♦This post contains affiliate links. You don’t pay any extra, and I make a small commission.♦
♦Please see my Disclosure tab for more information.♦
Book Review of Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
I will never look at the painting Girl With a Pearl Earring by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer the same way again. Ugh. It’s a beautiful painting and I used to really like it. After reading Tracy Chevalier’s book Girl With a Pearl Earring, however, I feel completely different about the painting. The meanings behind the painting have changed, and I don’t know if I can ever go back. Why? Keep reading to find out.
Blurb:
Tracy Chevalier transports readers to a bygone time and place in this richly-imagined portrait of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer’s most celebrated paintings.
History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. Girl with a Pearl Earring 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.
My Book Review:
I know this book came out a long time ago. For some reason, I had never read it. I was curious, though, because I had heard so much about it. Then, I found a copy at a used bookstore, and I was excited to read it. At the beginning, I got sucked in. I loved the writing style and the feeling of the book. I found it so intriguing, especially when Vermeer noticed that Griet displayed vegetables by color.
Ms. Chevalier did a good job at the beginning of setting the scene and making it feel real. It didn’t last, though. After Griet leaves her parents’ house to go live with the Vermeers I felt like the descriptions and feelings just stopped. After that, they go places, like the “Meat Hall,” but the reader is left to imagine what that looks like, feels like, smells like on her own…there isn’t much to go on.
Unfortunately, I don’t know much about 17th century Holland. I have no idea how people lived or were treated. In this book, however, women, especially lowly servants, were not treated well, and I did not like how Griet was treated by Maria Thins, Tanneke, or Catharina. They weren’t the only ones, though. Van Ruijven was a total creep and a pig of a man. I wouldn’t want my daughters in the same city as him.
Maybe Pieter behaved as most young men his age at the time, but I didn’t like how he treated Griet either. I’m guessing that women didn’t have much of a say back in the day and didn’t really have consent. He used her and her family’s dependence on him to take advantage of Griet without her consent.
The word that pretty much sums up how I felt about this book…ick. Just ick. The way the painting comes about in the book makes me never want to look at it again. I think “ick” and I shudder when I see it. You’ve got a boyfriend that is very handsy and entitled; a creepy wealthy man who buys paintings and assaults young servant girls; a married painter who flirts with the servant girl on the side just to discard her when he’s gotten what he wanted; and a servant girl who has some sick crush on her married employer.
Ick.
Obviously, I did not like this book at all. On top of all the ick factors, I thought the characters were quite two dimensional and not well developed. You’d think a story about a painting would have more about the actual painter, but he isn’t present for much of the story and the reader is left not knowing much about him. Also, I thought the story was very predictable. I had hoped to be immersed in 17th century Dutch life, but alas, it was not meant to be.
Content Rating: R
- Profanity: None
- Intimacy: High
- There are many innuendos, a handsy (nonconsensual) boyfriend, a non-closed-door scene, an assault, a creepy pig of a man who says and does awful things, and more.
- Violence: Moderate
- The assault mentioned above…
Age Recommendation: Adult
My Rating: 2/5
Click HERE if you’d like to purchase Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier on Amazon.
Similar Titles You May Be Interested In:
