Product Description
A voyage of discovery, two remarkable women, and an extraordinary time and place enrich bestselling author Tracy Chevalier's new novel.

On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary Anning learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms, and landslips, her challenges only grow when she falls in love with an impossible man.

Mary soon finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who shares her passion for scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy, but ultimately turns out to be their greatest asset. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (69)

Remarkable Creatures!
Fun book.We love the diversity of the writings of Tracy Chevalier.

A good read from author of the "Girl with the Pearl Earring."

Two Remarkable Creatures Mary and Elizabeth
Awesome novel. These two women are the remarkable creatures.
I really loved this book. A fictionalized story of Mary Anning's early life (who I only knew about through a child's little book I had for my girls) fossil hunter extraordinaire in Lyme Regis, England, as well as her dear friend, Elizabeth Philpot, a Londoner who was moved to Lyme with her three other sisters by her brother. Anyone who has read Jane Austen knows that unmarried women (spinsters, as they are so unkindly called) are a financial drain on a family. In this novel about class, religion and family finances, we see these issues in a very real, unromanticized and painful way for both Philpot and Anning.

I loved this novel. I wanted to stay up late reading it. I adored Elizabeth and admired Mary's pluck. I plan to pass this one on to my daughters.

Remarkable in more ways than one
I have read most of the other Tracy Chevalier works and this book is by far the best! She has out done her works this time by creating the memorable cast in this book most notably Mary and Elizabeth. Even though those women shared an interest and were friends, she contrasts their experiences and highlights the limitations (and frustations) of a woman belonging to upper class might have had in the early nineteenth century and how a working class girl could break free from the rules that bound the society before an upper class woman is recognised for her interests or her contribution.
The drama surrounding the birth of geology as a science and the earth shaking (literally) revelations that caused people of those times to question their faith is very well described. If you like the science in this book, I would recommend William Smith's biography (The map that changed the world - Simon Winchester)

Not the most exciting novel...but nonetheless an interesting read
Chevalier has used artistic licence to pad out the characters (all the main characters are based on fact) and she has done this well, bringing Lyme Regis and it's inhabitants to life as well as the historic coastline and it's undiscovered 'monsters'.
Although mainly about fossils and Mary Anning's discoveries of them, the book also incorporates the view and worries by the church regarding the discovery of creatures that may no longer be around, as well as the inequality and lack of opportunity for women in the early 1800's.
The fears and rationalities regarding the creation story in the bible and the new suspicions of creatures that evolve are sensitively approached. The belief that "God set [everything] out in the beginning" and didn't "create beasts and then get rid of them" because he is "all-seeing and incapable of error" and the emerging discoveries of ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, is discussed through the feelings of ordinary townspeople.

It's given me a newly revived interest in natural history.

Remarkable Creatures- Shining the Spotlight on Two Anachronistic Women
Remarkable Creatures by Tracey Chevalier chronicles the relationship between two women brought together by the love of fossils. Elizabeth Philpot, a well-educated spinster, moves with her unmarried sisters to the English seaside to live out a life of respectable obscurity. Little did she know that the town of Lyme Regis would open up a world of natural history, intellectual pursuit, and independence to her. She befriends a young, working class girl named Mary Anning who has the practical knowledge and spirit of a fossil hunter but lacks to the formal education and refinement.

The two womens' passion and pursuit of fossils ties them together and nearly tears them apart as well. Chevalier weaves a subtle, but moving, tale of social class, societal expectation, innuendo, and love in this novel. The two women are at times inspired and held back by the men they encounter in life. This novel demonstrates the resilience of these pioneering women despite society's desire to marginalize them by virtue of their sex through social custom and gossip.

Overall, I believe Chevalier recaptured some of the magic of this subtle tension that the reader witnessed in Girl With A Pearl Earring. This reviewer looks forward to Ms. Chevalier's next literary offering. ... Read more

Product Description
Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin - two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family's French ancestry. As the novel unfolds - alternating between Ella's story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier - a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (176)

A FEEBLE FABLE
The author seems uncertain whether she's writing a novel or a fable, and its her failure to resolve that issue which detracts from what could have been an enthralling book. She uses two storylines, one mediaeval, one modern, as the vehicle for the narrative. This can work well when both are proceeding to a climacteric and thence a denouement that will suddenly reveal the relationship between them. Unfortunately in this instance the device detracted from the flow, and the revelation could be seen clearly from quite some distance. Matters are not helped by the introduction of unlikely common factors, e.g. hair changing colour, shared dreams, and wolves. Nor were any of the characters sufficiently well-drawn as to engage this reader's sympathy, which was a disappointment.

A decent quick read
I'm more used to Chevalier's heavier writing (like Fallen Angels), but this was an ok story. I did enjoy the medieval story line much more than the modern day counterpart. I did not like the heroin Ella very much, nor did I identify with her problems and choices. I was also a little disappointed that the end was so ambiguous, but overall the writing was good and so my breakdown is 5 stars for Isabella's story, 3 stars for Ella's, an average of 4 will have to do.

Chevalier.. give me more!!
This, Virgin Blue, is the second audio book I've listened to while traveling It is written by Tracy Chevalier and again the trip went too quickly. I needed to keep listening and was upset when I had to get out of the vehicle for any reason. Virgin Blue is engrossing and highly entertaining.. no wonder it was a winner!! I've picked up more of her works for future trips and look forward to traveling with her... Remarkable Creatures was my initial introduction to her work. It too is fantastic.

Six degrees of separation
Having read and thoroughly enjoyed, "The Girl With The Pearl Earring", it had been so many years ago that I really didn't have any expectations going into this book.I knew it was the author's debut novel and reviews were mixed.
I have become quite a fan of novels with parallel story lines, with one thread taking place during one time period and another thread taking place in a more recent, or current era.The beauty of such a tale is when the novel nears the end, it's as if both threads that had been woven together, chapter by chapter, magically come together.Centuries seamlessly unite the two central characters and you see how one event or decision ripples through time and lays the foundation for impacts to be felt for generations to come.
I was enthralled with the novel to the very last page, but once the final sentence was read, I was left feeling like the ending had been thrust up on me .Not enough of the fine details, so meticulously laid out for the reader throughout the book,were explained.The story line that took place in the current era was extremely interesting, but I found myself really wanting to read more about the history of the characters from four centuries prior, rich with superstitions and old religious beliefs.
A word of warning, there were a lot of divulgation thrown into sentences here and there, and if not careful, some shocking revelations can be missed. Overall, it was an enjoyable read, but I would have preferred to have the author extend the length of the book a little longer in order to tie up all the loose ends.

