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Girl With a Pearl Earring

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In a thrilling emulation of Jan Vermeer's artistic style, Tracy Chevalier uses scenes drawn from everyday life and painstaking attention to detail to tell the story of Griet, a 16-year-old girl who is required by her family's misfortunes to become a maid in the Vermeer household.

I devoured the book the first time through, then read it again to savor the starkly beautiful language and the highly sensual account of 17th century life in a busy Dutch household. On both forays, I drank in the vivid descriptions of Vermeer's paintings and his creative process, from the positioning of his models to the grinding of bone and lead, massicot, madder and ochre, to make his pigments.

To those who complained that nothing happened or that the book was predictable, let me say, this was never meant to be a suspense story in the conventional sense. That an event could be foreseen doesn't render it improperly drawn. The magnetism of this tale is not its ability to surprise us with plot twists but to show the complex and fascinating interplay among people of different stations and sensibilities. Chevalier demonstrates her considerable skill in presenting Griet to be at the same time naive and intelligent, hemmed in by her lack of status and strong of spirit. Her resigned frustration over the many slights and unfair situations she must deal with strikes me as the only sensible option for one who must continue in employment for the sake of those she supports. Though I can't imagine Griet describing herself as anything but ordinary, her attention to detail--as keen in its own way as Vermeer's--and her understanding of the personalities and motives of those around her show her to be a remarkable young woman. The other main characters--sometimes as bound by their elevation as Griet is by her lack of it--behave with annoying reality. Maria Thins, Vermeer's mother-in-law and behind-the-scenes overseer of the household and finances, almost always knows the score. She comes to Griet's aid or not, based on what will best serve her daughter's interests and yet she comes across, not as scheming, but as practical.

Comparable to Vermeer's intricate landscapes are Chevalier's long views of the Delft streets. She has a knack for picking the right detail to convey a mood, a cultural insight, a social contrast.

Vermeer had the extraordinary capability to endow his figures and landscapes with a luminescence that gave his paintings lasting impact. Chevalier imbues this simple story with a similar light from within. For those who can set aside the desire to be entertained with broadly drawn action, there is glowing subtext and delicious tension throughout. Chevalier lets the characters be real--noble at times, disappointing at others--and though she doesn't tie up every loose end, she provides a resolution that is both satisfying and credible. My only complaint was that the ending came too soon as it tends to do with good fiction.

In addition to a good story well told, Girl With Pearl Earring is a remarkable intertwining of the historical with the fanciful. Chevalier's tale is exquisitely believable and lives in the yearning face of this most appealing model. I will never again look at the painting without feeling the marvelous resonance and possibilty of Griet's story.

"Girl With a Pearl Earring" is the first major novel I have read since John Irving's "The World According to Garp" more than 20 years ago. As a 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 is a rhythm of soft poetry 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 jarring, a 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?

"Girl with a Pearl Earring," by Tracy Chevalier, is a story set in Delft, Holland in the 17th Century. A lovely sixteen-year-old named Griet, whose family has suffered financial setbacks, is sent to be a maidservant in the home of the great Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. Griet finds herself drawn to the world of Vermeer--a world of light, color, beauty and perfect composition. Griet shows an aptitude for understanding art and she gradually begins to assist Vermeer in his painting. Griet's involvement in Vermeer's art sets the stage for family conflict. (The title of the novel comes from a Vermeer painting that is known as the Dutch Mona Lisa because of the enigmatic young woman in the portrait.) This novel is a small gem and it is an immensely satisfying work of fiction. Chevalier perfectly captures the life of 17th Century Delft, with its sharp religious and class distinctions, and her nuanced dialogue and descriptive passages are beautifully textured. In fact, "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is like a Vermeer portrait. It is expressive, subtle and meaningful. I highly recommend this book for people who are fascinated by art and who enjoy historical fiction.

I had the pleasure of discovering "Girl" in an Advanced Reading Copy. A small gem of a book, as lustrous and lovely and the pearl of its title, I recommend this first novel wholeheartedly. Tracy Chevalier's first novel speaks in the lovely voice of her maidservant character, who transports its reader to seventeeh century Delft and Vermeer's home and studio. It's the kind of book that you want to run your hand over its cover each time you close it.

