Girl With a Pearl Earring | 
 enlarge | Author: Tracy Chevalier
Publisher: Large Print Press
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
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Rating:  789 reviews
Sales Rank: 348863
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Pages: 283
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 1568951868
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781568951867
ASIN: 1568951868
Publication Date: January 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meager facts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents. Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. His portrait of the anonymous IGirl with a Pearl Earring/I has exerted a particular fascination for centuries--and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.p IGirl with a Pearl Earring/I centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, IGirl with a Pearl Earring/I does contain a final delicious twist.p Throughout, Chevalier cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style, whose exactitude is an effective homage to the painter himself. Even Griet's most humdrum duties take on a high if unobtrusive gloss: blockquote I came to love grinding the things he brought from the apothecary--bones, white lead, madder, massicot--to see how bright and pure I could get the colors. I learned that the finer the materials were ground, the deeper the color. From rough, dull grains madder became a fine bright red powder and, mixed with linseed oil, a sparkling paint. Making it and the other colors was magical. /blockquote In assembling such quotidian particulars, the author acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study IThe Embarrassment of Riches/I. Her novel also joins a crop of recent, painterly fictions, including Deborah Moggach's ITulip Fever/I and Susan Vreeland's IGirl in Hyacinth Blue/I. Can novelists extract much more from the Dutch golden age? The question is an open one--but in the meantime, IGirl with a Pearl Earring/I remains a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, and an appealingly new take on an old master. I--Jerry Brotton/I
Product Description
History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. iGirl with a Pearl Earring/i tells the story of sixteen-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius ... even as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 784 more reviews...
Beautiful October 6, 2008
J. Llewellyn (Australia)
br /I really enjoyed this book. When I started it I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but I was immediately swept into the story and the relationship between Griet and Vermeer. br / br /I think I'll rent out the movie now :)
 suprisingly good August 9, 2008
Michele S (Westchester Couny, NY)
I started to read it and could not put it down. br / br /Some authors will spend pages describing a scene or a person, making a book drag out. This author, with a few words, made you feel like you where standing next to the character. br / br /
Loved it July 31, 2008
C. Cannon (East TX, USA)
I loved it. The way the writer portrayed each character was so vivid that you can almost see what they look like and the way they talk. It is a great book.
One of the best books I've ever read May 11, 2008
E. Novo (Taos New Mexico)
A friend recommended this book to me and I completely loved it. The movie adaptation was completely beautiful, adding a visual aspect to the story, but the book, as usual, managed to carry more depth to the story; a sense of how very hard the girl had to work, the kinds of pressure she was under and how very dangerous it was for her to pose for the painting. br /Unforgettable.
mysterious story, great taste March 22, 2008
Li Chu Heng (Mtka, MN US)
we read this in English class. So good... easy words, but created a great sense of romance and mystery
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