Beautifully painted story
Ella, an American woman, goes to France with her husband and tries to uncover her family's ancestry. She begins having dreams of a vivid blue and begins reciting a psalm in French, a language that she still is grasping to master. During her search for her roots, she meets Jean-Paul, the handsome local librarian with a sardonic sense of humor but a good heart and a willingness to help her find her roots and herself.

The book parallels the story of Isabelle du Moulin, who has married into the same family, but several hundred years earlier, around the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew and the fleeing of the Huguenots. Isabelle is very different from her husband's family, who sees her as a witch because of her midwifery skills and her vivid red hair. She struggles to keep her children safe from her husband's wrath, and a dark secret between her husband and his mother that she is not given access to.

Both Ella and Isabelle's stories interweave nicely, with quite a bit of overlap as Ella gets closer to discovering her family's past. It was fast-paced and a very engaging read from start to finish.

This is the second book I've read by this author (the first being The Lady and the Unicorn) and I really like her style. I will be reading more by her in the future.

A bit about the author:
Tracy Chevalier is a novelist born in the US but of Romande Swiss descent (with possible French Huguenot ancestry) on her father's side, and lives in London with her husband and son.

Chevalier was raised in Washington, D.C and graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland. After receiving her B.A. in English from Oberlin College, she moved to England in 1984 where she worked several years as a reference book editor. Leaving her job in 1993, she began a year-long M.A in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

The Virgin Blue is her first novel, and it closely resembles Chevalier's own connection with and research into her own French/Swiss Huguenot roots. She, unlike Ella, did not find any documented roots in France, as many records just don't go back that far.

A bit about Huguenots and the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France (or French Calvinists) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Since the eighteenth century, Huguenots have been commonly designated "French Protestants", the title being suggested by their German co-religionists or "Calvinists". Protestants in France were inspired by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530s and the name Huguenots was already in use by the 1560s. By the end of the 17th century, roughly 200,000 Huguenots had been driven from France during a series of religious persecutions. They relocated primarily in England, Switzerland, Holland, the German Palatinate, and elsewhere in Northern Europe.

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy in French) in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave of Roman Catholic mob violence, both directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants), during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de' Medici, the massacre took place six days after the wedding of the king's sister Margaret to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre (the future Henry IV of France). This marriage was an occasion for which many of the most wealthy and prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris.

The massacre began two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the military and political leader of the Huguenots. Starting on 23 August 1572 (the eve of the feast of Bartholomew the Apostle) with murders on orders of the king of a group of Huguenot leaders including Coligny, the massacres spread throughout Paris. Lasting several weeks, the massacre extended to other urban centres and the countryside. Modern estimates for the number of dead vary widely between 5,000 and 30,000 in total.

Other books to consider:
This book reminded me a little bit of Anya Seton's Green Darkness, which I heartily recommend. Other good books about different periods in French history are the Lady and the Unicorn by Chevalier and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind, although the characters are fictional, it does give a good picture of what life was like in Paris during the 18th century. ... Read more

Product Description
The wonderful new novel from the much loved author of 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' and 'Falling Angels'.Flames and funerals, circus feats and seduction, neighbours and nakedness: Tracy Chevalier's new novel 'Burning Bright' sparkles with drama.London 1792. The Kellaways move from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of a cramped, unforgiving city. They are leaving behind a terrible loss, a blow that only a completely new life may soften.Against the backdrop of a city jittery over the increasingly bloody French Revolution, a surprising bond forms between Jem, the youngest Kellaway boy, and streetwise Londoner Maggie Butterfield. Their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour, the printer, poet and radical, William Blake. He is a guiding spirit as Jem and Maggie navigate the unpredictable, exhilarating passage from innocence to experience. Their journey inspires one of Blake's most entrancing works.Georgian London is recreated as vividly in Burning Bright as 17th-century Delft was in Tracy Chevalier's bestselling masterpiece, Girl with a Pearl Earring. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (55)

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier
Life is rough if you're growing up in London in the 1790's. THe French Revolution is a constant topic among adults. It's impossible to find a good job and there's always the constant worry of being robbed or worse. This is the case in Tracy Chevalier's Burning Bright. In this story Chevalier spins a complicated story of city life, grief, teenage love, England's view of the French Revolution, and new beginnings.

Jem is a shy country boy at the age of thirteen who moves to London from a small Dorsetshire town with his family to get better work as carpenters with Philip Astley's circus. There he meets Maggie a loud and spunky London girl that's the same age as Jem but the two couldn't be more different in both personalities and upbringing. The two become fast friends and together they encounter crazy circus performer, bad jobs, nasty men, Jem's too innocent big sister Maise, Mr. Blake the mysterious but kind artist, and the heated debates of the French Revolution.

Chevalier does a fantastic job of bringing historical fiction to life, showing us the shocking similarities of teenagers back then to present day including their everyday habits and thoughts about family, friends, and adults in general. Laced with hidden meanings and hints of future events, she narrates the story from the third person in the present tense while giving the story views from all the characters. Her style of writing is perfect material for any young adult, giving vivid details and multiple points of tension.

The entire writing style is incredibly polished from the plot to all the characters' personalities; everything is thought through intently. Despite the myriad of characters, you can really get a feel for each of their situations and get to know them like you were actually there. The story gives a depth to the history, making it entertaining and interesting to see the situations that average people live in day to day.

Chevalier has fast paced, brilliant style to suit young adults. Burning Bright was a delight to read and I would recommend it to anyone. The topic of the Revolution in the book gives a great sense of hardship but at the same time the children's everyday lives seem so familiar that the plot makes all too much sense. The book was fabulous, I only wish there was a sequel.

London during the time of William Blake seen from the eyes of innocence and experience
This is a historical novel based on William Blake during the time period of his Songs of Innocence/Songs of Experience. The primary focus in on the Kellaway family who have moved from the country to London after the death of one of the sons on the advice from Mr. Philip Astely, owner of the Astley circus. The father, Thomas, is an expert chair builder. When they arrive, they find that Mr. Astley, barely remembers them, but feeling sorry for their naivety, offers him work and finds them a place to stay, which is boarding with the next door neighbor of Blake. Jem, a preadolescent boy and his sister Maisie make friends with the local girl, Maggie, whose mother is a laundress and and father is a bit of a con man. We see their challenges in adjusting to London and the book paints an atmospheric look at the times. Unfortunately, I found it hard to care deeply about any of the characters and found Maisie's predicament formulaic. It was a decent book, rich with background and history, but not one of my favorites by the author.

