Girl with a Pearl Earring

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Summary: Girl with a Pearl Earring
Review: A friend recommended to me that I read Girl in Hyacinth Blue, another book about a Vermeer painting. I was very disappointed. Unlike the latter, Girl with a Pearl Earring is a treasure. I was captivated by the characters in the novel, and could actually visualize the paintings as Griet, ( the main character) was describing. For anyone that has read this book, and loved it as much as I did, or are interested in reading it, I have a suggestion: GO TO CHEVALIER'S WEBSITE!!! All the Vermeer paintings mentioned in the novel are shown. It was so amazing to see the paintings that were described so brilliantly in the novel. Chevalier's novel has not only made me a fan of her writing, but also Vermeer's paintings. Please read this, your won't regret it. Oh... and try and read it before mid November, because then you will be able to see it on the big screen!!!

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Summary: What's with the Pearls?
Review: The Girl with a Pearl Earring is an intriguing novel, taking place in the seventeenth century. All around, it was a good book that held my interest.
This book is about a teenage girl named Griet, whose father is blinded in a bad accident. Conflict arises when Griet goes out to make a living for her family. There are so many dilemmas; among them the fact that she can only see her family once a week.
My favorite quote in this novel can be found in two or three parts. Whenever Griet runs, she thinks to herself, "Only thieves and children run." It is as if she is relating herself to either a child or a thief, though she does not say which.
My favorite character is Margaret, because she is a hard worker, and is willing to learn. She is one of the only people that call Griet by her name.
I also like it when the situation of the pearl earring arises. It is one of the main dilemmas that lead to the breathtaking climax. I am not going to reveal one of the most interesting parts of the book!
As much as I enjoyed this book, there are a few inappropriate sexual scenes. They should have been excluded from the story. If a person skips over these parts, he really wouldn't miss anything.
However, I would recommend this book to read because it is very interesting; the rising action is filled with many conflicts. After you are filled with suspense, you get to experience both the exciting climax, and the relieving resolution of The Girl with a Pearl Earring.

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Summary: Thin plot...poor charactors....weak voiced writer
Review: The somber reality of 17th century poverty is realized, almost like Dickens, but the protagonist and even her family is too sketchily drawn. Like the hands of impressionists, instead of a master who used camera obscura to truly "see" his subject.
An aficionado of Vermeer will recoil at this book. The immature voice of the writer renders this portrayal of him, as in the horrible realm or romance novel lotharios, auster, emotionally blocked until they meet "the one" of their true desires, and overemotional (his temper is quite apparent to her, rather than intelligence).
Fact of the matter: Vermeer didn't have a brood of children because he didn't want to bed his wife. The romance angle overshadowed what could have been an excellent challenge, since it is a novel, to engage in a pupil-teacher exchange between them, albeit subverted from view by it's "taboo" of the age (perhaps, but although it is touched on, it is the only portion of the story that excites the mind!).

Well, this poorly drawn Griet, who simply does not bare close scrutiny, turns this book into a teenage coming of age piece. Much is lost in this proposition of Vermeer's life.
The wife, the daughters placards for any real work on the authors part. Shame! Two people stand out Maria Thins and her servant.
Perhaps we can beg Ms Brookner to render the inner lives of lost historical figures. She, indeed, could do them justice, and with such subtle flavoring in her prose, it is rereadable, where this book by Ms Chevalier, is not.
Once done, you push it's sorry image out of your head, and know that it is a failed attempt.

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Summary: Hard to Put Down
Review: I read this book in one afternoon and was completely engrossed with it. The story at first appears to be a simple one of a maid coming to live with the household of Johannes Vermeer, but it reveals itself to be full of twists of emotion and complex human relationships. The author did a great job of blending fact and fiction and making it into a fascinating story.

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Summary: A Very Good Book
Review: GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING is a quick and relatively simple read. Although there are some sleazy sexual come-ons by the rich patron and other scenes, the sexual content is fairly mild and it would be appropriate for a teenager, certainly one Griet's age. I think fans of historical fiction would enjoy it too, if for no other reason than Chevalier's concept of the story behind the painting certainly seems probable. It's a wonderful book I know I'll read, again. Buy it! Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez

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Summary: Brings to life for us a painter's subject
Review: This was such a good story. Chevalier is an intelligent writer, definitely brought to life the painter and the supposed girl in the painting. I won't go on and on about it, I just don't have words to describe how much I love her books, or why. I just tell everyone they need to read this.