This is a gem of a novel, and 17th century Delft comes alive in the deceptively simple but beautiful prose. Unlike many other historical novels, Chevalier's characters are not merely 20th century people wearing period clothing-- they are 17th-century people with 17th century values and world-views.

I was cheering for Griet, an intelligent and lively misfit in the restricted world of a maid-of-all-work, as she discovers that she has an artist's eye and that there's a world out there more interesting and more rewarding than what's in store for her. But this novel has very bittersweet ending, and I did not have as much respect for Griet by the end of the book as I did in the beginning. Life is full of compromises, and Griet's compromises end up hobbling her, I think.

Anyhow, the book is exquisitely written and the characters stay with you after the last page is turned. I'm glad I read it, and if you like quality historical fiction, you'll enjoy it, too.

Vermeer immortalized the Girl with the Pearl Earring, a face that launched a thousand trips to the museum. For over 300 years, the world has enjoyed the gift he has given this anonymous girl from Delft, one of perpetual beauty and mystery our children's children will surely ponder. The author, Tracy Chavalier, has created a dignified, bittersweet and complementary story for Vermeer's subject. This skilled author kept with the tone of Vermeer's work, respectful and accurate. At the same time, she managed to effectively marry fiction with historical fact; I valued the information I picked up along the way. If you're an art enthusiast, particularly if you're drawn to Vermeer's pristine and refined Dutch world, the one he has romanticized for us 35 times on canvas, then you'll certainly appreciate this book.

Who says that judging a book by its cover is wrong? To be honest, I was desperate for a quick and interesting read for a Sunday afternoon - I needed to be swept away to another world. I picked up this book purely based on its attractive front (and, of course, my love for the enigmatic Vermeer). What I then discovered was another portal into his world...from the perspective of charming Griet, the heroine. While I gleaned the feminist undertones, whether intentional or not, they were subtly expressed and in no way did they distract me from the story at hand. Griet: her savvy, her spunk, her limitations, her obligations, her time of service as a maid, her awe and sacrifice for her master, Johannes Vermeer, are what you'll be concerned with. Although I did feel emotionally charged by Griet, she didn't electrocute me. I was aware of the distance of time and culture, and I welcomed it. Chavalier did not waste my time jerking my tears; she merely presented me an enjoyable escape. Read the book. You'll love it.

Vermeer was a seventeenth-century Delft painter who is known for his uncanny ability to use and capture light. He recorded the simple, yet intimate, activities of daily goings-on with a balance and detail that brought the very breath of life to his paintings. Tracy Chevalier, in Girl With a Pearl Earring, uses this same balance and detail to tell the story of Griet, a sixteen-year old servant girl working in Vermeer's household.

Although strong in both mind and body, Griet comes from a poverty-stricken family. Her father, once a skilled painter of Delft tiles, has been blinded in a kiln explosion. It is the shy and naive Griet who seeks to provide the wages needed for the family's survival. In the Vermeer household, Griet must cope with seemingly endless loads of laundry and meals, five small children and Vermeer's continually-pregnant wife, Catharina. It is her artist's eye, however, that sets her apart from the other servants, for Griet can clean the master's studio without having seemed to have touched a thing.

This book is woven around one of Vermeer's most famous paintings, The Girl With a Pearl Earring. It is a painting that is different from the religious scenes and those of daily life in Delft, so typical of Vermeer. The story is told from the point-of-view of Griet, the eventual model for the painting, rather than Vermeer, and it is filled with a young and fresh look at the daily details of life in 1660s Delft. We learn of the canals and the markets as well as the creation of Vermeer's masterpieces.

Griet's story is a complex one as she struggles to make a real place for herself in the Vermeer household. As a Protestant, she is looked upon with suspicion by most of the members of this Catholic home, but she nevertheless attracts a young suitor who is determined to marry her, as she comes to play a major role in Vermeer's life as a helper who can not only clean his studio and organize his paints, but can actually help him to compose his paintings as well.

The emotional tone of Girl With a Pearl Earring is perfect. Griet is a fully-realized character; a child growing into an adult, with just the right mix of girlish ways and budding maturity. The detail of daily life is also rendered so finely and precisely that we feel we can actually smell the meat halls of Delft, hear the lively bustle of city life and suffer the quiet tragedy of a quarantine.

