Customer Reviews

Rembrandt's Whore: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Writing historical fiction or biography presents unique challenges. The author must reconcile what is known with an act of the imagination to create characters and story. This is true even when writing non fiction, with fiction it is even trickier. I have recently read "Girl with Pearl Earing" and "Girl in Hyacinth Blue", two other novels attempting to portray the golden age of art in Holland, both centering around Vermeer. Both are noteworthy, but this effort, about Rembrandt, surpasses both.
First of all, the main character, from whose point of view the story is told, thinks more like someone in the 17th century than the characters in the other two novels. There is the omnipresence of religion, the imagery with which thought occurrs(the little white worms!). Then there is the sense of time and place..Amsterdam here is not some nostalgic spot in the Dutch past, but a complex culture mixing religion, innovation, and art in the country where modern capitalism arguably emerged. It is the merchants who rule this world, not the old aristocracy, and this world is in flux. The tension between the merchant class, the religious reaction to them, and artist as personified by Rembrandt is fascinatiog. One also feels the force of natural events, the Plague, and the floods which always threatened Holland.
There is much about Rembrandt here, much about the struggle of an artist who attempts to remain true to his vision, both as an artist and as a human being, against the spirit of a conservative phillistine society.The descriptions of Rembrandt's way of seeing the world, and most importantly the people in it, will change the way you look at his art.
Lastly, this book is simply a joy to read. Mattons language is rich and evocative and lingers in the mind. Her observations about the people who live in this world ar sharp and true. The love story in these pages is erotic and powerful. She also has a unique way of blending story lines with the Rembrandt's paintings that enriches the story even more.
My highest recomendation!

REMBRANDT'S WHORE takes place during the second half of Rembrandt's life, in Amsterdam. It tells the story of Hendrickje Stoffels, a 20 year old girl who moves in from the country, in order to serve as maid in Rembrandt's household.

Rembrandt has her pose for his paintings, and soon falls in love with her. Because of a contract he has signed, regarding not being able to marry after his former wife's death, at the expense of having to pay a sum which he does not posses, he is not able to marry her, and thus she becomes his "whore".

From a historical perspective, we are exposed to war, the plague, religious intolerance, and politics. All of these factors play important roles as they compose the background of the story.

The second half of Rembrandt's life was characterized by bankruptcy, illness, and his downfall from Amsterdam's best known painter to his being exploited by various political figures, who took advantage of his precarious situation. Hendrickje stands by him and provides him with care, emotional support, and a child, Cornelia.

It is because of her that Rembrandt is able to live, having lost his wife Saskia and children in a tragic manner.

The plot is well conceived and interesting.

I was unpleasantly surprised by the book's form. REMBRANDT'S WHORE is basically a monologue by Hendrickje, sometimes in first person, and others in second, as she talks directly to Rembrandt. Quite franky, the novel is often confusing.

Also, due to the fact that a 20 year old, practically illiterate, peasant girl narrates the story, the novel's flow is absolutely nonexistent. This makes it difficult to read and quite franky boring.

I have read quite a few biographical novels regarding the lives and times of famous painters, and this one rank's pretty low, and cannot be compare this to other books of the same genre. A specific example is Irving Stone's LUST FOR LIFE, about Vincent VanGogh. Now, that's a masterpiece.....

This is a great little book. I enjoyed it tremendously. It brings the artist to life and shows how life with the Rembrandt felt like for Hendrickje, a country girl who became Rembrandt's common law wife. The book shows how it was to live in Amsterdam back in the mid-1600s, in all the little details. It is also a study of the intricate social structures which dominate small communities everywhere. The book is thick with atmosphere and envelopes the reader in another age showing what it must have felt like to live with a genius, at the time of the Plague, and submerged in religious bigotry. It also artfully weaves into the story the feelings of a good woman as she copes with her love, her passions, people, misunderstanding, prayer and fears. A great read for those interested in Rembrandt and Holland during the 1600s. I read the book in the silence of my room, alone, so nobody could lurch me out of that atmosphere and that age !

I was fascinated by the title of the book and it took a while to find it. It was worth the search.

Based on numerous sources, the author, Sylvie Matton, has produced a fascinating tale of the lives of Rembrandt and his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels, as related through Stoffels eyes and thoughts. Stoffels left no traces of her life because she could neither, read nor write because girls weren't allowed the privilege.

