The Lady and the Unicorn

Rating:
Summary: spellbinding read
Review: As a Chevalier fan this book was not a letdown. It was almost on par with Girl with a Pearl Earring. The characters were well developed. You grow to like and the good guys and hate such characters as LeBoeuf. The idea of the story in the tapestry and the people behind making it is fabulous. I wanted to delve further in the family of weavers. This is about change in our lives. Wonderful. A great piece of "historical" fiction.

Rating:
Summary: This one's a winner
Review: The basis for this book is a series of Medieval tapestries on display in a Paris museum. My first thought on hearing what this book was about was, "How is anyone going to make an interesting read out of that!" But Chevalier does, and quite brilliantly. As if that weren't enough, the writing is so excellent in this novel that you could read it just for the "poetry" and nothting else, but again, Chevalier does some remarkable things with "weaving" these elements togehter (the prose, the story, the characters) and the end result is great. The writing is on the same level as McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD or Chevalier's other work, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. I highly recommend this stellar work of fiction to anyone with a pulse!

Rating:
Summary: Captivating tale in spite of a "too romantic" writing
Review: Tracy Chevalier was able to win my admiration once again for her ability to choose a subject, thoroughly research it and then weave a detailed human tale around the historical and anthropological facts. This careful background research makes this book (as her previous "Girl with Pearl Earring" and "Falling Angels") educating as well as entertaining. The book is a very easy read and the different narrating voices add to its appeal and to the reader's ability to feel for the characters. The book cover (in the copy I hold) is splendid, portraying a detail of "Portrait of a girl" attributed to Domenico Ghirlanaio and a detail of the "The Lady and the Unicorn" tapestry, both of which are so wonderful to look at, that for me it added yet another important layer to the reading. "Portrait of a girl" especially comes to mind in the beginning pages when we meet Claude Le Viste through Nicolas eyes. It should be noted however, that although Tracy Chevalier does present an interesting, captivating tale, it sometimes withdraws into a too romantic, soap opera kind of novel. This reader was willing to accept such writing as there is a solid substance behind it and the writer knows where she wants to take you. Nevertheless, I did not feel that the feministic messages were in place (re Christine Du Sablon and other female characters) and not always appropriate to the period's thinking. Same criticism can be said about the fact that the author feels the need to "resolve" the problems/issues of every character and even gives us an epilogue with details about the future of each figure. Although this is "nice to have" I did not feel it was really necessary and in a way lowered the perception of this book as a more serious work.

Rating:
Summary: More than a historical novel
Review: Like Chevalier's GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, which draws its story from a Vermeer painting, THE LADY AND THE UNICORN draws its story from another piece of art, this time a medieval tapestry. The story is set in 15th century Brussels and Paris, but to call it a merely a historical novel does it a disservice. It is much more a history lesson. The story is rich in characterization illustrating the contrasts of the social class system in place at that time. Artist Nicolas des Innocents is commissioned by a rich patron to design a set of six tapestries. The story moves between the noble household in Paris and the merchant-class household of a master-weaver in Brussels. Nicolas ends up changing every life with which he has contact including his own. Much of the story is immortalized in the tapestries.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting history that often reads like bad romance
Review: The plot of this book is well-described above so I won't repeat it here. The high points of this novel are the rich period detail -- the differences between how members of various social classes lived, the role of women in France and Belgium during the Renaissance, the interaction between art and politics, and, most of all, the creation of art, especially tapestries and how they differ from painting. The characters are particularly well-developed and it is very easy to care for them. I especially liked the blind daughter of the weaver and how Chevalier got into how she perceived the world and how the world of her day perceived her and her "flaw." It is extremely easy to empathize with the Lady Genvieve, stuck in a loveless marriage with nothing but her religion to cling to, her daughter Claude and her importance to her father solely as a means to his social-climbing, and the family of weavers whose work on the series of tapestries of the book's title will either make them or break them, and somehow ends up doing both.

