil’s own) are unproductive and unrealistic. Another man checks out the Gauguin book, and the boy stops showing up at the library. Neil thinks that the boy is probably better off this way, thinking there’s no use dreaming of Tahiti if the boy has no way of getting there and fulfilling this fantasy. Thus, Roth uses the book to demonstrate that only through brutal self-reflection can people move on from fantasies and face life more realistically.
The Gauguin Book Quotes in Goodbye, Columbus
The next day I held Brenda’s glasses for her once again, this time not as momentary servant but as afternoon guest; or perhaps as both, which still was an improvement. She wore a black tank suit and went barefooted and among the other women, with their Cuban heels and boned-up breasts, their knuckle-sized rings, their straw hats, which resembled immense wicker pizza plates and had been purchased, as I heard one deeply tanned woman rasp, “from the cutest little shvartze when we docked at Barbados.” Brenda among them was elegantly simple, like a sailor’s dream of a Polynesian maiden, albeit one with prescription sun glasses and the last name of Patimkin.
“Look, look, look here at this one. Ain’t that the fuckin life?”
I agreed it was and left.
Later I sent Jimmy Boylen hopping down the stairs to tell McKee that everything was all right. The rest of the day was uneventful.
I sat at the Information Desk thinking about Brenda and reminding myself that that evening, I would have to get gas before I started up to Short Hills, which I could see now, in my mind’s eye, at dusk, rose-colored, like a Gauguin stream.
What had probably happened was that he’d given up on the library and gone back to playing Willie Mays in the street. He was better off, I thought. No sense carrying dreams of Tahiti in your head if you can’t afford the fare.
The Gauguin Book Symbol Timeline in Goodbye, Columbus