Bright-ish
I only review books I like, so it can be immediately concluded that at least in part I found Tracy Chevalier's Burning Bright an enjoyable and worthwhile read. But I have to add that I expected much more.

What Burning Bright has is a story. The Kellaways up and move after a family tragedy. They depart their native Piddle Valley in Dorset and set off for London. The year is 1792 and England is all a-murmur about dangerous times across the Channel in France. Kellaway the father is a furniture-maker, specialising in chairs. But in London he finds more lucrative work as a mere carpenter making scenery for a circus. The rest of the family busy themselves on various tasks, with mother Anne and daughter Maisie specialising in hand-made Dorset buttons, while brother Jem helps his father, occasionally. Next door to their Lambeth home live a couple called Blake, who have a printing business. There is also a Butterfield family nearby who have a street-wise daughter called Maggie. The Blakes repeatedly surprise Maisie Kellaway, while Maggie Butterfield befriends her. The Astleys run the circus that employs the dad, by the way.

There are parallels with Tracy Chevalier's Girl With A Pearl Earring in that she sets fictional characters, ordinary people with no public history of their own alongside significant historical figures. The Mr Blake next door is William Blake, poet, visionary and artist, but perhaps not in that order. Blake's poem, Tyger, tyger burning bright, figures repeatedly in the narrative and other works, via their London setting, mirror the lives of the characters. Again like Girl With A Pearl Earring we travel through the storms of a girl's youthful discovery of being a woman. In this book, however, there are two such tigers who burn bright, and this time the elements combine to form a more sinister, certainly more earthy and evidently more troubled conclusions. In addition, Burning Bright's relationship with Blake is of a quite different character from the earlier book's portrayal of Vermeer. In the latter, there is a cool detachment that pervades the text; life is seen through a lens and this perspective gives the experience coherence, apparently faithfully capturing the painter's style in both substance and impression. In Burning Bright, William Blake steps in and out of the plot, occasionally shares his vision, often through his wife's words, but then this is never really communicated. In her acknowledgments, Tracy Chevalier suggests that there may be too much written about this man and too much attributed to him. I felt that this opinion came across in her writing.

So in Burning Bright we have another adolescent growing up saga focusing on Maisie the Dorset lass and Maggie the Londoner. Characters from the circus spice up the action and Astley junior, the circus-owner's son, plants various seeds of interest. At the book's end, I had lived lives and shared stories, but I hadn't quite been taken to where they had been.

Boring, what's the point?
I totally do not recommend this book. She is a talented writer, I wonder if she had an idea and then couldn't develop it and just finished it up quickly to get to print. The plot never got interesting, the characters aren't very developed and the part involving William Blake is minimal. He was a backdrop, as another reviewer said. This is more about a neighborhood and some kids in 17c England. The only thing I gathered from this was how dismal life was back then. Read "the Lady and the Unicorn" or "the Girl with a Pearl Earring" instead. This was a waste and disappointment.

Wonderful!
This book is a gem, like any and all of Tracy's novels, it is superbly well written and carefully researched.The characters are engaging and the story compelling.A delightful read! ... Read more

Product Description
Time magazine crowned Girl With a Pearl Earring "a portrait of radiance...a jewel."In her New York Times bestselling follow-up, Tracy Chevalier once again paints a distant age with a rich and provocative palette of characters. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives- wives and husbands, friends and lovers, masters and their servants, and a gravedigger's son-Falling Angels follows the fortunes of two families in the emerging years of the twentieth century.Graced with the luminous imagery that distinguished Girl With a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels is another dazzling tour de force from this "master of voices" (The New York Times Book Review).Amazon.com Review
Set among the sweeping skirts and social upheavals of Edwardian London, Tracy Chevalier's Falling Angels is a meditation on change, loss, and recovery. Her central characters are two young girls of the same age, whose family plots are situated side-by-side in a cemetery modeled on Highgate. Lavinia Waterhouse is respectably middle-class, devoted, like her conventional, doting mother, to the right way to do things, although suspiciously well-schooled in subjects like funerary sculpture and the English practices of mourning. Her friend Maude Coleman comes from a slightly more privileged and free-thinking background. In contrast with Lavinia's mother, Maude's mother Kitty Coleman is well-educated by the standards of the day, and it has made her restless and irritable. But neither her reading, nor her gardening, nor her affair with the somber, high-thinking governor of the cemetery is enough for Kitty. She comes alive only when she discovers the women's suffrage movement, and her devotion to the cause takes her away from Maude in every sense.

Although the point of view shifts between many characters (with even the Coleman's maid and cook getting their say, sometimes unnecessarily), Falling Angels is essentially the children's story, since it is their lives that are most open to change. The narrative spans exactly the years of Edward VII's reign, from the morning after his mother Queen Victoria's death in January 1901 to his own death in May 1910. Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring) deftly uses the nation's dramatically different mourning for these two monarchs to signal the social transformations of the period. Readers at ease with English history will find Falling Angels an unusually subtle novel, with an emotional range that recalls the best of the Edwardian novelists, E.M. Forster, and his quintessential novel of Edwardian manners, Howard's End. --Regina Marler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (160)

Love the book!
Book was in good condition with only a few scratches.Was pretty fast delivery and a good read!!

Fascinating exploration of the mores of another time
Chevalier successfully recreates the mores and issues of a pivotal era in English history. People in the Edwardian era were just shaking off the conventionalities of the Victorian age and looking towards modernity. The changing attitudes toward death and mourning are one instance; the rise of the women's suffrage movement is, of course, another. Chevalier does a wonderful job of portraying a society in the process of change.

Her title is symbolic and very much worth noting. It's not "Fallen Angels," but "Falling Angels." The angels in the cemetery are literally falling (and their falling becomes a plot point), and people are falling morally -- but they are in the process of falling and have not yet fallen. Redemption is a possibility.

Heavy on Symbolism, Light on Intrigue
I had high expectations at the beginning of this novel, but I found it very disappointing.The characters never quite take flight and become real. While each chapter is supposedly voiced by a different character, if you didn't read the headings, you'd hardly notice the differences in style.Lavinia and Simon are flat and cartoonish. Kitty and Maude are almost interesting, but the most compelling characters (Jenny and Richard) are given cameo appearances.The pace of the book is very uneven, and I grew weary of all the heavy-handed symbolism and unbelievable coincidences.After the tedious parade scene, the crime almost seemed thrown in to generate some drama. I really wanted to like this book but it simply didn't capture my interest or the excitement of the era.

