Okay, so this book was really popular 4 years ago. And it’s been on my “list” (neverending as it is) to read for about that long. As has the movie. But with a nudge from the book group (which is why I like them), I finally got around to reading Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. It was well worth it, too.
I have seen Vermeer’s paintings, once. Unfortunately, I was suffering from morning sickness and the gallery was over crowded (it was at the National Gallery in early 1996, right after they re-opened after the famed Government Shutdown) so I really didn’t get a really good look at them. Still, I do remember some of them.
That’s important for this book. Because it’s written like a Vermeer painting. It’s all about description and feeling and atmosphere rather than action. Usually, that turns me off… I’m a plot person. But, there’s enough here to make me want to dwell on the pages, savoring each word. Chevalier does an excellent job of describing the paintings, the process of painting (at least how she imagined it for Vermeer) and a painter’s relationship to his subject. That’s what I found myself wondering about as I finished the book, and I mean to ask my artist brother next time I see him: how does an artist look at the subject he/she paints? Is it as a person, or mainly as the form, line and color they represent for the painting? Because, in the end, it’s that relationship that drives the novel.
It really is an excellent book.
The Book Nut 