For the last years of Rembrandt's life he loved, painted and fathered a child, Cornelia, with his twenty-year-old house maid, Hendrickje Stoffels. He was 43-years old and widowed with a son, Titus. Titus was born in 1642, but Rembrandt's wife Saskia died a few months later. Geetje Dircx was hired as Titus' drynurse, but after Saskia's death, become Rembrandt's model and lover. She and Rembrandt apparently ceased to be lovers, however she stayed to become head of his household staff.

Hendrickje had left her family, over her mother's protests and journeyed to Amsterdam to become one of his housekeepers. But, in just a matter weeks she become his model, lover and pregnant. Their affair is complicated when Geetie becomes livid and storms out of the house. But Rembrandt refuses a demand of the church council to marry Stoffels. The refusal turns their lives into a turmoil. The story takes the reader through an inside look at the painter's life, the morals of the period and life and death in a city stricken by the Black Plague, all through the voice of Hendrickje.

It makes for a fascinating story. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Told from the point of view of Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's mistress, paragraphs in dark and darker colors, like Rembrandt's own brush strokes paint a picture of mid 17th century Amsterdam and the second half of the life of Rembrandt. It's a time of plauge, war, floods, superstition and religious intolerance.

Suffering after the deaths of his three small children and wife Saskia, Rembrandt finds solace in the arms of Hendrickje, a beautiful servant in his household, 23 years his junior. He never marries her (thus the name given to her by the towns people, "Rembrandt's whore") but clearly loves her, as he loves the child they have together as well as his beloved Titus, son of Saskia.

Written in a deliberately obtuse style with shifting points of view we are told of an endless succession of visitors to the Rembrandt household, as well as providing laborious information on his bankcruptcy and the loss of his house, his paintings and other possessions. Interspersed with this are amorphous descriptions of his paintings that can only be deciphered by those completely familiar with the Rembrandt oeuvre. This book is essentially boring and confusing.

Sylvie Matton presents an unusual story, fictional in all its moment to moment detail, but true and exquisitely researched throughout. The "whore" is Hendrickje Stoffels, the woman who lived with Rembrandt during the hardest years of his life, modeled for him, and bore a child with him. Today, no one would think much of the live-in arrangement. Then, the couple and Hendrickje in particular came in for censure from civil and church authorities, and from the art-buying public. Matton's story presents a sensitive, if speculative rendering of Rembrandt's slide in bankruptcy after the death of his first wife. That slide ended in his possessions being auctioned off by his debtors. For all practical purposes, he was stripped of the legal right to property, and lived in Hendrickje's receivership.

Matton's writing gives two different impressions. As a whole, the book presents a clear progression through late years of Rembrandt's life. The story is well informed by the body of primary documents and scholarship about the artist's life, down to minutiae of how the painting oils would be prepared. The story seems solid and all of a piece. At the finer level, though, the writing style has a pointillist character. For pages at a time, no two conescutive paragraphs relate directly to each other. Instead of a clear image plane, the isolated elements act like facets of a jewel, each with a different orientation but fitted together into some larger whole.

Although interesting and well researched, I have reservations about Matton's attempt to channel Hendrickje's spirit. Perhaps the author has done an good job of reconstructing the protagonist's inner life. Perhaps not - Hendrickje lived in such a distant time and social milieu that her personal experience of her daily life can never be recovered in its entirety. Still, it makes for an interesting excercise in research and conjecture.

-- wiredweird

I must disagree on one point with the top most reviewer. This novel was written before Tracy Cheveliers Girl with a pearl earring. Although "pearl earring" was a far more interesting read. I found this book boring but oddly intriguing. It is worded strangely and sometimes the main character (its in 1st person) Begins to speak to Rembrandt. These parts are second person and it all becomes very confusing. I also found I didn't really care about the main character and the ending was a let down. It leaves one dissatisfied with the novel. You would have to really love anything to do with Rembrandt to enjoy this book.
I in fact found it so boring it took over three weeks to finish. And this is saying something when the book is only about 180 pages. I hated it so much I referred to is as the dreadful book that would not end. Once again someone really needs to enjoy aspects of Rembrandt's life to enjoy this complicated (what seems like) 500 page bore. The reason by the way that this received 2 stars instead of 1 is because the plot was enough to keep me reading up to a point.

Sylvie Matton is simply riding the Tracey Chevalier wave. Unfortunately, she is not a good enough surfer and crashes before the break. A boring book, a pale imitation.