I bought this book on audio, and there are two shortcomings that keep me from giving it a higher rating, one inherent in the book itself, the other having to do with the audio reading. The first problem I have with the book is that it often reads like a bad romance novel, especially when dealing with the sexual awakening of Claude. Yes, she is a 14 year-old girl and we are hearing or reading, as the case may be, her point of view, but everytime I heard these passages I kept imagining a paperback with Fabio on the cover. I almost got into an accident driving and listening to this book as I was giggling pretty hard in places. The book is also quite repetitive and felt rather short, more like a padded novella.

The issue I had with the audio version had to do with Robert Blumenfeld's reading of some of the male roles. The protagonist of the book, Nicolas des Innocents is supposed to be arrogant and conceited, especially in his attitude toward women and non-Parisians. But Blumenfeld reads Nicolas' passages in such an oozingly snobby and condescending voice, that is hard to imagine him seducing any woman, let alone the many of this book. The general snobby quality of his voice also comes through with some of the other characters and doesn't always suit them so well, although he does better with the secondary characters. It is especially noticable because Terry Donnelly, who reads the female voices, does such a marvelous job. She sounds like a girl on the brink of womanhood when reading Claude's thoughts, she sounds like a weary middle-aged noblewoman when reading the passages narrated by Claude's mother, Genivieve, and she sounds like a wise working-class woman when reading as the weaver's wife. It's such a wonderful performance that Blumenfeld's just doesn't hold up to it, especially since the sound quality on his parts isn't as good.

In short, this a great book for someone interested in Renaissance art and life and is basically good. If you are interested in women in the middle ages and the Renaissance in Europe and want to listen on audio, I'd recommend instead Barnes and Noble's series of audio tapes of books by Alison Weir, including her book on Eleanor of Acquitaine and the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth. They are extremely well-written and wonderfully narrated. Had I not heard these series, I might have enjoyed "The Lady and the Unicorn" audio book more, but having heard great books about the era, I can only rate this one as merely good.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Weave of Words...
Review: Disregard any thoughts that a novel about creating a tapestry will be a painstaking, tedious read! The use of multiple-voice, first person narratives propel the plot in a frenzy of themes (eg, politics, sex, power and religion) that dispel the typical profile of a "historical novel."

Each character's motive is critical to the ultimate creation, the tapestry now known as "The Lady and The Unicorn." The most intriguing question: Who is the hero of -The Lady and The Unicorn-? Or is every soul we meet a hero? Like a piece of magnificent tapestry, the author has fashioned literary threads that fascinate long after the last page has been read.

Chevalier most ingeniously uses the backdrop of commissioning + creating a tapestry in 1490s Paris and Belgium to plunge the reader into a non-stop, page-turning novel. Beautifully written with curious period detail + charismatic character development to entrace her audience, this is a piece of art not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Lust in the time of Cluny
Review: Long a fan of anything medieval, (and being familiar with Chevalier's mastery of writing in Girl With a Pearl Earring, and the first-person voice per chapter device utilized to good effect in Falling Angels) and also being well aware of the mystique surrounding the unicorn tapestries, I delved into this work with a surfeit of enthusiasm. Given the bawdiness of the plot, the comical nature of the main protagonist (the ironically named des Innocents) and the sheer wealth of atmosphere, I can honestly say I was not disappointed. It wouldn't, however, be out of place to say that there was a dearth of likeable characters in the novel, with a couple of notable exceptions. This fact, however, did not detract from its readability. Rather it was a compelling reason to see what detestable, morally questionable things they may try to pull next. Two characters in particular, (I will refrain from saying whom) seem well-suited adversaries suffering from a comparable paucity of ethics, and they both get their appropriate comeuppance in the end. Chevalier strains to create as realistic a setting as possible, although the actions and attitudes of the characters (as fun as they are to meet) stretch the bounds of credulity at times. If one takes the book instead as more of a sex farce with threads (pun intended) of artistic sensibility thrown in, rather than a straight historical novel, the reader will not be let down. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: The intertwining of colors, threads, characters and plot.
Review: It's tough to follow a novel like "Girl With the Pearl Earring." I imagine it was Chevalier's hope to be able to weave as rich a tale with the art of tapestry making as she did with making a world-famous painting come vibrantly alive. The tapestry-based tale is only a mildly successful attempt at weaving families, politics, artisans and a class system.