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Summary: A Very Enlightening novel about the 17th Century
Review: I absolutly loved this book. I feel it depicted the life of Delft and the house of the beloved painter Vermeer. I had to read this book last year in 9th grade for honors English and I just fell in love with it. The characters are very well developed and you can feel the tention between Griet and Vermeer whenever they are together. Look for the movie soon!

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Summary: Wide eyed and innocent
Review: Have you ever been in love? Ever had a silly grin on your face when no one else is laughing? Has your foot ever tapped to its own accord from simple joy? I paint this picture of myself as I sat in a train station and started this novel. I was consumed with the passion and multiple layers of the work as an artist is impassioned at the easel. Chevalier uses a palette of words like Vemeer used hues to cast images and make breath catch in awe of creativity. She is a new master of the literary brushstroke, evoking mental pictures and emotions, showing rather than telling me the story and setting. I rarely read a book more than once, but the plot and the prose are both worthy of greater inspection. You won't put this one down.

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Summary: wonderful book
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Maybe this has been done before, I don't know, but it seemed like a very creative idea to take one painting and write a whole story around it. The calm and clever Griet balances the characters in the household where she's a maid, making for a perfect balanch in the cast of characters. I did find it helpful to get a book from the library that had Vermeer's paintings in it. About six or seven different Vermeer paintings are mentioned in the book and it helped to be able to see them...

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Summary: Looking Inside Yourself
Review: When two worlds so completely different in every way collide, there is always a story to be told. When two people who might has well be from different planets begin to connect with one another, there is undeniably a lesson to be learned out of the chaos that they have caused. Griet never knew what she had until she lost it. One day her family is a normal family, and the next she is thrust into a painter's world were she is forced to become a maid. As you read and you travel into her new life, you find that you aren't so different from her at all. In life you must do what you can, do what you must, and try to do all that you want to do. Sometimes you get what life gives you, but sometimes you have to make life give you what you want.

The author of the novel, Tracy Chevalier took a real artist of the late 1600's and formed a tangled web of trust, betrayal, love, hate, scandal, and overall turmoil from one painting which is the books namesake, The Girl With the Pearl Earring. When Griet's father has an accident and is left blind and without his job, Griet must help her family financially by becoming the well-known painter, Vermeer's, maid. Vermeer's family is already indebt and can scarcely afford to pay for all their many children, little alone pay Griet a very small amount of a maid's wages. Somehow the money is stretched, because Vermeer's wife wishes to have many children and many servants. The irony of this is that it's Vermeer's wife who later comes to hate Griet.

It's Griet who turns a lot of men's heads, and thus causes many women in the men's lives to dislike her. Not only does she fully gain the butcher's son's attention, but Vermeer's most supportive patron and later Vermeer himself. Griet and Vermeer are from two different classes, and in those days, that might as well have meant a different species. There is an unspoken form of love that grows between Griet and Vermeer, but the reader never knows what's truly there. Griet must decide how to handle what life is given her, but most importantly she must learn who she is. Griet must, like we all must, decide which path to take. Though the novel is told in first person, even the reader sometimes wonders what Griet thinks of it all, and it isn't until the very end that her decisions are unraveled.

Sometimes the hardest decision we ever have to make is who we really are and who we wish to become. Once we open our eyes and see ourselves for who we really are, everything else seems to fall in place. Tracy Chevalier allows us to see one young woman's inner struggle with herself. We all have to choose who we want to be and who we want to be with. Like Griet experienced, life hands you a certain number of choices. You simply have to hope they you choose the best one.

This book is best for teenage girls who are interested in romance and historical fiction. The reader of the book will discover who Griet is as she discovers herself, and perhaps even reveal a little more about themselves. A book can never be a failure if it makes the reader unveil at least a little about themselves or the people around them.