The Virgin Blue (Paperback)

by Tracy Chevalier (Author) "She was called Isabelle, and when she was a small girl her hair changed colour in the time it takes a bird to call to..." (more)
Key Phrases: mon espérance, Petit Jean, Monsieur Jourdain, Monsieur Marcel (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Chevalier's clunky first novel, initially published in England in 1997, lacks the graceful literary intimacy of her subsequent runaway hit, Girl with a Pearl Earring. In split-narrative fashion, it follows a transplanted American woman in southwestern France as she connects through dreams with her distant Huguenot ancestors. The primary plot concerns the plight of Ella Turner, an insecure American midwife of French ancestry. Her architect husband, Rick, has been transferred from California to Toulouse, France, with Ella accompanying him. Often left alone, she becomes lonely and isolated, and when she decides it's time to have a baby, she begins dreaming of medieval scenes involving a blue dress. In alternating sections of the novel, these details are developed in a narrative about a 16th-century French farm girl and midwife, Isabelle du Moulin, and her eventual marriage to overbearing tyrant Etienne Tournier. Isabelle and Etienne belong to a vehemently anti-Catholic Calvinist sect that overthrows the village's cult of the Virgin, who is also known as La Rousse and depicted in paintings as red-haired and wearing a blue dress. Because of her own red hair and midwifery practice, Isabelle is suspected by her husband of witchcraft and punished accordingly. Ella, with the help of magnetic local librarian Jean-Paul, researches the lives of Isabelle and Etienne, trying to get to the bottom of her strange dreams. Chevalier tries hard to make Ella sympathetic, but her dissatisfaction with Rick is baffling, as is her attraction to the chauvinistic Jean-Paul. Equally difficult to swallow is the heavy-handed plot, which relies on jarring coincidences as it swerves unsteadily from past to present.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
...a compelling page turner. -- Boston Globe, August 18, 2003

...a story that is really just a fine, touching love affair. -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, July 31, 2003

As she did in...Girl with a Pearl Earring, Chevalier brings a distant time and place vividly alive.... Elegantly drawn. -- People, August 18, 2003

Chevalier has a rare gift for bringing the past to life and making it relevant to affairs today. -- Seattle Times, August 3, 2003

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Plume (June 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452284449
• ISBN-13: 978-0452284449
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (160 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,478 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #57 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Metaphysical

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The magnetic pull of the past, January 13, 2004

By	Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The Virgin Blue is indicative of the author's love of art and history, the plot marginally less sophisticated than her later and more successful novel, The Girl with the Pearl Earring. As a first effort, this novel certainly shows the author's burgeoning talent. In a plot that has become quite familiar in recent fiction, the story contrasts the life of a young woman in France with a distant relative who lived four centuries earlier, under much harsher conditions.

Ella Turner moves to France with her architect husband, Rick. Not far from where the couple settles in Lise-sur-Tarn, Isabelle du Moulin married Etienne Tournier when pregnant with their child, in 15th-Century France. At the time of Isabelle's marriage, France is suffering through the religious upheavals that are scouring the countryside, as strict Calvinist sects wrench themselves away from the Catholic Church, intent upon purifying the religion. Still, there are holdouts scattered throughout the country, mostly in the north, were the fleeing refugees resettle, driven from their lands, their farms and goods burned to the ground.

Known in her village since a child as "La Rousse", Isabelle is now shamed by her flaming red hair, the object of unwanted attention. It is said that the Virgin had red hair, a mark of the Papacy. Isabelle hopes to pass unnoticed among the other villagers, always covering her hair in public. Her husband, Etienne Tournier, a distant and controlling man, has never trusted his beautiful young wife, fathering two sons and a daughter with her, but rigid in the ruling of his family. When Isabelle's daughter, Marie, grows fiery red strands of hair among the brown, her mother is terrified and with good reason. The innocent Marie meets her fate in a cruel world, beginning a mystery that haunts the dreams of her distant relative, Ella, four centuries later.

Ella's unremitting nightmares and the recurring shade of blue that accompanies the dreams, drive her to search for her distant ancestor and their common history. Although never as portentous as in Isabelle's day, Ella's life choices are daily more difficult; in pursuing the mystery of the past, Ella's life takes a direction she could never anticipate.

Isabelle Tournier is a strong presence in Chevalier's hands, the treatment of the past historically compelling. A sincere and honest young woman, Isabelle suffers greatly for her simple faith at a time when women have few options, save the comfort of their families. Her stigma, the genetic accident of red hair, is unavoidable, but such is the superstition of the times that Isabelle is marked irrevocably. The 15th Century is tainted by religious intolerance, as the religion in ascendancy cleanses away the beliefs of another, leaving a wake of burning homes, villages and memories. This novel is an indication of the work to come, as Chevalier fashions compelling historical fiction, a genre she makes her own. Luan Gaines/2004.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Victim of poor reviews, January 19, 2004

By	Emily (US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Virgin Blue (Hardcover)

Despite having read less-than-perfect reviews, I recently read The Virgin Blue on the recommendation of my English teacher, and was pleasantly surprised. While I have never read Girl With a Pearl Earring or any other of Chevalier's novels (and perhaps it is in comparison to them that many people beleive this novel to have fallen short), I can personally say that I was disturbed, moved, and ultimately satisfied with this book.

The story moves back and forth between Isabelle du Moulin, a young woman in 16th century France abused by her cruel husband, whose family belongs to a strongly anti-Catholic sect, and Ella Turner, her anscestor, a modern-day American midwife whose husband's job had relocated them to France. Both women find themselves horribly unhappy; Isabelle, who still secretly loves the Virgin and has her characteristic red hair, is suspected of treason and witchcraft by her husband Etienne, and Ella finds herself having strange nightmares about the color blue when she and her husband begin trying to conceive. As Ella and her "friend" Jean-Paul, a stubborn, often crass librarian who Ella is striving not to fall for, search for the story of Ella's anscestors, Isabelle's own disturbing fate slowly creeps into light.

While many reviewers have complained of the "coinicences" that lead to the story's chilling conclusion, I believe that it is this slightly supernatural and coincidential force tying the two women together that drives the story. The parallels between Isabelle and Ella are enticing, and only occasionaly (Ella's hair color changing to red being the most notable) are they far-fetched to the point of eye rolling. Although I will admit it lagged at times, the segments of each woman's story ended in precisely the place each time to keep me reading to figure out what befell them.

All in all, I would definitely reccommend this book, despite its luke-warm reviews. The end is well worth the read.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as Girl With a Pearl Earring, June 27, 2003

By	Alysson Oliveira "Alysson Oliveira" (Sao Paulo-- Brazil) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

`The Virgin Blue' was written some years before `Girl with a pearl earring', but was kind of unnotice so far. Not only after the huge success of `Girl' did `Virgin' received its deserved attention. The book tells the story of two women that live centuries apart but with something that ties them together throughout the years.

Ella Tourner moves to France with her husband. Alone and with not so many things to do, she decides to investigates her family's origins. Eventually she'll come across Isabelle du Moulin --aka La Rousse. What binds these two woment together?

Since the first chapter we are aware that both lives will change drastically, otherwise there wouldn't be a reason for a novel. Ella will face problems in being accepted by French people; while Isabelle will not be accepted the people form her own village. Both women try to find rendenption in love-- but it may not be the right place.

Chevalier writes with confidence and brings us believable characters with heart and soul. The structure that she uses can be tricky for some writers, but in her hands it is useful --and she does have a point when she alternates the two stories. `The Virgin Blue' is simple, but at the same time complex. I highly recommend for those who liked `Girl...'.