Wrong product
I got an audio casset, not a book as I thought I ordered. How do I get the book. Exchange?

Moving Tale of Two Families
In Falling Angels Tracy Chevalier tells the story of two London families at the dawn of the Edwardian era.The day after Queen Victoria's death both the Colemans and the Waterhouses visit the cemetary, visiting the gravesites of their own family.Their plots are adjoining and their daughters, Maude and Lavinia, become fast friends.Simon, the gravediggers son, quickly falls in with them.It will be two years until the girls meet again when the Waterhouses buy a house that adjoins the Coleman's property.The girls spend much of their free time, together with Simon, in the cemetary, and eventually draw other members of their family inside it's walls as well.

Mrs. Coleman uses this an opportunity to relieve the tedium of her life and is soon heavily involved in the suffragist movement.She is bored with her own home life and eventually her political involvement consumes not only herself, but that of her own family and finally with disasterous consequences that of the Waterhouses.

Chevalier wrote this story in 1st person, sharing with us the persepective of all the key players, as well as incorporating the stories of some of the secondary characters.Most of the play goes to Maude, Lavinia, Kitty Coleman, and Gertrude Waterhouse, but everyone gets their chance to be heard - even if only for one line.The characters are richly drawn and the background is given just enough detail to be historically accurate but still have room to write a moving ficitional account of two families living through it.

I was really drawn into this story and found it hard to put down this book, finishing it in two sittings.Chevalier has definitely found herself a new fan and I will be picking up another of her books very soon. ... Read more

Product Description
A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn is Tracy Chevalier’s answer to the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces—a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown—until now.

Paris, 1490.A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic, arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them. Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house—mother and daughter, servant, and lady-in-waiting—before taking his designs north to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the tapestries—his finest, most intricate work—on time for his exacting French client. The results change all their lives—lives that have been captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look.

In The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier weaves fact and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry—an extraordinary story exquisitely told.Amazon.com Review
If you think you wouldn't raise your skirts for a rakish legend about thepurifying powers of a unicorn's horn, then maybe you aren't a15th-century serving girl under the sway of a velvet-tongued courtpainter of ill repute. In keeping with her bestselling Girl with a Pearl Earring, and its Edwardian-era follow-up, Falling Angels,Tracy Chevalier's tale of artistic creation and late-medieval amours, The Lady and the Unicorn is a subtle study in social power, and the conflictsbetween love and duty. Nicolas des Innocents has been commissioned by theParisian nobleman Jean Le Viste to design a series of large tapestries forhis great hall (in real life, the famous Lady and the Unicorn cycle,now in Paris's Musee National du Moyen-Age Thermes de Cluny). While Nicolasis measuring the walls, he meets a beautiful girl who turns out to be JeanLe Viste's daughter. Their passion is impossible for their world--soforbidden, given their class differences, that its only avenue of expressionturns out to be those magnificent tapestries. The historical evidence onwhich this story is based is slight enough to allow the full play ofChevalier's imagination in this cleverly woven tale. --Regina Marler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (132)

fairly entertaining but not a classic
I read several customer reviews before picking up this book. They weren't entirely complimentary, but I decided to read "the lady and the unicorn" anyway because lots of the negative reviewers loved chevalier's "girl with a pearl earring" and I didn't because of Griet's lackluster character. I thought this book was a better effort from Chevalier: the unicorn tapestries she chose as the subject of this novel were relatively unknown and interesting to hear about. The characters were a bit cliche, but I felt that they were more interesting to read about than Griet was. The worst character in the novel would probably have to have been Alienor. I thought it was ridiculous that she had an affair with Nicolas and wasn't even grateful to Philippe for saving her from her fate of marrying Jacques le Boeuf. She was cold and reminded me a bit of Griet. Many reviewers of this novel have said that the book is confusing because it is written from the perspectives of many characters in alternating chapters, but I didn't have any difficulty following the story. This was also a quick read, great for an airplane trip or something fairly light to read at the beach.

Halfway Decent Art Fiction
While the title of this novel relates directly to the tapestries, this story was as much about who these characters are and how they change, as it is about the making of the tapestries.We are first introduced to Nicolas, the artist who is to make the designs for the tapestries.He is one of those types of people who like to surround himself with those who are better than he is.He becomes the go-between in this story between the Le Viste family (who the tapestries are being made for) and the Chapelle family (the weavers who are making the tapestry).These two worlds couldn't be more different.The Le Viste's live in France and are wealthy, while the Chapelle's live in Brussels and are artisans (though their shop does pretty well).One thing that the author did well was to illustrate the differences between these two classes of people.

A decent amount of time is spent in describing what the tapestries look like, what they represent, and the process of making them.I have never made a tapestry before, nor have I seen one made, so this was a very interesting portion of the book.For a stretch of time the tapestries become almost another character.I definitely recommend taking a look at them online before or during reading this as the visual will really enhance the reading experience.

Each chapter in this novel is narrated by a different character (from both families).Sometimes you would be able to see the same event from the perspective of the different characters - which enabled there to be a well rounded view of the events that transpired.I found myself being more interested in the chapters that we narrated by the female characters.I found the main character, Nicolas, to be whiney and mostly just chasing after the young girls.The female chapters just seemed to have more energy put into them by the author and felt more real.

Overall, I thought this book was good, not excellent like A Girl With a Pearl Earring.There was a very different energy to this book, and I felt that it moved a lot slower.I can't even say that it was because it was more focused on the characters, because Pearl Earring was very focused on the development of the characters.I can't exactly put my finger on why but I just wasn't as thrilled with the story - it didn't leave me dying to get back to the book the next time I was in the car.I think that I am still going to read some of her other books, but this one doesn't exactly land on the top of my list.

Just okay
Typically I love this author, but I did not care for this book. I didn't enjoy the characters nor connect with the plot, and I have loved reading about historical fiction for a long time.The way it was written from each characters' point of view did not appeal to me. I thought there were too many characters.This is my personal opinion. I would recommend Girl with a Pearl Earring, Fallen Angels, or The Virgin Blue over this one.

Another masterpiece by Tracy Chevalier
This is the second book I've read by Miss Chevalier, after the Girl with a Pearl Earring, and I found this one just as good. Hearing the "story" behind the masterpiece is very fascinating and gripping. I loved hearing from more than one characters perspective, making the tale interesting. Hearing about the tapestries really awed me, so much that I had to look up the images and gaze upon their beauty. I wish my hard cover had had the pictures of most of the tapestries like there are in the soft cover. This is a great story, bringing the time and place to life, as well as the people who created the tapestries. Pick up a copy and enjoy.

