Search - Girl With a Pearl Earring

The author has done a wonderful job with this book. In reading it you get a good feeling for the social mores of the time and a young girl's confusion in navigating them while being pursued by 3 men; the fastidiousness of Vermeer while both setting up a portrait and completing it; and the unique intimacy between artist and model while sitting for that portrait. This is my first book by this author, but I will definitely by looking for more.

I can't agree with the positive reviews of this book. I've been a great fan of Vermeer's luminous paintings for a long time, and my enthusiasm for a fictional novel about him rapidly turned to disappointment and boredom with the shallow and unsatisfying treatment he receives in the story.

The concept of writing a background story for one of Vermeer's paintings is a great one, but the author does not do justice to it. It's all very flat: one-dimensional characters, an impossibly emotionless protagonist, illogical plot developments, a simplistic writing style, and little specific detail. In fact, there's little description of anything, certainly nothing very vivid that might help the reader imagine 16th century Holland. It seemed more like the outline of an historical novel than a finished one. I generally find it hard to stop reading a novel halfway through, even ones I don't like, but I actually put this one down happily and with no regrets.

The only explanation I can think of for why this book is so successful is that its subjects, Jan Vermeer, the Renaissance, and sexual coming-of-age, are sufficiently interesting topics in themselves that many readers will forgive the poor writing.

I don't know why I put off reading this book, it sat on my shelf for a couple of months. It is very well written, interesting and one that I thought about even when I wasn't reading it. It's a fictional account of the life of Dutch artist Jan Vermeer as told by his 16 year old maid. Excellent!

Sure, it's a bit of chick-fic, but it's also pretty good historical fiction. Apparently Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek really did know each other, and could have been really good friends, as the book implies. Also, naturally, the book made me reacquaint myself with Vermeer's work, and it made me realize (after describing how paintings were set by the artist in his studio) how most Vermeer paintings really are lit from the top left by the same window.

This is a great book and I read it in two days. The book does lead you to believe that their is much passion written in the book but I didn't find this to be true. The book is not very erotic as well but the writer definitely makes you feel for Griet. I just kept reading because I sympathized for her plight and wanted to see how everything would play out. It was interesting to me that the book revolved around Griet's beauty and sexual awakening and yet the author never mentioned any description of her beauty. All in all, it is a classic and a great read.

Interesting read which tells the story of Griet, a Dutch girl who is sent to live as a servant for the painter Vermeer to earn money for her family after her father is blinded and can no longer work. The Vermeer household features several children, Catharina-the cold mistress of the household, and another servant. Tensions arise when one of the girls takes a dislike to Griet and constantly tries to get her in trouble. She also creates tension when Vermeer recognizes her abilities and tasks her to assist him which creates jealousy among the household and also when she catches the eye of a wealthy customer and must resist his advances. Eventually the only way to appease him is for Griet to sit for a portrait (The Girl with the Pearl Earring).

I like that the focus of the book stayed on Griet and that kept the story simple and enjoyable. There are so many different points of focus the book could have had but I think Chevalier was smart to keep the focus on the protagonist, Griet. In doing this I got a good impression of what it was like to live in Delft and the differences between the classes and how people were expected to act. Its not easy to picture in your mind how characters should be in a time you know nothing about but I felt liked the way the writing and descriptions allowed you to “see” it without it being too much. I also didn’t mind the background story of the butcher’s son vying for Griet’s attention throughout the book. Good description, likeable main character and it made me interested enough to look up some of Vermeer’s work on Wikipedia so I could see for myself the paintings that were discussed in the book.