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Summary: DELIGHTFUL
Review: Girl With A Pearl is an amazing book! Art, romance and history all wrapped up in beautiful little package. Read it and weep.
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Summary: As Richly Lustrous as a Vermeer
Review: Vermeer was a seventeenth-century Delft painter who is known for his uncanny ability to use and capture light. He recorded the simple, yet intimate, activities of daily goings-on with a balance and detail that brought the very breath of life to his paintings. Tracy Chevalier, in Girl With a Pearl Earring, uses this same balance and detail to tell the story of Griet, a sixteen-year old servant girl working in Vermeer's household.Although strong in both mind and body, Griet comes from a poverty-stricken family. Her father, once a skilled painter of Delft tiles, has been blinded in a kiln explosion. It is the shy and naive Griet who seeks to provide the wages needed for the family's survival. In the Vermeer household, Griet must cope with seemingly endless loads of laundry and meals, five small children and Vermeer's continually-pregnant wife, Catharina. It is her artist's eye, however, that sets her apart from the other servants, for Griet can clean the master's studio without having seemed to have touched a thing. This book is woven around one of Vermeer's most famous paintings, The Girl With a Pearl Earring. It is a painting that is different from the religious scenes and those of daily life in Delft, so typical of Vermeer. The story is told from the point-of-view of Griet, the eventual model for the painting, rather than Vermeer, and it is filled with a young and fresh look at the daily details of life in 1660s Delft. We learn of the canals and the markets as well as the creation of Vermeer's masterpieces. Griet's story is a complex one as she struggles to make a real place for herself in the Vermeer household. As a Protestant, she is looked upon with suspicion by most of the members of this Catholic home, but she nevertheless attracts a young suitor who is determined to marry her, as she comes to play a major role in Vermeer's life as a helper who can not only clean his studio and organize his paints, but can actually help him to compose his paintings as well. The emotional tone of Girl With a Pearl Earring is perfect. Griet is a fully-realized character; a child growing into an adult, with just the right mix of girlish ways and budding maturity. The detail of daily life is also rendered so finely and precisely that we feel we can actually smell the meat halls of Delft, hear the lively bustle of city life and suffer the quiet tragedy of a quarantine. Chevalier also weaves details from Vermeer's paintings into her story of Griet. The result is a book that is vibrantly alive and lustrously rich. It is an education in art history for those who would otherwise let it pass them by. A tapestry of beauty that pulls the reader in from beginning to end, Girl With a Pearl Earring is a fascinating story and a fascinating look at life in Renaissance Delft that will reward anyone who reads it.
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Summary: Girl With A Pearl Earring
Review: Tracy Chevalier writes as though she is painting a picture. Her writing took me beyond the Vermeer painting...it took me back in time. I repeatedly looked at the picture as Ms. Chevalier wrote this historically romantic story that brought Griet alive on the pages.
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Summary: Enchanting story
Review: I truly enjoyed this book, and anyone who likes crisp, simple fiction will too. This is something of a coming of age tale, seen through the eyes of a XVI or XVII century girl and set in the home of the fictionalized painter Vermeer. Anyone who has looked at Dutch paintings will have enough to go on as you imagine the scenes. This is not meant to be a fancy book, but rather made of of short sentences, few characters...really nice!
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Summary: A quick haunting read
Review: I read Girl With A Pearl Earring over the summer and I was amazed when none of my friends have heard of it. It is one of the most lyrical reading I've done in a long while. The descriptions of the life then is very vivid ~~ I can almost smell the paint and see life viewed through the characters' eyes. Chevalier takes you on her journey through time and when you finished the book, you almost wish you weren't done. And it does take a few minutes to travel back to the 21st century ~~ so vivid is her description of life in Holland. I recommend it to anyone who has a few hours to spare to read and to daydream.
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Summary: A Great Coming-Of-Age Story!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this story! The contrasts depicted in this story were true...there WAS an invisible divide between master and servant, there WAS a cultural division between Protestant and Catholic, and the cultural riches of the upper class vs. the mundane life of the lower class. The character of Griet, the quiet composure and discretion in her eyes that seem to hide guarded secrets seems to describe the girl in the painting! I loved the way Griet and her brother escape from their humdrum, quasi-abusive lives. The piercing of Griet's ear symbolized the loss of innocence and the gain of wisdom. Nice job, Ms Chevalier!