Really enjoyed this, easy read.
It's been a year or so since I read this so I can't give specifics. But this is probably my favorite Tracy Chevalier novel. I either really enjoy her work or can't stand it, like "Burning Bright". Terrible. ... Read more

Product Description
A Deluxe Edition of the National Bestseller with Over 2 Million Copies Sold:

• Eight Pages of Full-Color Plates Include Every Vermeer Painting Discussed in the Book
• French Flaps
• Rough Front
• Larger Trim Size
• Premium Stock
• With a New Foreword

Celebrate Tracy Chevalier’s modern classic Girl With A Pearl Earring, featuring a gorgeous new edition illustrated with eight pages of Vermeer’s masterworks. History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening.The story of Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with a genius as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil, is new again.Amazon.com Review
With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter JohannesVermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meagerfacts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents.Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtleplay of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. Hisportrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted aparticular fascination for centuries--and it is this magnetic paintingthat lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the sametitle.

Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delfthousehold during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptiveheroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-oldnarrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeeremploys her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as amodel. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of thehousehold, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife andhis taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant andmaster seems a little anachronistic. Still, Girl with a PearlEarring does contain a final delicious twist.

Throughout, Chevalier cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style,whose exactitude is an effective homage to the painter himself. Even Griet'smost humdrum duties take on a high if unobtrusive gloss:

I came to love grinding the things he brought from the apothecary--bones,white lead, madder, massicot--to see how bright and pure I could get thecolors. I learned that the finer the materials were ground, the deeper thecolor. From rough, dull grains madder became a fine bright red powder and,mixed with linseed oil, a sparkling paint. Making it and the other colorswas magical.

Customer Reviews (839)

An enjoyable reading
The beauty of this book is its story-telling style and the in the manner of detail in its depiction of seventeenth century Dutch life.
Although I watched the movie long ago, my review does not reflect my movie experience. The book did not try to be either authoritative or condescending. Very simply told, and as another reviewer mentioned, with precision.
One reviewer complained about the perfection of the girl Griet. Well, she is telling stories in her own words, and she is after all a maid. So, she can brag about her own maid-works a bit. However, the maturity she displayed has its source in core humanness of all human beings. So, her being intelligent and sensitive should not be considered inappropriate--despite her being a maid. Although its style does not follow the tradition of magic realism, it did have few magical elements, which can be appreciated through the artistic backdrop of the whole story. What we read was not exactly a life-story, rather story of an artwork. I recommend it.

Girl with a Pearl Earring
Interesting read which tells the story of Griet, a Dutch girl who is sent to live as a servant for the painter Vermeer to earn money for her family after her father is blinded and can no longer work. The Vermeer household features several children, Catharina-the cold mistress of the household, and another servant. Tensions arise when one of the girls takes a dislike to Griet and constantly tries to get her in trouble. She also creates tension when Vermeer recognizes her abilities and tasks her to assist him which creates jealousy among the household and also when she catches the eye of a wealthy customer and must resist his advances. Eventually the only way to appease him is for Griet to sit for a portrait (The Girl with the Pearl Earring).I like that the focus of the book stayed on Griet and that kept the story simple and enjoyable. There are so many different points of focus the book could have had but I think Chevalier was smart to keep the focus on the protagonist, Griet. In doing this I got a good impression of what it was like to live in Delft and the differences between the classes and how people were expected to act. Its not easy to picture in your mind how characters should be in a time you know nothing about but I felt liked the way the writing and descriptions allowed you to "see" it without it being too much. I also didn't mind the background story of the butcher's son vying for Griet's attention throughout the book. Good description, likeable main character and it made me interested enough to look up some of Vermeer's work on Wikipedia so I could see for myself the paintings that were discussed in the book.

Girl with a Pearl Earring
This book was shipped to my friend in a timely manner and in good condition.

Just Simply a Wonderful Book
We don't know very much about Vermeer other than that fact that he produced only thirty-five paintings before he died at forty-two, almost unknown and in debt. "The Girl With the Pearl Earring" is one of his better known paintings and we know nothing about the model. However Ms. Chevalier writes gorgeous words on her pages as she paints us a beautiful portrait of who this lovely woman might have been.

In 1665, Vermeer lived in Delft with his wife, Catharina, his mother, his five daughters and two sons. Griet, works as a maid in household. As well as doing her daily chores, which includes trips to the meat market where the owner's son desires her. Vermeer and his friend, van Ruijven, also fancy her. Soon she becomes Vermeer's assistant as well as the model for "Girl With a Pearl Earring. While she poses, Catharina gets increasing jealous and it comes to a boiling point when she sees that his latest painting is of Griet wearing the her own pearl earrings.

This is a beautifully crafted book that I just simply adored. It's got a few neat twists, an unexpected ending and lots of wonderful description of what life was like in Holland in the Seventeenth Century. I can't recommend this story highly enough.

I'm happy
I'm thoroughly pleased with the condition of the book! Furthermore, the book itself was a GREAT read. This book captures you in a story of the life of a girl which you won't want to stop until you know what happens to her in the end. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Another dazzling novel by the author of the best-selling novel, Girl With A Pearl Earring. Chevalier draws a picture of family life that exposes the prejudices and flaws of a changing time, set against a backdrop of social and political turbulence in early twentieth-century London. ''In her New York Times best-selling follow-up, Chevalier once again paints a distant age with a rich and provocative palette of characters. Graced with the luminous imagery that distinguished Girl With a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels is another dazzling tour de force from this ''master of voices'' The New York Times Book ReviewDescription in Spanish:Enero de 1901, el dia despues de la muerte de la reina Victoria : dos familias visitan tumbas vecinas en un cementerio londinense. Los Waterhouse reverencian a la ultima Reina y se aferran a las tradiciones victorianas, los Coleman ansian una sociedad mas moderna. Para su disgusto, ambas se ven irremediablemente unidas cuando sus hijas se hacen amigas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

INTRIGUING HISTORICAL FICTION...
This book covers the period in the lives of two families that stretches from January 1901,the end of the Victorian era, to May 1910,the end of the Edwardian one. The lives of these two families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses, converge and become inextricably woven together when they inadvertently meet at a cemetery while paying their respects to deceased loved ones. Unbeknownst to them, their lives are moving inexorably towards a tragic denouement, one that is to have ramifications for both families.

