Girl With a Pearl Earring

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and enlightening!
Review: I found Girl with a Pearl Earring to a very entertaining story as well as educational. I have never studied art history but found myself drawn into the story of Vermeer and the possible events that led to his painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. Enlightening but not stuffy...I couldn't put it down. I will read more by Chevalier.

Rating:
Summary: Vermeer Lite
Review: Not bad, if you want to spend the time of a (short) airplane trip and you can't fly with knitting needles anymore, but really! A servant girl who can tell what is missing from an unfinished portrait -- who knows better than Vermeer what one touch is needed to make a portrait whole? Forget this, forget "Girl in Hyacinth Blue", and find "The Flanders Panel".

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Summary: A Good Idea, But...
Review: As someone who is amazed by Vermeer's work, and who wanted more after seeing his works in the "Delft School" exhibit at the Met, I picked up"Girl" to read on the plane. Although the idea is very unique - fictionalizing the story of a girl in a Vermeer painting - the execution falls short. Chevalier's writing is pretty trite and not very unique. i found myself rolling my eyes far too often at suggestions that this little girl gave The Master ideas on how to paint, such as putting a cloth across a table, etc. If you are annoyed by simplistic portraits and VERY SHORT sentences such as "The day was ending. The sun was almost set." don't bother with this book. Yes, it will help you pass the time (about 2 hours) but why not be enlightened by great or even very good writing instead?

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Summary: Lights and Shadows in Life and Arts
Review: Tracy Chevalier creates a convincing, enthralling portrait of fictitious Griet, a sixteen-year-old poor protestant maid who works for the affluent catholic family of celebrated painter Johannes Vermeer in order to sustain her poverty-stricken family. Griet progressively metamorphoses herself economically and socially into a well-balanced woman who does the best with the little (power) she has in the male, stratified Dutch society of the seventeenth century. Girl with a Pearl Earring is perhaps more importantly an invitation to (re) discover the city of Delft that has preserved both its charm and cachet despite the torments of time and the artistic genie of one of her most famous sons.

Rating:
Summary: A great property for Merchant Ivory ...
Review: but a little thin for a novel. I've heard people rave about this book, and it is a charming little story, quite lovingly written. I understand why some readers have responded so enthusiastically to this and the spate of other novels that have come out recently that involve Dutch painters. Others are "Girl in Hyacinth Blue" about a fictional Vermeer painting, "Johanna", about the widow of Van Gogh's brother and even "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" which includes a character referred to as 'the Master' (really the best of the bunch). It seems a little mean-spirited to criticize this book too harshly because I enjoyed it too, but the story is small, and the characters' concerns are uber-domestic. Even the writing is simplistic, verging on Hemingwayesque, not a plus. I'd give it a B-, and since somebody has probably already optioned the rights to it, I recommend waiting for the movie.

Rating:
Summary: A Famous Painting is Brought To Life
Review: Tracy Chevalier's novel, _Girl With A Pearl Earring_ is fascinating for many reasons. The beautiful young girl in the painting is breathtakingly fresh,wise and innocent. It is these qualities that have been brought to life in the novel. Chevalier shapes the mystery of who the young girl might have been into a believable plot. Utilizing the little known facts about the famous artist,Vermeer, the author breathes life to the skeletal background. She has also carefully researched life during the 1600's. I love the style of the writing, simple like the painting. I love the imagery used and the characterization of family members. When a novel forces the reader to search the internet for Vermeer's paintings, it becomes more than a reading experience. I love the fact that this then becomes an interdisciplary task, forcing the reader to carefully view all of the paintings mentioned in the text. Tracy Chevalier will be studied by many students in colleges and high schools in the future. The novel is as rich as the painting, and readers are indebted to the author for providing us with a plausible scenario. Griet is a true literary heroine, and one can only hope that the model for the painting was as wise and beautiful (inside and out) as the character that has been created by this talented author.

Rating:
Summary: Really enjoyed this book
Review: This book is a look into what life might have been like as a servant in an artist's home. Tracy Chevalier has a way of painting a picture in the words and descriptions she uses that is mesmerizing. A wonderful book if you are the least bit interested in art.

Rating:
Summary: Girl with a Pearl Earring
Review: Girl with a Pear Earring is a very exciting story about a young girl, Greit, who becomes a maid for the artist Vermeer when her father was hurt in an accident. Griet is a protestant and is going to work for a catholic family, which makes her uncomfortable at first because she is worried about the diffrent ways they do things. She doesnt fit in to well with the family. Corneila the oldest daughter is a brat, who doesnt like Griet, and throughout the novel gets her into trouble. Greit become closer and closer to her Master Vermeer, and ends up being almost an assistant to him. He allows her to do many things for him that he would never let other people do, even his on family. The family is jealous of Griet because she gets to do things they do not such as: clean the studio, go in the studio, and help make paint. Part of Griets chores is to go get meat from the butcher every day. While getting meat Griet and Pieter, the butchers son become quite fond of each other, and in the end they are married. This was a great novel, and while I was reading it, it took me into a diffrent time and place. The characters in the story were very realistic and vivid. This was a very intresting book, and I highly reccomend it.

Rating:
Summary: a fabulous read!!
Review: When I first bought Girl with a Pearl Earring, I thought it was going to be just another historical fiction book...nothing more. How wrong I was! When Griet, the protagonist, goes to work at Vermeer's house I wondered what was going to happen. I quickly found out. Besides getting herself into one awkward predicament after another, she meets a very original cast of characters. There's Vermeer's mother-in-law, Maria Thins, who is a very intimidating woman...or so she seems, Vermeer's wife, Catharina, who is pregnant most of the time, the butcher's son and of course, Vermeer himself. Vermeer is portrayed wonderfully. I thought that if I had ever met Vermeer he would act exactly as Tracy Chevalier had made him act. This book goes by faster than you will want it to. I guarantee that after you read this you will never look at a Vermeer painting in the same way again!

Rating:
Summary: Simple and elegant
Review: The best thing about this book is the way you must view the people through their simple, uncomplicated stoicism. The emotion comes through, then, like the view of an eclipse, that you can't look directly at to know. This one stayed with me.