Rating: 
Summary: Utterly enchanting!
Review: Chevalier is one of those writers that can make you pray for rainy Saturdays, just so you can have the pleasure of sinking into the sofa with her book and a blanket. Girl With a Pearl Earring is as rich and intriguing as its namesake. Griet is a lovely narrator, young and vibrant with a wonderfully curious dispostion. Chevalier captures the essence of the painting in Griet, a girl at once naive and honest yet possessing a clear and often cold acceptance of her fate that betrays her station in life.
Rating:
Summary: a lovely way to end a reading year....or to begin a new one
Review: I had the pleasure of discovering "Girl" in an Advanced Reading Copy. A small gem of a book, as lustrous and lovely and the pearl of its title, I recommend this first novel wholeheartedly. Tracy Chevalier's first novel speaks in the lovely voice of her maidservant character, who transports its reader to seventeeh century Delft and Vermeer's home and studio. It's the kind of book that you want to run your hand over its cover each time you close it.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascination with Vermeer painting inspired book
Review: I wrote this book because I have always been fascinated with the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's works, especially the painting Girl With a Pearl Earring. I am never sure what the girl in it is thinking: sometimes she looks seductive, other times sad. Sometimes she is thirteen years old, other times thirty. I began to wonder what Vermeer said or did to make her look like that, and from that wondering the story emerged.
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Summary: Which "Vermeer book" to read?
Review: Art lovers, and particularly Vermeer lovers, have been so lucky this year to have had two "Vermeer novels" available at the same time! And both of them are wonderful! Some debate has appeared on the Amazon pages for the two books--Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier and Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland--as to which book is "better," a debate likely to continue. Both books are short, both are extremely well written, both involve a hypnotizingly seductive Vermeer painting, and both tell of the influence of the painting on the lives of the main characters. In Girl With A Pearl Earring, author Chevalier focuses her literary microscope on Griet, a maid in the Vermeer household who becomes an assistant to the painter. Griet is a young woman who maintains her integrity despite the turbulence and social pressures to which she is subjected in the household. Life in Delft and in this family during the time of the painting is replete with petty jealousies, economic pressures, class distinctions, religious differences, and political and social uncertainty, and Griet has to navigate her way through this milieu. It is through her character and domestic situation that one comes to know Vermeer and his painting. Girl in Hyacinth Blue, on the other hand, is not a "character novel." Here the author does not zero in on one character or even the painting as an end in itself. Instead, Vreeland takes a broader, more global view, using the history of a hitherto undiscovered Vermeer painting to work backward from the present to the painting's inception in Delft. The "story" here is a careful tracing of themes--the relationship between personal love and responsibility to mankind in general, the role of art in the lives of ordinary people, and what constitutes lasting value both in art and in human interactions. In seven or eight chapters we see how the painting has affected the lives of its various owners. Ultimately, comparing these beautifully wrought novels is like comparing pearl earrings to hyacinths. Both are gorgeous; each is unique.
Rating:
Summary: What a read!
Review: "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is a brilliant work of historical fiction. Vermeer's works always seem to draw me to them, and this particular painting has been one of my favorites. Unlike any of the others, except for approx. two others, it isn't painted in front of a window and other stills. And even these two other paintings don't carry the mystery that this one carries. Tracy Chevalier digs deep into the ambiguity surrounding this work of art to create an incredibly believable story about Griet, the girl with a pearl earring. The supporting characters can be divided into two groups: likeable and detestable. Frankly, I came close to developing an ulcer due to the behavior of one of the girls in the novel, which merely displays the good job Chevalier did with characterization. To close, the historical authenticity is commendable, especially in the area of class structure and its rigidity, as well as Griet's descriptions of making the paint (the different types of materials used, grinding them, etc). Chevalier leaves the reader with a vivid picture of 17th century life in Holland, which can make for a bit of a depressing book, what with how realistic it is, but really! What book of lasting literary value isn't, in some ways, depressing? So go ahead- read it!
Rating: 
Summary: Contrived
Review: I didn't like it at all. I was able to finish it but I credit that to an extremely boring day at work. It never ceases to amaze me that people will grasp onto a book like this and sing its praises. This is not "literature". It is a trite story written for 6th graders. There is no mystery, nothing left for the imagination, nothing to build toward. From the moment you meet the main characters you realize where you're being led and how it will all turn out. I closed the book and am left with nothing a few characters that will leave my memory as soon as I begin my next book. How disappointing!
Rating: 
Summary: A moment frozen & forever there...
Review: What an interesting idea for a novel: Tracy Chevalier has taken a painting of an unknown woman by a painter about whom we know almost nothing & written the story behind it's creation as seen thru the eyes of it's subject. "Girl With A Pearl Earring" is the result, & an impressive novel it is. However, it impresses in terms of craft, of technique. As I read it, I couldn't help comparing it to the marvelous "Memoirs of A Geisha" which also takes us into the mind of a young girl in a world very foreign to most readers. Where "Memoirs..." fully involved the reader both in descriptions of daily life in a vanished world & in the people populating it, "Girl With A Pearl Earring" exists more as a set piece. There are exquisite sketches of the dour, plodding life of the average Delft citizen in the 17th century, but they never breath. I never felt I understood why the main characters acted as they did, I never felt in sympathy with the dilemmas that formed the core of the book & the resolution felt forced somehow. Also, viewing the painting that inspired the book, I simply didn't feel this was a plausible "back-story". Vermeer's paintings are quiet, frozen moments of daily life that seem forever trapped in amber. "Girl With A Pearl Earring" gives a similar feel to the reader. If you prefer a quiet, contemplative book that is primarily focused on thought rather than action, you will probably enjoy this novel more than I did. I guess I'll just never appreciate literature....