Two of the daughters of these respective families, Lavinia Waterhouse and Maude Coleman, find that they have formed the beginning of afriendship during the brief interlude at the cemetery.The two girls also befriend Simon Field, the son of one of the gravediggers at the cemetery.Thefriendship of the two girls is cemented when they later discover that they are to be neighbors, as through happenstance the Waterhouse family moves onto a property adjacent to that of the Colemans. Despite differences in social class and personal taste, as the Waterhouses are definitely sentimentallybourgeois and the Colemans have pretensions to more refinement, the families are brought together, however unwillingly, through the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

The mothers of these two girls are unable to form a true friendship, as stolidGertrude Waterhouse and pretty Kitty Coleman are unable to find much common ground. Gertrude is bound in tradition, while Kitty, dissatisfied with her marriage and her life, is looking to escape tradition and expand the role allotted in society to women. Never the twain shall meet, as these women will never see eye-to-eye, despite the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

This is a well-plotted novel with each character adding his or her perspective to the events that unfold, many of which are of a secretive nature.Even the husbands, Albert Waterhouse and Richard Coleman, have something to say that contributes to the development of the story, as does Richard Coleman's mother, Edith, as do the Coleman's maid, Jenny Whitby, and their cook, Dorothy Baker. Lavinia's younger sister, Ivy May, who plays a small but pivotal role,also has her say, as does Kitty's admirer, John Jackson. There are also a number of twists and turns in the tale.

The story is told in the clean, spare prose that fans of the author have come to expect.It is told through first person narratives, and it is almost as if the narratives were taken from the personal diary or journal of each character. Therein lies the rub, as the author is unable to make the voice of each character truly distinguishable from that of the others. The book suffers somewhat from the failure of the author to develop a truly unique voice for each one.This is, however, the only failing of this otherwise absorbing and intriguing story that is suffused with period detail. This is the Spanish text edition of an otherwise excellent book that fans of the author will enjoy, as will those who love historical fiction.

DECEPTIONS AND PERCEPTIONS...
This is the Spanish text edition of the book, "Falling Angels",which covers the period in the lives of two families that stretches from January 1901,the end of the Victorian era, to May 1910,the end of the Edwardian one. The lives of these two families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses, converge and become inextricably woven together when they inadvertently meet at a cemetery while paying their respects to deceased loved ones. Unbeknownst to them, their lives are moving inexorably towards a tragic denouement, one that is to have ramifications for both families.

Two of the daughters of these respective families, Lavinia Waterhouse and Maude Coleman, find that they have formed the beginning of afriendship during the brief interlude at the cemetery.The two girls also befriend Simon Field, the son of one of the gravediggers at the cemetery.Thefriendship of the two girls is cemented when they later discover that they are to be neighbors, as through happenstance the Waterhouse family moves onto a property adjacent to that of the Colemans. Despite differences in social class and personal taste, as the Waterhouses are definitely sentimentallybourgeois and the Colemans have pretensions to more refinement, the families are brought together, however unwillingly, through the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

The mothers of these two girls are unable to form a true friendship, as stolidGertrude Waterhouse and pretty Kitty Coleman are unable to find much common ground. Gertrude is bound in tradition, while Kitty, dissatisfied with her marriage and her life, is looking to escape tradition and expand the role allotted in society to women. Never the twain shall meet, as these women will never see eye-to-eye, despite the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

This is a well-plotted novel with each character adding his or her perspective to the events that unfold, many of which are of a secretive nature.Even the husbands, Albert Waterhouse and Richard Coleman, have something to say that contributes to the development of the story, as does Richard Coleman's mother, Edith, as do the Coleman's maid, Jenny Whitby, and their cook, Dorothy Baker. Lavinia's younger sister, Ivy May, who plays a small but pivotal role,also has her say, as does Kitty's admirer, John Jackson. There are also a number of twists and turns in the tale.

The story is told in the clean, spare prose that fans of the author have come to expect.It is told through first person narratives, and it is almost as if the narratives were taken from the personal diary or journal of each character. Therein lies the rub, as the author is unable to make the voice of each character truly distinguishable from that of the others. The book suffers somewhat from the failure of the author to develop a truly unique voice for each one.This is, however, the only failing of this otherwise absorbing and intriguing story that is suffused with period detail. This is an otherwise excellent book that fans of the author will enjoy, as will those who love historical fiction. ... Read more

Product Description
The Encyclopedia of the Essay is the first reference work entirely devoted to the essay as a genre. Essays on more than 400 writers from around the world are included, along with geographical surveys that provide an historical framework, entries on types of essays, and entries on important single essays. Entries on closely-related genres such as letters, journals, treatises, sermons and reviews expand and explore the fluid boundaries of the essay as genre. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A STUNNING WORK OF HISTORICAL FICTION...
This gifted author weaves a mesmerizing tale around Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer's most famous painting, creating an incandescent and luminous work of her own. His painting is a simple, though enigmatic, portrait of a girl with a pearl earring, about which little is known. The author, however, a born storyteller, creates a living, breathing story around it, using a singular, first person narrative. Told in spare, elegant prose, the author leaps into literary renown with this book.

The events in the book are viewed through the eyes of Griet, a sixteen year old Dutch girl, whose changed family circumstances force her into taking a position as a maid in the home of a renowned painter, the taciturn Johannes Vermeer. There, the painter resides with his tempestuous wife, Catharina, their brood of unruly children, his commanding and shrewd mother-in-law, Maria Thins, and their loyal housekeeper and cook, Tanneke. The author lovingly details seventeenth century life in the Dutch city of Delft. It is here that Griet's story unfolds.

Sensitive and perceptive, Griet is attuned to the under currents in the Vermeer household and, at first, takes care not to draw attention to herself. Still, she, the daughter of a tile painter, is curious about Vermeer's artistry and is drawn to his work and his methods. Vermeer, sensing a kindred artistic spirit in Griet, draws her into his world of paint, color, light, and beauty, creating an intimacy of the spirit between the two.

Still, Griet, a girl on the brink of becoming a woman, finds herself confused and breathlessly desiring more than she may have. Her longing for more than a communion of the spirit with Vermeer is palpable. It is, therefore, not surprising that the undercurrents in the Vermeer household should come bubbling to the surface and engulf Griet, much to her consternation.

This is a stunning literary work that fully realizes the promise that the author showed in her debut novel, "The Virgin Blue". She is an author that understands the less is often more, and she makes every word count. Deliberate and spare, her prose is lyrical in its simplicity, weaving a tale that will keep the reader spellbound. This is historical fiction at its finest. Bravo!

