Rating: 
Summary: An inside peek into history and art
Review: Griet was a subtle, quiet and sometimes submissive girl. You will follow her as she tries to bring honor and money to her family. While blessed with a strange beauty that men take to she still seems unaware of her power as a women, perhaps because the women she lives with as servant are so demanding and cruel. This book is a very subtle read. I read it with a book club and the different points we picked up on were amazing. If you're looking for a book to discuss, this one will fit the bill. Never offensive, always touching, sometimes even leaving you begging for soemthing more to happen between this girl and the people in her life, paticularily her master Vermeer, this is a great story. Much detail is given to the paintings and the manner in which they were painted, so I recommend you read with a book on Vermeer close by. You will learn something about art, human nature, and even a bit on the historical class structure.
Rating:
Summary: Linking the Tangible to a Story We'd Like to Believe...
Review: Back in 2000, "Girl With a Pearl Earring" became one of the first major novels I had read since John Irving's "The World According to Garp" more than 25 years ago. As an ex-journalist, I can't explain my aversion to fiction, other than to say that anything akin to "once upon a time" is already six feet under to me. Truth has always seemed stranger than fiction. I was attracted to this book for one reason. I was at the Maurithuis Museum at the Hague in the Netherlands in 1996 and saw Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "A View of Delft" (both pictured on the book's dust jacket) in person. They are the most unforgettable paintings I have ever seen. Vermeer's paintings are incredibly hypnotic, drawing us into a time and place that no longer exists. By virtue of thousands of brush strokes, we are pulled into a time warp which places us into a scene the same surreal way that an old photograph does. This is what author Tracy Chevalier has wonderfully achieved. Unlike other paintings riddled with religious motifs, nearly all of Vermeer's 35 known works have the ability to force you to think, "Yes, this must have been what ordinary life in Holland was like more than 300 years ago." And one can be quite moved by this even if one loathes cheap sentiment. The book's triumph is taking the tangible, that is, the painting which still resides in the Netherlands -- fusing it with what historians know about life in 17th century Holland -- and then concocting something that not only is believable, but plausible, even though our minds are telling us, "But this is still a piece of fiction." Griet, our heroine, does seems mature beyond her years. Yet her thoughts are not unbelievable when we remember our own youth, what scared us, moved us, what made us care about what others thought. We felt wise beyond our years. Only later did we discover how naive we were, how much more we had yet to learn. Griet's narration reads better if we imagine her telling her story from the point of view of an adult reflecting about her thoughts when she was 16, and not in the present tense, as presented here. Still, there's a soft rhythm emanating from her narration that doesn't seem pretentious in a way that would call attention to the author's writing style, the mortal sin of any book. When something is good, we don't think about how words are strung together. We are so enthralled that time loses all meaning, like a dog whose only notion of it is something nebulous that must last forever. The events which force Griet to work for Vermeer and the tragedy that occurs later, have less emotional impact on Griet as a 17th century girl than if she were a 20th century girl. They are treated without sappiness. We watch Griet's transformation as an attractive young woman who is already aware of her effect on men, to something more complex and cunning. We listen to her efforts to de-feminize herself to deflect unwanted attention, her silly and resigned rationalizations in her trading of dispassionate "minor" sexual favors to achieve her goals, however vague they may seem. We deduce that Griet is a creature of the moment in her actions, but oddly, in her mind, she is also a girl who has one eye on her own future, as well as her family's. The greatest scenes in the book are the conversations, sparse as they are. When Vermeer tackles the complex subject of religious attitudes toward paintings and whether they have any relevance to the viewer, despite the fact that his paintings are not riddled with religious themes -- he does so with such clarity and logic -- that it has you soaring into the stratosphere, like listening to Einstein breaking down the theory of relativity into simple language that anyone can understand without being offended. In addition, Griet's efforts to articulate her emotional feelings about the master Vermeer are wonderfully conveyed. She is explicit in almost every other emotion, but never about her growing romantic feelings toward Vermeer. Yet it is clear in her narration that she loves Vermeer in her own special way. This, to me, is what others have long said to be the essence of romance. It is the notion of "what if?" and all that it entails, while the rest is just "life as it all turned out." The few sexual passages in this book do seem off-kilter to its mostly placid and intelligent tone. They were necessary to illustrate Griet's awareness of her allure, as well as her low self-image, which betray her confident narrative. But it would have been better to allude rather than to describe what seems mildly lurid. My first thought was, "Well, here's the 'PG-13' portion of the book which calls attention to itself." The placid tone Chevalier has painstakingly created is now a little jarring, a mild rant against the sufferings inflicted upon women by bestial men throughout time. The book's ending (without giving it away) is "Zhivago-esque" (the movie and not the Pasternak book, though purists say one should never compare apples to oranges). It is soft, oblique and rich with a wonderful sense of irony and closure. It has a completeness that takes many other authors several hundred more pages to convey. Turning fiction into reality, mixing facts with a creative extrapolation of how the "Girl with a Pearl Earring" came to be, is the magic all of the world's best writers desire. Minor faults aside, Chevalier's account is brilliant enough that in my mind, Vermeer's painting is now inextricably linked to Chevalier's book. The girl now has a name and her name is Griet. The result, quite eerily, is this. After reading "Girl With a Pearl Earring" -- how can anyone look into those luminous eyes of the girl in Vermeer's painting -- in quite the same way again?