Chevalier also weaves details from Vermeer's paintings into her story of Griet. The result is a book that is vibrantly alive and lustrously rich. It is an education in art history for those who would otherwise let it pass them by. A tapestry of beauty that pulls the reader in from beginning to end, Girl With a Pearl Earring is a fascinating story and a fascinating look at life in Renaissance Delft that will reward anyone who reads it.

This is the kind of first novel many serious writers ache to produce. Chevalier effectively takes us away from the hustle and noise of the 21st Century--the omnipresent cell phones, the whirring faxes, the beeping answering machines--into a world rich in silence and texture. Practically from the beginning the reader will find herself unconsciously relaxing as Chevalier quickly brings 17th Century Delft to life: the silence of darkened rooms, the crackle from a kitchen fireplace, the muffled sounds of feet moving swiftly up stone stairs.

The heroine, Griet, is an intelligent 16 year old who, because of a family tragedy, is ripped from her poor but closely knit family to work as a maid for artist Johannes Vermeer's household. Unlike her own home's rather straightforward traumas (how to survive now that her father, a tilemaker, has been blinded in an industrial accident), the superficially quiet Vermeer household seethes with jealously, turmoil, intrigue and secrets. Griet comes as a maid, but she evolves into a painter's assistant and, ultimately, muse--a transformation that changes the direction she may otherwise have chosen for herself.

Chevalier brilliantly and persuasively describes the rigor and tedium required to maintain a 17th Century home; just reading through Griet's daily workload is enough to make one want to take a nap. The divison between server and served, the fine line Griet must walk to please her insecure new mistress and her perfidious children, make modern sensibilities bridle. Life, as John Kennedy liked to observe, is not fair. And as this book matter of factly points out, it was even less so before democracy's leavening influence.

My biggest regret re Chevalier's book was that there wasn't more of it. There didn't need to be, but I was sorry, even with its bittersweet ending, that the book had come to an end.

Johannes Vermeer, one of the famous Dutch painting masters from the seventeenth century, in the middle of his career created a portrait of a girl with a pearl earring, in a turban, often called "The Dutch Mona Lisa". The girl from the painting looks at us with mysterious expression, sometimes appears sad, sometimes hiding a smile... What is her story?

Tracy Chevalier created one possible version in her novel "Girl with a Pearl Earring" where some historical facts mix with fiction to create the beautiful story, vivid and colorful, reminiscent of Vermeer's paintings... The atmosphere of the book is incredible, unique, as if it were an account of an eye-witness and not the figment of the author's imagination.

Griet, a sixteen-year old daughter of a glass blower from Delft, disabled after a work-related accident, , from an impoverished, but hard- working family, inherited her father's artistic sensitivity. She starts a job as a servant at Vermeer's house and the painter becomes intrigued seeing her vegetable compositions. When Vermeer notices Griet, her life changes - she becomes his aide and, finally, a model for the famous portrait. She get a chance, but at the same time enters the different world, full of obstacles unfamiliar for her, and she needs to be careful. Their fascination with each other cannot last long...

In Holland of the 1600s the social order is strictly defined. The Protestants are completely separate from Catholics, the poor from the rich, the masters from the servants. This is why Griet and Vermeer do not even think about a romantic relationship, despite their similar view of the world. Johannes has to paint to feed his ever-growing family and satisfy his possessive, jealous wife, Catharina, who except being the mother of his children does not have much in common with him, and his mother-in-law, the greedy and conniving Maria Thinks, who manages very well to get more and more orders for his paintings. The portrait of a servant and the growing, although mainly spiritual, intimacy of the artist with Griet cause tension in the family and after a while Griet's dismissal seems inevitable and many intrigues and repressions from Vermeer's family members and friends make her leave. Such ending is obvious for all involved parties and any regrets remain unspoken... Griet marries Pieter, the cheerful butcher's son, and moves on. Only much later, the surprising gift reminds her of the time at the painter's home.

The characters are full of life: Vermeer, a full-blown artist; Griet, girl who in other reality could change her destiny; Catharina, a woman who does not see beyond her traditional role; Maria Thinks, clever and resourceful; and many other minor protagonists, sketched skillfully and with precision. It is easy to imagine the clothes, simple, ascetic surroundings, streets of Delft - the prose is very descriptive and full of details.

"Girl with a Pearl Earring" is an enjoyable book, but it is also one of the rare examples, where the film based on a novel exceeds it - the 2004 screening by Peter Webber with Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth is a great movie.

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.