A Cinderella Story about Life in an Artist's Home
Vermeer's famous portrait of a girl with a pearl earring and her hair covered completely in fabric has always beguiled me. The style of the painting, the expression, the clothes, the earring, the direct stare and longing in the mouth and eyes have always made me want to know more about the model.

Ms. Chevalier's book dealt with those questions quite well, and took my understanding of the subject to new depths that I had not considered before. If I had only gained that increased understanding of the painting, I would have found this to be a worthy book.

The story is also filled with interesting details about the artistic methods of the time and preparation of materials. That information was an unexpected bonus.

Vermeer is known for having produced few works. Ms. Chevalier has provided many intriguing ideas about why that might have been the case.

On top of these artistic questions, Ms. Chevalier has written a lively story of a young woman whose family falls on hard times so that she has to take up work as a maid in Vermeer's household. She finds herself at the bottom of the pecking order and is often treated unfairly. Like Cinderella, her true qualities are eventually appreciated and she finds her Prince Charming. The story also provides many helpful details about town life in Delft during the 1700s.

The Cinderella story was a bit overdeveloped compared to the artistic aspects of the story. Had the two aspects been in better balance I would have found this to be a five star book.

If you normally enjoy historical romances, you will probably like this book better than I did.

Keep smiling!

Chevalier makes up a story behind the Vermeer painting
I read "La Jeune Fille a la Perle" ("Girl With a Pearl Earring") because I was so enthralled by the 2003 film adaptation directed by Peter Webber from a script by Olivia Hetreed. When I saw the movie I was impressed by its visual elements but now that I have real Tracy Chevalier's novel I am really impressed by Hetreed's screenplay. Usually when I am inspired to read a novel after I see a film it is to get more of the story, thinking that less than half of what is in the book has made it to the screen. That is most decidedly not the case with "Girl With a Pearl Earring."

Johannes Vermeer's 1665 oil on canvas painting, which hangs in The Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis in The Hague, is considered one of his masterworks. It is a portrait of a young girl, wearing a turban and a pearl earring, looking over her shoulder, her lips parted slightly, set against a black background. But if you are familiar with Vermeer's body of work, most of which represented the corner of his studio in which he worked, then clearly "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is an atypical work. This painting has raised a series of questions ever since it was rediscovered in 1882: Was the pearl real? What is she wearing a turban? Was the painting intended to be a portrait? Nothing is known about whom Vermeer used as his model, so the biggest question of all is Who was the girl in the painting?

Chevalier answers all of these questions, and more, by creating a young girl named Griet. After her father, a tile maker, is blinded in a kiln accident Griet is sent to work cleaning in the house of Vermeer in the Dutch city of Delft. She is Protestant and the Vermeers are Catholic, which adds another element of strangeness to the young girl when she moves into the house. Vermeer's wife, Catharina, is about to deliver another baby, and Griet is to help with the household work. But she is also given the job of cleaning the master's studio, where she faces the daunting task of cleaning the objects on display without moving them from their position.

Griet is a smart girl, which for some may well be the Achilles heel in the conceit spun by Chevalier since they may well conclude that neither Greit's education nor her experiences would allow her to come up with the deep thoughts she has at critical points in the narrative. But that intelligence is necessary to the story Chevalier wants to tell and the foundation for everything that follows is Griet's common sense conclusion that cleaning the widow's in Vermeer's studio will change the light that falls on his subjects.

"Girl with a Pearl Earring" is about the art of painting and we learn, through Griet's eyes, something of Vermeer's technique, especially with his use of the camera obscura. But it is also something of a love story, in that Griet cannot help but be smitten with the man who ends up painting her portrait, even if the thought that something might actually happen between them never really enters her mind. For a time, in Chevalier's story, Griet serves as a muse of inspiration for a great painter who produced a true masterpiece.

This is not a true story. Most of the characters really lived and you can travel to the Netherlands and see the actual painting, but Chevalier's answer to all of the questions swirling around Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" are only creative speculations. Yet in the final analysis Chevalier achieves the ultimate level that author's aspire to when they tell such tales in that we wish that this was indeed a true story. Chevalier makes Griet as memorable as the painting she inspires in this 2000 novel.

On the back of the my copy of this novel author Deborah Moggach, author of "Tulip Fever," says that she read Chevalier's story with a book of Vermeer's paintings beside me. I read "Girl with a Pearl Earring" after not only seeing the movie but after checking out all of Vermeer's paintings online, so that when Chevalier talks about the paintings "Woman with a Pearl Necklace" and "The Concert" I was able to visualize them. I wish that reproductions of those paintings had been included in this novel as well as the cover picture of the titular artwork, the same way I wish that I could see the paintings and architecture that matter in Dan Brown's novels. Since you can easily find a couple of excellent websites with Vermeer's artwork I would strong recommend that even if you have also seen the movie, that you be able to have the same advantage as Griet and be able to study these great paintings. ... Read more

Product Description
“La joven de la perla” centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, “La joven de la perla”does contain a final delicious twist.

Blurb in Spanish:
En la segunda mitad del siglo XVII, el pintor holandés Johannes Vermeer inmortalizó en una tela a una bella muchacha adornada con un turbante y un pendiente de perla. Sus labios parecen esbozar una sonrisa sensual, pero sus ojos irradian la tristeza más profunda.

Conocido como La Mona Lisa holandesa, detrás de ese enigmático rostro que esconde Griet, una joven de origen humilde que a los dieciséis años entra a trabajar como doncella en casa del artista a cambio de un mísero salario.Su extraordinaria sensibilidad y el cuidado que pone en todo lo que toca atraen al maestro, quien poco a poco la introduce en su mundo, un paraíso inundado por una luz mágica y poblado por criaturas femeninas de singular belleza. “La joven de la perla” es la historia de una fascinación, de cómo surge un sentimiento que se mueve entre la admiración y el amor. La luz en los ojos de Griet, la sirvienta convertida en musa, encierra el misterio más profundo en el proceso de creación de una obra de arte. Tracy Chevalier evoca la vida cotidiana en el siglo XVII holandés en esta hermosa novela sobre el despertar a la vida y al arte. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Fácil de leer
Una lectura facilona que cuenta una historia muy simple con un léxico básico.
Se deja leer y resulta grata pero no esperes un retrato perfecto de la época ni llegar a saber más acerca de Vermeer. No profundiza en la vida del pintor ni en su arte ni muestra más aspectos históricos que los justos para narrar la experiencia de la protagonista quien, estando como criada en casa del pintor, es utilizada como modelo.
El único mundo interior que se nos muestra es el de la protagonista, no demasiado excitante, y casi toda la acción transcurre en la casa del pintor, sin secundarios descritos en profundidad, durante un periodo de tiempo bastante corto.
En resumen, agradable para no esforzar el cerebro.