It's interesting to learn how tapestries were made, what went into them both thematically, materials and labor wise. However, there just wasn't enough story to produce the envisioned results...tapestries that both adorn the walls of the wealthy and that are also representative of and intertwined with myth, characters, skills and history.

Instead we get artist on the make (non-stop); young maidens on various socio-economic levels who succumb to his charms; artisans operating on the whims and commissions of the monied and the mid-level managers who do the bidding of the wealthy.

There were a few redeeming parts of the story however. One being Nicholas des Innocents somehow coming off his high horse and recognizing the natural beauty of some of the women around him. An "aha moment", one presumes, results in Nicholas'changing his original paintings so that the eventual tapestries reflecting his artwork would capture the more common women's beauty rather than that of the two higher born ladies who would have originally graced the tapestries.

This much-anticipated novel was a disappointment. "Girl With the Pearl..." and "Fallen Angels" were far more successful. This seemed like a tepid attempt to return to a more successful, a tried and true, mode of telling a story. Interesting process (tapestry making); not so interesting tale.

Rating:
Summary: Great women characters
Review: Chevalier writes much better female characters than men. Still, this book is a great read. While I liked "Girl with a Pearl Earring" slightly better, this book comes in second place to that. The book has a somewhat unusual form in that each chapter is told by a different person. Highly recommended.

Also recommended: "Bark of the Dogwood," "Water Music," and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

Rating:
Summary: Trite Plot, Shallow Characters
Review: I didn't like GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING or FALLING ANGELS but I love the tapestries in the Musee National du Moyen Age de Cluny in Paris so I thought I would give Tracy Chevalier's latest book, THE LADY AND THE UNICORN a try. THE LADY AND THE UNICORN takes place in late 15th century Paris and revolves around the weaving of the six "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries. In this series of tapestries, a beautiful maiden seduces an innocent unicorn with six senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste and, finally, love (in this one, a woman is seen standing outside a tent on which are written the words: "A mon seul desir"). Since little is known about how these tapestries came into being, Chevalier was free to imagine her details. She was imaginative enough, but I wish she would have invested her book with a little, no a lot, more depth.

Chevalier has created Jean le Viste, a parvenu nobleman, to commission the set of tapestries for the Grande Salle of his luxurious Parisian home. Jean wishes to see his coat of arms and a bloody battle scene at Nancy woven into the tapestries. His wife, Genevieve, however, has other ideas. She greatly prefers gentle unicorns and beautiful maidens. The artist commissioned to paint what will eventually become the woven tapestries, Nicholas des Innocents, loves ladies, well, almost as much as he loves art, so maidens and unicorns it is.

Nicholas is a man who likes to indulge his sexual fantasies and there are several maidens in THE LADY AND THE UNICORN who only add fodder to his already fecund imagination. In fact, there are both daughters and wives. One of those daughters is Jean le Viste's own daughter, Claude. Another is Alienor, the blind daughter of the weaver in Brussels, Georges de la Chapelle. Then there is Genevieve, herself, as well as the weaver's wife, Christine. Nicholas isn't discriminating and he's a man who lets life invade his art and so it isn't difficult to imagine how these women come to be a part of the tapestries themselves. Before long, everyone wants to put his or her own little touch into the tapestries and weavers, dyers, trimmers, and more all add something to the design.

Women don't have an easy time of things in Chevalier's novels. Genevieve is ignorned by Jean because she has failed to give him a male heir (as if the man contributed nothing to the mix), Claude is sent to a convent to preserve her virginity, Alienor is being pressured to marry a man she really doesn't care for and poor Christine, who wants to work on the tapestries, can only do so at night because the guild forbids women to practice the art and craft of weaving. Chevalier has woven a lot about the actual process of tapestry making into her story but I really wasn't interested in that...I just wanted to read an engrossing story. Had I wanted a book on tapestry making, I would have bought a book on tapestry making. Still, I think it should be pointed out that Chevalier has a great eye for historical detail. Although Nicholas des Innocents is an entirely fictional character, Chevalier does tell us that the style of the tapestries indicates that they were woven in Brussels and I certainly have no reason to doubt her...she was, after all, for many years, a reference book editor, so I trust her on the historical details.