Rating: 
Summary: A swell book
Review: I can say that Chevalier has succeeded in creating a new personal favorite. She took a time in history not often investigated through fiction (but obviously worthy of it) and created a writing masterpiece. The description she makes of the paintings has inspired me to become a small-scale art enthusiast. She doesn't use large amounts of dialogue. She resides to the personal thoughts a single girl. It is refreshing to also have a book where the lead character is a teenager. Although it is with completely different circumstances I felt a better connection being a girl of sixteen as well. At the end you give a "Wow that was great!" sigh. It makes you re-examine parts of the world around you and take a new appreciation for all small details, thoughts, and creative behaviors. It is nothing short of wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: Wondering what all the fuss is about...
Review: I don't read much literary fiction, mainly because much of it is more about the style with which the novel is written or the allegories or hidden meanings which readers are supposed to detect, cleverly hidden as they are among the novel's usually rather thin storyline. When I read fiction, I read it for the emotional involvement with the characters, and thus my preference is for authors who can invoke emotion with their words. The reviews carried on this book's jacket appear to promise such emotional involvement: we are told that it is 'haunting' and 'magical', 'unbearably poignant' and 'steeped in atmosphere'. Maybe it's me, but I didn't see any of that. What I did see was a not-very-well-fleshed-out story about a young Dutch girl with an unusual fascination with colours and imagery, employed to work as a maid in the household of the seventeenth-century painter Vermeer. The household is fraught with traps for the unwary, where no matter what she says Griet may end up in trouble with someone. And yet through all of this, for a character we are meant to believe is uncertain, alarmed, unsure of her status, Griet appears remarkably calm and even capable. She chooses meat better than the household's existing cook; she can even cook better, too! And she can apparently teach Vermeer himself how to give his paintings that extra touch they need to make them unique. But it is the emotions which are the least convincing. Chevalier always tells, rather than shows, when it comes to Griet's emotions. For instance, Griet is subject to the lecherous desires of van Ruijven, and also to his stolen touches. She tells us (very briefly) that she dislikes it, but the few mentions are very dispassionate. Even more emotionless is Griet's courtship with Pieter the butcher. In the accounts of the time they spend together, it appears as if Griet barely tolerates him - and yet this relationship appears to be serious. With Pieter she experiences her first kiss, and this barely rates a mention; more intimacy is described as if the narrator is a detached, uninterested observer rather than the active participant. In fact, the whole book feels written from a perspective of emotional detachment. I didn't find myself caring about the characters at all, which led to a sense of scepticism about the interest which Vermeer himself is supposed to show in Griet - whether real or just as the potential subject of a painting - and about Griet herself as a credible character. Whether I would have finished the book had I not been reading it to while away a train journey I don't know, but it certainly didn't interest me enough to consider re-reading it, or going to see the film. wmr-uk
Rating: 
Summary: Fatuous, plodding, clumsy
Review: This book is sentimental clap-trap from an amateurish historical imagination addicted to forced and ill-considered metaphors. It's the first book I've ever actually thrown in the garbage.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story
Review: This was the first novel by Tracy Chevalier I had read and I love her writing. This story about the famous painting is so imaginative and intriging. I have since bought a copy of the portrait and also enjoyed the movie. Her other novel- The Virgin Blue is very good as well. I especially would recommend Falling Angels- the book is by chapters of each character's point of view.
Rating:
Summary: Not my usual cup of tea
Review: I don't usually tend to veer too far off the beaten path when it comes to books. Tending to stick with bestsellers like "Life of Pi" or "Bark of the Dogwood" my choices almost always keep me safe and warm. Well, not always safe, but you get the idea. So I was hesitant to take on "Girl" for fear of it being too "outisde." What I found instead was a riveting piece of work--art really--that melds historical fact with excellent fiction. Kudos to Tracy Chevalier for this remarkable achievement!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Time Trip
Review: Girl with a Pearl Earring is a beautiful tale of a long time ago. This story is realistic and heart driven. Griet, the 17 year old girl who becomes a maid to help support her family, is the focal point of the story and of a painting by her master which causes all kinds of trouble. She works in the house of a famous painter whom she is in love with. Life is not as easy as it would seem when one is a maid and in love with their master. This story is a fast read with details that create a world based in 1664. I would strongly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece in a book
Review: This was an intriguing book that took the reader into the world of a 17th century maid and her artist master. The relationship between Griet, the maid, and the artist Vermeer left the reader in suspense of the characters true feelings. From an artistic point of view the author's description of Vermeer's art captivated the beauty and effort of the painting process. However, at times the book was slow. An example is the emphasis the author put on the gossip in the market. I would recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in 17th Century art.
Rating:
Summary: SOME MAY LAUGH...
Review: ...but I don't think I've read such a good book (poetic prose) since "The Color Purple", and that was a LONG time ago!
| 