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Summary: What our class thought
Review: Tracy Chevalier's novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, tells the story of the trials of a young girl as she progresses into womanhood in seventeenth century Delft, Holland. The plot intertwines the art of Vermeer and the life of Griet, the protagonist. After a tragic accident within the family, Griet is forced to support her family by working as a maidservant in the home of a Dutch painter named Johannes Vermeer. Griet's primary focus in the household is to clean the master's art studio, and while she spends much of her time there, she learns about her emotions by watching her master at work. Suddenly, the story then takes a dramatic turn when a member of Griet's family is struck with a fatal disease. She is torn between her true desires and the needs of her family. Although we have mixed opinions of this summer reading requirement, overall we feel that Chevalier's book paints a fascinating storyline about a well-known Renaissance artist. This book can be a slow read at times; nevertheless, it captures the reader's imagination. The author's vivid imagery guarantees this will be a book you will never forget.
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Summary: F period 9th Grade English, Girls Preparatory School
Review: F Period 9th grade English Girls Preparatory School Chattanooga, TN In Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, a variety of readers is captured into the life of a young, Protestant girl in Delft, Holland. For the young female audience, this enchanting novel demonstrates how a teenage girl deals with love, religion, and marriage circumstances. For the artistic audience, Chevalier provides detailed descriptions of the famous painter Johannes Vermeer and his techniques. For the historical audience, the exquisite depiction of the city of Delft and the everyday life of the 17th century in Holland should grab their attention. The story captivates anyone's interest with its intriguing romance and mystery. Contrasting religious customs cause Griet, the main character, to feel out of place in Vermeer's household, and his family members' attitudes toward her reclusive lifestyle is a conflict. However, a strong admiration develops between Griet and Vermeer. He slowly begins to dray her into his world of art. Her wonder stems to a secret love that will never become, and she is torn between this and her acceptable love of a butcher from a nearby market. This easy to follow historical novel gives insight not only to art but also perspective into other fields of study.
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Summary: A glimpse of a possible life
Review: This was a facinating weave of a story around a famous painting, a look in a possible life of a 17th century maid in a Delft household of the famous painter; Vermeer. What I particularly liked was wandering around in the mind of a young woman, raised in the 17th century with her reflections and observations. She dwelt not only on what she saw, but the significance of those events and views to her. Especially poignant was her observations on her family home and neighborhood after she had dwelt for sometime in that of Vermeer household. What was surprising was the significance and interpretations of some events based on 17th century thinking. The story centers around the young woman; Griet who is portrayed as being the woman in Vermeer's famous painting; "Girl with a Pearl earring". This story shows her family background and the story behind why she has come to be a maid. You see the story unfold as this Protestant girl ventures in to Papist corner to join her employer's household. Her interactions with her Master, his wife and Mother as well as his children and other maid, come to show each's personality so clearly. What is most hard to wrap your mind around is how few "rights" a poor person has compared to the wealthy in that day and age. Griet's sense of position, though she was not subservient, was that blame traveled down the hill of status and had more to do with who you were than what you did. Her perspective was not one of outrage as mine would be, but of acceptance and awareness of this disparity. She often had to tread softly and react to events that she was to be blamed with, warily. Innocence was not enough. The story unfolds how she came to be in one of her Master's paintings and what is interesting is the reaction and concern for this by all the parties in the book. You see the reaction in the 17th century of a woman displaying her hair, to the significance of earrings and facial expressions. What was also interesting was her reaction and interest in Vermeer's paintings and the process of them. I never realized any of this was part of the process. I can only assume the writer did some research on how paintings were done in those times. It makes for a facinating read. It gives you an opportunity to step back in time. It also makes you thankful to live in the 2000s.
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Summary: The Makings of a Masterpiece
Review: Inspired by the mystery in a Vermeer picture on her wall, author Tracy Chevalier created a story of a young girl to explain the enigma behind the figure in the painting. Who was the girl? What did she have to do with the painter Vermeer? These questions are answered in the skillfully written historical fiction novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring. Griet, a young Protestant girl on the verge of becoming a woman, goes to work for the Catholic Vermeer family during the 1600's. The malevolent battle between these two opposing Christian denominations is displayed through the tension felt between Griet and the Vermeer family. During her stay with the Vermeers, Griet matures through her work and life in the household. By assisting Vermeer with his artwork, she gains artistic vision and learns how to better appreciate art and the world around her. Griet not only grows by becoming more perceptive and tolerant of things unfamiliar to her, but she also gains awareness of the role women play in society. She attains this newfound understanding through the complex relationships with her overbearing suitor and her reserved yet demanding master. At the crossroads between adolescence and womanhood, she must consider the developments of these relationships in order to decide the course that the remainder of her life will take. This touching novel maintains the reader's attention through vivid descriptions of characters and emotional complications. An education in the historic background of Vermeer's time and paintings can be acquired through reading Chevalier's book.
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