The bulk of the plot of THE LADY AND THE UNICORN involves Nicholas's amorous adventures and the struggle of the de la Chapelle family to meet the deadline for the completion of the tapestries (remember, poor Christine must work only in the dark). I thought this was a rather formulaic plot...sex, art, a Casanova-like artist, a cold-hearted nobleman and his greatly ignored wife. And, while I didn't like GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, I did think it was very evocative of Delft during the time of Vemeer. I can't say the same with THE LADY AND THE UNICORN regarding Paris and Brussels. Maybe it's because I'm very familiar with those cities and not with Delft, but Chevalier just never "took us there." (Granted, I was not in Paris and Brussels during the 15th century, but still, I got no sense of "Paris" or "Brussels" in this book.)

In my opinion, there are very few novelists who are really good at handling a large cast of characters and Chevalier isn't one of them. The narrative in GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING was boring, but it was graceful, but it was narrated by one character...the protagonist, Griet. In FALLING ANGELS, Chevalier used several point of view characters and the effect was choppy, at best. In THE LADY AND THE UNICORN, she has given us seven (I think) first person narratives and the effect, while better than in FALLING ANGELS, is still choppy and, well, clunky. Sometimes one character will relate something solely for the benefit of the reader...a bad way to give exposition. The dialogue is often awkward. A good example of this involves a statement made by Nicholas to Claude about the unicorn. One of Nicholas's spins for luring maidens into his bed is to tell them a story about the power of the unicorn's horn on sexual prowess. He says to Claude, almost upon first meeting her, "I want you to think of me as your unicorn." The man is worse than Casanova, but he hasn't an ounce of Casanova's finesse.

Worst of all, Chevalier's French is often quite wrong. I was surprised at this. I thought surely, as a former reference book editor, she would have avoided this kind of mistake, which wouldn't have been that difficult to rectify. Maybe she didn't think any native French-speaking people would be reading the book or maybe she thinks we're so far behind the times that the French language hasn't evolved any since the 15th century...but it has.

If the plot in THE LADY AND THE UNICORN lacks depth, the characters are even more shallow and stereotypical. Nicholas is an over-sexed fool, Jean is the stereotypical cold-hearted nobleman, Genevieve is the wife left to wither. Claude is the spoiled, indulged, silly teenage girl and Alienor, the blind daughter of the weaver is like all stereotypical blind girls...she's sweet and kind (but dumb) and she has some sort of supernatural power to "feel" colors. The novel might have been meant to be filled with passion and to shimmer with sexual tension, but I was bored by it. My own life is far more exciting. I didn't really care what happened to any of these people, not even Alienor, who was probably the best of the entire foolish lot.

It seems to me that there is a fundamental flaw with all of Chevalier's books. I thought GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING was gracefully written, but it lacked a central focus, a through line. It reminded me of a human being without a skeleton. FALLING ANGELS had promise, if only Chevalier had made Kitty the narrator; as it was, it was a structural mess. (I don't even want to mention THE VIRGIN BLUE.) THE LADY AND THE UNICORN is simply shallow and flat in both plot and characterization. Don't get me wrong. It's certainly not the worst book I've ever read and younger readers and readers who like bestsellers without a lot of literary quality will probably like this book. More demanding, sophisticated readers, however, will find THE LADY AND THE UNICORN shallow and trite. I think the best thing they will have to say about it was that it was a fairly quick read. Save this one for the beach or to while away the hours on a boring plane trip. And yes, I know, rather than complain, I'm going to give up on Tracy Chevalier. Obviously, she simply isn't my cup of tea.