Book Review: Girl With a Pearl Earring

“I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.” 

I am far behind on my book reviewing.  And a lot of things.  But, I am trying not to be so negative on myself all the time.  I just don't want to think that I am wasting my life, you know.  So, when I get to the end of the day and I didn't do everything I planned on because I spent too much time sitting around aimlessly, I get a bit down on myself.

However, here's a book review, to maybe catch myself up.

This is one of those books that I'd always kind of thought in the back of my mind I should read, but wasn't really the very top priority.  But I've always heard good things about it, so I figured I would give it a whirl.

Griet is a middle-class girl in Renaissance Holland, her father is a tradesman--a tile painter.  However, when he is blinded in a kiln accident, her family has to find some different ways of making money, and Griet is sent to be a maid to the Vermeer family.  Vermeer is a great painter, but he doesn't really think about family, or other people, or painting fast.  He is just caught in his world of painting, never considering who it will hurt, and when he starts to take notice in Griet and her eye for color, and her hard-working ways, his world might hurt her as well.  And when Griet becomes fascinated with this enigmatic painter, she may just let him.  A tangible and fresh-feeling story about Vermeer's Mona Lisa, "Girl with a Pearl Earring." 

The good is copious. I liked the life of the world that Tracy Chevalier was able to create--it all felt real and I could picture everything.  I am not a natural "picturer"--it is very hard for me to imagine things visually, so that is a huge compliment to her.  I also liked how all the characters seemed to be real people.  Some of them were weak people, and some of them were selfish, and some of them were kind at times, but they were all generally people.  Neither good, nor bad.  I really enjoyed having a young female character who isn't just wild and foolish (cough Katniss cough, cough Tris cough, cough most YA female characters cough). She is a level-headed character who faces her situations with thoughtfulness.

I would say that the story is sort of sad, but not in a cry way.  It's sad in a "that's all?" way.  What I mean by that is that Griet is a Renaissance Holland, middle-class woman.  And she has no say in her life, whatsoever.  She starts to be courted by a guy, and she likes him, but she says she's not ready for marriage.  He asks her father anyways.  He's not a bad man, and he's not bad to her.  In fact, he's very kind to her, and she's happy with him.  However, there are a lot of things in his treatment of her that are also not okay, but just seen to her as normal behavior.  But, she has no say in her life whatsoever.  And that's kind of sad.  But very realistic--and I liked how the author could include that slight bit of feminism without vilifying her father, or her husband, or making her a battered woman married to a gross, disgusting 56-year-old man.  It's much more subtle, and I like it.  It made me sad, without feeling, "Oh, here's another soap-box."

I am comfortable with five stars on this one.