Rating: 
Summary: Girl With a Pearl Idea, Poor Execution
Review: Girl With a Pearl Idea, Poor Execution
Girl With a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier, provides an interesting, though far from "seamless" (as it is billed) mesh of history and fiction. The novel traces the story of Griet, daughter of a blinded tilesman, who is forced to work, as a result of the blinding, as a maid in the unlikely house of Johannes Vermeer. Griet, who is assumed at the outset to be the girl in the painting, eventually turns every woman in the household against her as she becomes closer to Vermeer. After being painted, at the bidding of rich Van Ruijven, she is summarily kicked out of the house and marries butcher "Pieter the son," who had been courting her.
The story, though obviously fictional, is meant to create a life for the woman in the anonymous portrait, believed by some to be Vermeer's daughter, though his oldest daughter would have been only eleven at the time of the painting in 1666; clearly too young to be the girl in the picture. So, we must first assume that this woman is not a direct relation of Vermeer, and second, we must assume that she exists, and is not a creation of Vermeer's mind. With these contentions accepted, and with the concession that Chevalier need not write a fully believable theory in order for her novel to be enjoyable, the conclusion should still be drawn that the work is a failure. Whether she wishes to provide glimpse into the man known as Vermeer, or a work of looking at and being absorbed in imagination about art, or an obscure and flimsy seventeenth-century Dutch Romance, Chevalier can claim no victory.
Vermeer, who has eluded historians with his relatively late rise to fame (centuries later) and the little known about him and relatively few paintings (thirty-five) believed existent, could not be the ambivalent hermit which Chevalier paints. The character of Vermeer, far and away the easiest and most important character to make interesting, is a static, indifferent painter who paints the girl to please the lust of Van Ruijven and appease Griet, a maid, who refuses to sit and be in the concurrent The Concert with the same man. We are made to believe Vermeer has fallen, at least in part, for this maid, and thus cannot paint her sitting with the sleazy aristocrat. We are made also to believe Vermeer paints this portrait in secret from his jealous wife who has had it in for Griet since her arrival to clean Vermeer's studio, and that it so enrages his wife when she finds out the maid has worn her earring in the painting, that she births a sickly child a month early on the floor, in the middle of Vermeer's studio.
So, there's an elegant, rich, child-bearing wife and a maid of misfortune, hired to clean Vermeer's studio. Griet cleans the studio with precision and perfection, measuring placements of items with arms lengths and returning them to the original position. And, though it takes time for Vermeer to clarify his liking of Griet, from the beginning Griet is infatuated with Vermeer. Chevalier almost seeks to write of a Jay Gatz instead of a Johannes Vermeer; with Griet on a Gatsby-like quest to discover who the man with the palette really is.
But the Vermeer of the novel is so much less than the Vermeer of common myth and so much less worthy of a quest to discover. The novelized Vermeer refuses to defend Griet when she does his bidding and is caught; refuses to side with his wife against Griet; refuses to disobey rich patrons; and, yet, also refuses to allow Griet to be painted with the town sleaze. The negative inference is that this Vermeer cared about nothing but a perfect, finalized painting; a nice mythical view of a real man but hardly a real view of a myth. We are even treated to such pearls of (or, rather, perils to) wisdom as: "You [Catherina] and the children are not part of this world...you are not meant to be" in response to why he has never painted his wife. A weak character is Chevalier's Vermeer; a man who bares no soul and appears, really, to have none to bear. We are left, in the end, to wonder if he actually cares about anything beside his work and, if the answer is no, then we are left to wonder if the character, as written, could be so philosophical to think of separate spheres of art and life.
Chevalier's painfully strained and stretched metaphors make the novel no less easier to digest: Chevalier goes to such lengths to point them out that they are no fun and require no thought. Chevalier explains where each tip of an eight pointed star leads, and allows Griet to wonder if she's chosen the right path. A broken tile of Griet and her brother Franz, what could prove a savory metaphor in retrospect, is destroyed by Chevalier's didactic need to help the unintelligent reader by saying that the girl who broke it could never have known how true a prophecy it would become once the two siblings lose contact. Finally, a knife sent spinning to floor at the hands of Catharina in Griet's house at the beginning of the novel is referenced multiple times to keep its memory fresh before a final showdown between Catherina and Griet concludes in the same result: with the spinning knife ending with its point toward Griet. Clearly by the flat characterization, Chevalier assumes the reader will be more attracted to Griet's molestations at the hands of Van Ruijven and her time in alleys with Pieter the son than with actual style
The Verdict: For a breezy pseudo-intellectual read, Girl With a Pearl Earring is sufficient. For a real look at Vermeer, read Anthony Bailey's Vermeer: View of Delft. For a worthwhile combination of history and fiction, look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Stunning
Review: I've had this one on the shelf since it came out and finally came to it. Wow! Such a stunningly envisioned work! The first-person narrative is so strong in point of view that you can picture Griet completely in your mind, see the choices she makes, and understand her.GwaPE so vividly portrays 17th Century Delft that you begin to think in their terms and understand why the people act as they do within the social constructs of the time. By the end of the novel, you are completely wrapped in the time. The explanations of clothing, adornment, household objects, jobs, lifestyles are as vivid as a Vermeer painting. Chevalier gets it just right! Vermeer's amazing genius in his work is juat that: the portrayal of people as they were... and Chevalier mimics his genius beautifully. I was in the Met Store this afternoon after finishing this one, and I picked up an artbook with all the Vermeers in it (all 35), and when I turned the page to Girl with a Pearl Earring, it had so much more power for me. The whole novel blossomed for me in the eyes of the girl. Truly amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Great Historical Fiction for Art lovers
Review: "Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. "..or in my own words, A fictionalized account of a young girl in Holland who winds up working as a maid in Vermeer's house. She captivates the artist and becomes a muse for him. The best book I have read in years. You don't have to be an art lover to appreciate this book but it helps. Having studied Vermeer's paintings before I found the story very enjoyable and I could not put it down. If you love historical fiction and / or art history check this book out!
Rating:
Summary: Visually superior to the literary effect
Review: I kept looking at the lovely cover photo of the painting of the title character and found it far more interesting than the book. The tale itself was so less rich and complete that I could not find it in any way beguiling. The story's one fact that has been bandied about is the question of the use of an early camera by the painter. The plot, however, the maid's ascendency and the reaction of Vermeer's oft-pregnant wife, failed, I felt, to speak to the innocence and the enormous warmth of the painter and the subject.
The relative lack of historical details that would seem 'different' than our own styles of talking and thinking, was, for my purposes, too vast. After all, it was the 1600's, and yet the incidental aspects of life seemed as though they were all too modern. Not, something I would recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: Quick and good
Review: This little book has great characters. It doesn't take long to read, but it will stay with you for a while afterwards. I have passed it on to several friends and family and everyone has loved it. The characters feel real and you want to know what's going to happen to them. It's fun to imagine that this is really how the painting came about.
Rating:
Summary: Girl With A Pearl Earing
Review: From the begining this book blends art history and fiction. The plot is easy to follow, but make no mistake, the writing is not simple. From the first page the reader is greeted with delightful sentances such as..."I heard voices outside our front door-a woman's bright as polished brass, and a man's, low and dark like wood..."
Also writers will enjoy the many beautiful and imaginitive similies the author included that made this book a joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Make It Stop!
Review: How on earth did this book become a bestseller? Flat, one-dimensional characters, no plot, strained metaphors . . . Griet doesn't have any redeeming qualities. She's unkind to her family, snotty with a working-class man because his hands are dirty, and in love with a man who treats her like dirt, willing to jam an earring into an infected ear so the painting will be "right." We're supposed to root for these two? The whole thing was disappointing and the ending cliche.
Rating:
Summary: This is a nice little novel
Review: There's a great deal to appreciate about this novel by Chevalier. Though the novel's scenario is obviously speculative (little is known about Vermeer's private life), I still feel quite comfortable calling it "historical fiction" because the author clearly took such pains to recreate everything as accurately as possible. I quite easily transportd myself to a 17th century Delft town, where I could see the people going about their daily chores. The imagery in this book is intense but not forced--and that is a clear demonstation of the writer's talent. Chevalier vividly conjures images of every detail, from the clothing styles to the prevailing sense of servitude that enveloped the novel's heroine. The way she managed to verbally describe Vermeer's attention to light, texture, and shadows amazes me. The characters in this novel, I feel, are beautifully developed. Griet emerges at the end with a clear sense of survival, when she could have succumbed to defeat and humiliation. The tension betweend Catholics and protestants is yet another detail that makes Chevalier's imagined world seem real. Vermeer eluded historians for centuries. Tracy Chevalier has given him a life that may be as close to the "truth" as anyone will ever be. I'll never look at a Vermeer painting the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Tale of Life
Review: Tracey Chevalier's novel is one that is genius and intriguing. Set in Denmark in the 1600's, the story of a young girl forced to be a maid to support her family unfolds. Not only does Chevalier capture the reader through the life of the main character Griet, she also introduces the reader to extremely important minor characters that help make the story. This is a novel that is well worth the read, I could not put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant - But Not Great
Review: I read this book after several friends recommended it to me. Like several other reviewers I found it to be a pleasant read, but not an outstanding one. There are many positives to this book. It is well written and extremely informative as to the life and times of Vermeer as well as to the painter's craft. My main complaints would be fact that I really did not feel like I know much more about any of the characters at the end of the book than I did at the beginning. Its an informative book, and well worth the read, but it would not rank on the list of the best books I have read so far this year.
|
