Earlier this month, my niece got her ears pierced which reminded me that Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier has been on my to-read list for way too long! Since it was also on the January reading list for Around the World in 80 books, I thought this would be an excellent time to scratch it off.
What it’s About:
The fragility of the middle class and the vulnerability of middle class women.
What Wander-Readers Will Love:
The way readers are included in the day-to-day activities of a maid in 17th century Delft. You can almost smell the canal.
The Story: (includes spoilers)
Griet is the daughter of a craftsman tile painter that lost his sight in a shop accident. With his disability, the family drops from lower-middle class to poor. With the change in their circumstances, Griet is put to work as a maid in the home of the upper-middle class artist, Vermeer. Things in the Vermeer household are not very stable. The family is struggling to keep up appearances while money is tight. This puts the household in a chronically annoyed state with the women sniping and plotting against one another for petty sport. Griet quickly distinguishes herself in her work by cleaning the painter’s studio without disturbing his carefully arranged settings. She finds herself increasingly the focus of his attention by virtue of her modest beauty and her talent for color. For her part, she is quietly aroused by her employer but the deliciously subtle affair is only an affair of the mind. That doesn’t prevent his wife’s jealousy, however and when Vermeer decides to paint Griet, it is kept a secret. When their affair does ultimately become physical, it is only with a metaphorical consummation. Griet is driven from the house in shame to marry the butcher’s son, her brief but passionate affair with art (if not the artist) is over. A lovely denouement reveals that Vermeer had been deeply moved by his young, artistic maid and remembered her in his will with a gift she would neither deny nor fully accept. Her solution redeems her sense of self worth pride as she returns home to her family as her own woman.
Girl With a Pearl Earring is frequently criticized for being too subtle. If you read quickly or enjoy books with a lot of action, you may find that the characters don’t alway seem to let you in on their thoughts. But if you enjoy a languid read with rich descriptions and obscure motives, Girl With a Pearl Earring will give you much to mull over and speculate on.
Read ~ Write ~ Wander
~Angie