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Summary: "Virtuous women did not open their mouths in paintings..."
Review: "Girl With a Pearl Earring" is based on the Johannes Vermeer painting with the same name. Sixteen-year-old Griet is forced to leave home and go to work as a maid for a painter and his family in order to provide for her family. Although she faces numerous challenges with most members of the Vermeer household, Griet slowly begins to bond with her master, who commissions her to help him in his studio and eventually has her sit for one of his paintings.
This book is interesting on many different levels. For one thing, creating this fictitious tale based on such a famous piece of art is intriguing, and Tracy Chevalier's characters are all very believable. Having the story narrated from Griet's point of view was also an excellent choice. The reader is treated to a description of how life was for a young woman living in poverty during the 17th century. Griet is forced into so much during the course of this novel, and all her options seem vert limited: there could be serious consequences if she continues to work for the Vermeer family, but her family will starve if she chooses to leave. There is also the potential of romance with a young suitor, but Griet is torn between a "sensible" relationship with Pieter and the growing feeling she has for her master.
The relationship between Griet and Vermeer is very mysterious and still leaves a lot of questions until the very end. We become aware of Griet's feelings for her master, but how does Vermeer really feel about her? Griet's interaction with the other women is also interesting to follow...Vermeer's wife sees her as a threat, Tanneke sees her as a rival, and Cornelia sees her as someone to destroy. The relationships between all of the women in her life escalate as the story progresses, which makes the final confrontation in the last few pages of the book even more powerful.
I would recommend "Girl With a Pearl Earring" to anyone. Now that I've read the novel, I am very eager to see the movie version...hopefully Hollywood didn't butcher it beyond repair. :)
Rating:
Summary: Utterly fabulous
Review: The book was like new and shipped promptly...as good as Amazon.com.
Rating: 
Summary: Read better...and worse.
Review: What I must straightaway establish is that, while I may have given the book a relatively small rating, this is by no means an indicative of my thinking the book bad. It wasn't a bad book in the least, but I'm afraid it was simply too uninteresting to warrant any reaction, dislike included.
The premise, mind one, was fascinating. The great painter Vermeer's interactions with a common, plain little girl who's known nothing but hardship and yet who finds herself the object of interest in a world so uniquely different to her own and is even immortalized in what can be argued as his best painting. As someone with certain art studies, and having had this book recommended to me a good number of times, I was looking forward to the experience of its reading -- and yet this wonderful concept had such a poor execution that I was left with a bitter taste as well as questioning the reason for the book's hype.
Mrs Chevalier's main failing, I think, lies not in her prose (however flat, at times, and thoroughly inexpressive even in what are supposed to be most tense moments indeed) so much as in her characterization, or better put, lack thereof. Arriving at the painter's house as a sixteen year-old maid, young Griet is oh-so-tormented by every one of the masters of the keep. From the young wife Catharina, seemingly jealous of the girl (why, specifically since her husband at no point expresses an explicit romantic interest in the girl, nor she in him, we will never know) to her demonic children, an overly-vain cook/main/attendant, and then the elder mistress and Vermeer's in-law, Maria Thins, whom Greit tells us is intimidating, but whom we only see acting out as an old lady who tries to survive, and to keep her family alive.
This is another point that Mrs Chevalier over emphasizes to her disadvantage: Greit abuses her first-person perspective and tells us just how everyone is and acts, rather than the authoress herself showing us different characters' personalities through their actions. We reach the supposed "climax" of the story wherein, if Greit hadn't kindly announced me that she was in big trouble, I would never have quite understood there was a fuss to be had about anything to begin with.
Chevalier has obviously gone through a good deal of trouble to write her characters as complex individuals, but she doesn't manage to depict this exact complexity. She's at her most disappointing with the very Griet. After more than 200 pages, I had expected to be able to at least divine when the girl will have fallen in love with her master, but there's not even the slightest hint to as much, not a clue. One day, during her visits to her parents' house, her mother gives her "meaningful" looks and Griet understands that she knows she's fallen in love with the painter. From where has this love stemmed? When has it blossomed? And where in blazes was I, the reader, when that happened? I'll never quite know.
I've purposefully left the book's strengths at the end, for I feel it's best to at least leave those who'll bother to read this review with the idea that there is something good about the book. And there is, really.
To begin with, the prose is light, making the book easy to read, and therefore accessible to a variety of ages. It's not a demanding lecture, but a mildly entertaining one. The concept in itself, again, deserves a few praises, both for its originality and the author's bravery in providing her own theory concerning the painting's making in such an intricate historical society. While I hesitate to call her descriptions of how the painting was executed masterful, I'll have to admit that I myself am biased because of having gone through the ordeal -- yet I can definitely see how and why the process in itself, and the depicture the author provides us with in its concern would be very engaging to other readers.
I don't know whether this book is one I would recommend to other readers. As I've said before, it's not bad, but then again, neither is it good. I do think, however, that I'll again take the time to mention that Tracy Chevalier's "Fallen Angels" is by far a more remarkable reading experience, and I'd urge all readers to acquire it!
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