Girl with a Pearl Earring

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: Based on the famous Vermeer painting of (obviously) a girl with a pearl earring. Griet goes to work for the Vermeer family when she is sixteen years old to help support her own family. Vermeer's jealous wife Catherine, their mischievious young daughter Cornelia, and the lustful patron van Ruijven all serve to create problems for Griet in her new life. She soon finds herself entangled in, and the very cause of, growing tension and disorder in the household when she begins developing a close bond with Johannes Vermeer himself. Griet treads a fine line remembering her place as a maid serving the family.

I enjoyed reading this book though only gave it four stars because the characterization seemed a bit flat at times. Griet's emotions seemed a tad on the generic side and the various antagonists did not have many layers. It was very "what you see is what you get" in the way of characters' personalities.

I was also a bit disappointed with the conclusion. Anticlimatic really after the climax scene. The falling action skipped right into the conclusion.

Highly recommended nonetheless. I enjoyed this book very much despite the few shortcomings. It's a story you become wrapped up in right away and can't pry yourself away from until the end. Definitely a good choice for anyone looking for a good, quick read.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written...but depressing and unsatisfying....
Review: I stayed up late last night to finish this book, but it just wasn't satisfying. It was beautifully written and entertaining, but I was left feeling blue when I finished. She (the main character), doesn't end up with who she loves, she has a hard life and people she loves end up dying. It ended how I knew it would, but I kept hoping I was wrong. Of course, I am a sucker for happy endings, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but if you like happy endings, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

Rating:
Summary: Good Idea and Plot Structure Till the End
Review: The premise of this novel is an excellent idea, take a well known and revered painting and turn the painter, Vermeer(who history doesn't tell a lot about) and make him one of the main characters in a novel about the girl in the painting. The main character, Griet, has what seems like a severe mulitple personality disorder, one minute she's quietly walking down a street in Holland contemplating her new life, the next she's flirting with the butcher's son and slapping her employer's daughter. The characters are realistic and interesting but they disapoint in how they end up. None of the characters triumph. Her blind father becomes bitter, her mother becomes nosy, her sister dies, her brother gets a married woman pregnant and disapears, Vermeer goes crazy and dies. And the last hope, Griet isn't particulary uplifting either. After stumbling through the anti-climatic plot that is inevitably ruined at every high point by the obnoxious daughter of Vermeer, the main character, Griet, sells out by marrrying a man she didn't love. I read this book in one sitting, but it disapointed me, it could have been much better.

Rating:
Summary: A Deft Painting of a Delft girl
Review: The subject of this story of the late 1600's is the girl who eventually poses for a famous Dutch artist, but the axis is art itself, how it elevates us, and, to some degree, how it can destroy us. Author Tracy Chevalier cleverly capitalizes on the scant information we have on the artist and the absence of any information on the girl herself. In this story, the subject of the portrait turns out to be an unfortunate young girl who is forced by circumstances to work as a maid in the artist's household. It is an era of class consciousness, where a lowly maid has to work hard, tolerate most anything, and watch her words carefully. To make matters worse, a hateful nemesis forms in one of the artist's young daughters. When the maid is drawn into the artist's world, tension builds as she first becomes a kind of muse, helping the artist with his art, then increases as she becomes an object of art herself. Though she's desired by the artist and by a proprietor, both with different kinds of lusts, it is the handsome butcher with permanently bloody fingernails who offers her genuine love and hope. Once she has posed for Vermeer, alienating what few alliances she has, will the act enrich her, or destroy her? The latter seems most likely. There are no dead bodies here, no shootouts, and no car chases (or even coach chases), but there is plenty of conflict and drama. In the mold of Remains of the Day, class struggles and their inevitable dangerous role-playing keep the reader tense and involved. Personal destruction waits only a word, a movement, a slip-up away. As Vermeer in another painting gave us the town of Delft in near perfect brush strokes, Tracy Chevalier has given us a plausible and enchanting version of the girl with a pearl earring in near perfect keystrokes.

Rating:
Summary: A Book With The Clarity of Vermeer's Paintings
Review: Chevalier's narrator Griet, only sixteen, has a strong observer's eye. Her descriptions of 17th C. Amsterdam, its churches, canals, markets, houses rich and poor, its people rich and poor, its smells, are as clear and lucid as Vermeer's paintings. Her family of artisans gets by until her father goes blind, and she is, against her will, sent to work as a live-in maid in the household of Vermeer.

Amsterdam's society is rigidly class-bound. Griet accepts that, but like the air she breathes, it is just there. Part of the genius of this book is that Chevalier has Griet realistically describe this caste system from the bottom up, where she lives. Eventually, she becomes so aware of Vermeer as a person and artist, that she assumes he must be just as aware of her. Eventually her assumption leads to her behaving on that assumption, though not in an overtly sexual way. Everybody notices, except perhaps Vermeer, who cares little for anything but his painting and, apparenlty, now and then, his eternally pregnant wife. This causes turmoil in the household, and Greit's downfall.

As others have noted, the artistic details are fascinating, as are the details about Amsterdam. To me, it is the clarity of the light on Griet, and how much she tells us, that she doesn't even know she's telling us, about the class system, that fascinates the most. Most historical fiction would tell the story from Vermeer's viewpoint. I'm glad Chevalier created Griet, on the bottom of the social ladder, and let her tell the story.

Rating:
Summary: Heartfelt and Flowing
Review: this book captured me from the beginning. it was so easy to put myself into the story even though she was only 16. it was beautiful and happy/sad at the same time. i would recommend it to anyone. it was very easy read.

Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful way to end the day...
Review: I encourage you to curl up with this book at the end of the day! This has become one of my all time favorite books! It is well written, engaging, unique, thought provoking and beautiful. Tracy Chevalier has a gift for describing settings and feelings that is rare. It prompted me to visit the local art gallery in search of other Vermeer paintings so that I can experience first hand what was described in the book. I was not disappointed! I have read only one other book by Ms. Chevalier (Falling Angels) and it was equally eloquent and capativating. I look forward to reading her other books in the future. Susan Vreeland has also written a book about Vermeer, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, that was thoroughly enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Luminous
Review: This book is a treasure. When I came to the end, the story felt finished, but I was disappointed because I wished it could be longer--just to continue Chevalier's lovely language. The quality of the writing and the great details parallel Vermeer's artwork, which makes subtle use of light and shadow to depict moments that seem ordinary on the surface, but, looking deeper, you realize they are extraordinary in their own way.

The heroine, Griet, eminently sympathetic and perceptive, tells the story not only of her complex relationships with the master and his family, but about life in Delft in the 1600s--a delicious slice of culture and history. It's told so simply and beautifully that the very ordinariness of the story becomes what is extraordinary.

If you enjoy complex and unique relationships, historical novels, or even just a tale well told, this is a wonderful book, not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: A story as wonderful as the painting on the cover!
Review: WONDERFUL!!! I found myself reading this book in a day, unable to put it down! The author made this story so real, you begin to wonder if this is really how the painting came to be. I found myself flipping from the pages to the cover (the painting) and back again. LOVELY!
Jennifer

Rating:
Summary: If you like historical fiction this book is for you
Review: This book had me from the first sentence. It tells a believable story behind one of Vermeer's finest paintings.Although fiction, you begin to believe this actually happend.It is also a story about a young girl becoming a woman in the 1600's and it tells this part of her life in a tactful manner. I could not put it down and read it within a day. I would love to see more books like this in the future.