Griet


Griet era una joven que guardaba siempre una parte de si misma. Por eso, areglo su cofia en manera distinta con la que podria obscurecer su rostro con un flecion de la cabeza. Por eso, hizo su papel como criada en la casa del pintor Vermeer sin querer serlo de corazon. Pero su pasion para su amo era la pasion quieta y obstinada de una joven de diesiciete anos. Y la de el para ella-- guardada y controlada, pero en fin un afecto, sin embargo. Para el, Griet sumiso a poser en una turbante para el cuadro deseado por un amigo lacivioso de Vermeer. Para el, perfero su lobulo para llevar el pendiente de perla de la esposa de Vermeer. En fin, la perla le regalo la independencia del alma que a ella siempre le importaba.
Esa es una historia romantica, aunque sutil. Yo la encuentre absorbiendo, dirivada de una imaginacion muy fertile.

A SPELLBINDING WORK OF HISTORICAL FICTION...
In this Spanish text edition, this gifted author weaves a mesmerizing tale around Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer's most famous painting, creating an incandescent and luminous work of her own. His painting is a simple, though enigmatic, portrait of a girl with a pearl earring, about which little is known. The author, however, a born storyteller, creates a living, breathing story around it, using a singular, first person narrative. Told in spare, elegant prose, the author leaps into literary renown with this book.

The events in the book are viewed through the eyes of Griet, a sixteen year old Dutch girl, whose changed family circumstances force her into taking a position as a maid in the home of a renowned painter, the taciturn Johannes Vermeer. There, the painter resides with his tempestuous wife, Catharina, their brood of unruly children, his commanding and shrewd mother-in-law, Maria Thins, and their loyal housekeeper and cook, Tanneke. The author lovingly details seventeenth century life in the Dutch city of Delft. It is here that Griet's story unfolds.

Sensitive and perceptive, Griet is attuned to the under currents in the Vermeer household and, at first, takes care not to draw attention to herself. Still, she, the daughter of a tile painter, is curious about Vermeer's artistry and is drawn to his work and his methods. Vermeer, sensing a kindred artistic spirit in Griet, draws her into his world of paint, color, light, and beauty, creating an intimacy of the spirit between the two.

Still, Griet, a girl on the brink of becoming a woman, finds herself confused and breathlessly desiring more than she may have. Her longing for more than a communion of the spirit with Vermeer is palpable. It is, therefore, not surprising that the undercurrents in the Vermeer household should come bubbling to the surface and engulf Griet, much to her consternation.

This is a stunning literary work that fully realizes the promise that the author showed in her debut novel, "The Virgin Blue". She is an author that understands the less is often more, and she makes every word count. Deliberate and spare, her prose is lyrical in its simplicity, weaving a tale that will keep the reader spellbound. This is historical fiction at its finest. Bravo!

A Cinderella Story about Life in an Artist's Home

Vermeer's famous portrait of a girl with a pearl earring and her hair covered completely in fabric has always beguiled me. The style of the painting, the expression, the clothes, the earring, the direct stare and longing in the mouth and eyes have always made me want to know more about the model.

Ms. Chevalier's book dealt with those questions quite well, and took my understanding of the subject to new depths that I had not considered before. If I had only gained that increased understanding of the painting, I would have found this to be a worthy book.

The story is also filled with interesting details about the artistic methods of the time and preparation of materials. That information was an unexpected bonus.

Vermeer is known for having produced few works. Ms. Chevalier has provided many intriguing ideas about why that might have been the case.

On top of these artistic questions, Ms. Chevalier has written a lively story of a young woman whose family falls on hard times so that she has to take up work as a maid in Vermeer's household. She finds herself at the bottom of the pecking order and is often treated unfairly. Like Cinderella, her true qualities are eventually appreciated and she finds her Prince Charming. The story also provides many helpful details about town life in Delft during the 1700s.

The Cinderella story was a bit overdeveloped compared to the artistic aspects of the story. Had the two aspects been in better balance I would have found this to be a five star book.

If you normally enjoy historical romances, you will probably like this book better than I did.

Keep smiling! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

INTRIGUING WORK OF HISTORICAL FICTION...
This book covers the period in the lives of two families that stretches from January 1901, the end of the Victorian era, to May 1910, the end of the Edwardian one. The lives of these two families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses, converge and become inextricably woven together when they inadvertently meet at a cemetery while paying their respects to deceased loved ones. Unbeknownst to them, their lives are moving inexorably towards a tragic denouement, one that is to have ramifications for both families.

Two of the daughters of these respective families, Lavinia Waterhouse and Maude Coleman, find that they have formed the beginning of a friendship during the brief interlude at the cemetery. The two girls also befriend Simon Field, the son of one of the gravediggers at the cemetery. The friendship of the two girls is cemented when they later discover that they are to be neighbors, as through happenstance the Waterhouse family moves onto a property adjacent to that of the Colemans. Despite differences in social class and personal taste, as the Waterhouses are definitely sentimentally bourgeois and the Colemans have pretensions to more refinement, the families are brought together, however unwillingly, through the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

The mothers of these two girls are unable to form a true friendship, as stolid Gertrude Waterhouse and pretty Kitty Coleman are unable to find much common ground. Gertrude is bound in tradition, while Kitty, dissatisfied with her marriage and her life, is looking is looking to escape tradition and expand the role allotted in society to women. Never the twain shall meet, as these women will never see eye-to-eye, despite the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

This is a well-plotted novel with each character adding his or her perspective to the events that unfold, many of which are of a secretive nature. Even the husbands, Albert Waterhouse and Richard Coleman, have something to say that contributes to the development of the story, as does Richard Coleman's mother, Edith, as do the Coleman's maid, Jenny Whitby, and their cook, Dorothy Baker. Lavinia's younger sister, Ivy May, who plays a small but pivotal role, also has her say, as does Kitty's admirer, John Jackson. There are also a number of twists and turns in the tale.

The story is told in the clean, spare prose that fans of the author have come to expect. It is told through first person narratives, and it is almost as if the narratives were taken from the personal diary or journal of each character. Therein lies the rub, as the author is unable to make the voice of each character truly distinguishable from that of the others. The book suffers somewhat from the failure of the author to develop a truly unique voice for each one. This is, however, the only failing of this otherwise absorbing and intriguing story that is suffused with period detail. This is the French text edition of "Falling Angels", an otherwise excellent book that fans of the author will enjoy, as will those who love historical fiction.

... Read more