This is a Historical Romance Fiction. This book took me awhile to get into this book, but after I really got into the book I could not put it down. This book basically follows a young girl. I really felt the character came to life while reading this book. This is moving building story and slow moving, but I did enjoy it. There was times while I was reading this book that I wish it would move along a little bit faster. I won a paperback copy of this book from a goodreads giveaways, but this review was 100% mine own opinion.

"Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Tracy Chevalier was an interesting historical fiction concept!

It was extremely cleverly how the author created Griet as the protagonist, maid and model for the famous painting 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. No one knows who the models were for any of Vermeer's paintings. So, I applaud this author's imaginative use of creating a story around the Master Painter's exquisite painting.

Forced by her parents to become a maid to the Vermeer household, Griet is saddened to learn of the assignment. Hearing the news that she will reside with them and only be allowed to return home to her own family on Sunday's is heart wrenching for her. Regardless of her feelings, she diligently begins preforming her assigned duties of boiling, scrubbing, wringing, hanging and ironing the unmanageable heaps of laundry from this large and growing family. While the enormous pots of water are set on the fire to boil to begin the tedious laundering process, Griet often gets an early start on other assigned duties so no time is wasted during her long and exhausting days.

However, Griet's most important duty as a maid in this household is the privilege of cleaning Vermeer's upstairs studio. To enter the artist's studio is considered an honor bestowed on few as the painter does not even allow his wife, Catharina, the freedom to enter. In cleaning the studio Griet is instructed that it is to remain exactly as the artist left it the previous day. If an item is touched to dust under it, it must be returned exactly as it was found. Failure to follow the rules set by the painter concerning his studio will cause her to be dismissed and sent away.

Because Griet is allowed to enter Vermeer's studio, Catharina shows an immediate and obvious dislike for her. Her dislike transitions to jealousy and mistrust when the maid is asked by the painter to assist him in his studio attic for the process of grinding stones to create the colors for paints he plans to use. There seems to be an unspoken language, understanding and respect that develop between the painter and his maid concerning how they see light, color and the use of balance necessary for a finished painting.

Griet is the planned model for a promised painting to one of Vermeer's older patrons who openly lusts after the young and innocent maid. As the painter nears the completion of the painting, he insists Griet wear Catharina's pearl earrings to add needed reflection of light to the painting. Although she agrees the painting needs the reflective light, Griet is hesitant to comply fearing the backlash from Catharina for wearing her earring. Griet finally relents but boldly insists Vermeer place the earring on her lobe. He does so with a sensual tenderness, touching her lobe, inserting the wire and pushing it through. Griet speaks of what takes place next:

"He did not remove his hand. His fingers brushed against my neck and along my jaw. He traced the side of my face up to my cheek, then blotted the tears that spilled from my eyes with his thumb. He ran his thumb over my lower lip. I licked it and tasted salt.”

When Vermeer places the earring on Griet's lobe, she can only think of his fingers on her afterwards. It is clear she is infatuated by the quiet mystique of this painter. Perhaps he was also taken by her, discovering her ability to see the array of colors and light he sees in all things. Perhaps it was a longing of what could happen with the unleashing of forbidden desire. Vermeer chooses to move back to his easel and palette to finish the painting.

A historical fiction novel, built around a famous painting, brought to life by the rich colorful written words from this author's palette. It is beautifully simple, where the unspoken, eye-holding looks that pass between Griet and Vermeer are suspended in air and left to the imagination of the reader. There is so much between the lines in this book one does not discover until many days after finishing. As I write this review, I continue to flip through the chapters and discover more and more that I missed on my initial reading.

This is a masterpiece I will continue to savor forever!

Quite enjoyable novel . I wish the author had more descriptive writing of the geography and less of the maid tasks . Also I felt it was a fast read . I wish it were longer and more detailed .

A reread. 4.5 Stars!

Griet had not been told that she is to become the painter Vermeer’s maid, her mother only revealing the job to her after the Vermeer’s had already been, inspected Griet, and left. Griet has no say in the matter. Her father was a tile painter before a tragic accident, in which a kiln explosion claimed his eyes and trade. The family who were already struggling, treading water, now find themselves slowly slipping beneath the surface.

Her father explains to Griet that she is to be a maid for the famous painter Vermeer. Cleaning his studio will be one of her main tasks. It is 1664, in the city of Delft, Holland. Griet has been brought up a protestant but the Vermeer’s are catholic and Griet wonders how life will change and what differences she will find in a Catholic household.

The first time she sees the painting that Vermeer is currently working on, she is struck with awe. She has never seen anything like it in her life before. On the Sunday that she has free and returns to spend with her family she describes the painting for her father.

These Sunday visits are soon taken from Griet as the area in which her family live is quarantined with word spreading that the plague has surfaced in the vicinity.

She finds out from Pieter, the son of the butcher where she purchases the meat, that her parents are well but that her sister Agnes has taken ill. Pieter is a cheerful gregarious chap and falls for Griet. He does not hide his feelings and makes his intentions known to Griet. Griet tells him that she is only seventeen and has no feelings for him, however this does not dissuade Pieter.

Griet’s parents decide, with Pieter being the son of a butcher, that he is a good match for Griet and invite him for dinner. Griet feels that she is helping the family by playing her role in securing their future, and a marriage could lead them out of penury. However, she is doing this out of family duty and harbours no feelings for Pieter other than friendship.

One day Pieter tells Griet that Vermeer had a child with one of the maids in his painting. Alarmingly she asks him what happened to the maid. He answers her with, “What happens to girls like that?”.

Before the quarantine is lifted Griet receives the terrible news that her sister has passed. Griet is grief-stricken.

At first Griet barely sees Vermeer. He is nearly always locked away in his studio studiously painting.
One morning the baker’s daughter is ill and Vermeer asks Griet to stand in for her in a painting he is working on. From this day on, Griet and Vermeer grow closer. Vermeer starts showing Griet how a painting is created from scratch. Griet, is utterly entranced. She has never seen a painting being painted, never met a master painter before. Her feelings start to grow stronger for Vermeer with each passing day. Griet shows an unusual talent for colour and arrangement and Vermeer is quietly surprised and happy.

Vermeer then teaches her how to mix paints but as she grows closer to Vermeer, she becomes aware that all this can be taken away from her in an instant. Vermeer’s wife knows nothing of this work Griet is doing for him.

Griet becomes used to this new way of life and it is not until Maertge, the eldest daughter, tells her that she is going to be moved from the attic, where she mixes the paints, back to the cellar, that she realises what she will be missing.

“I slowed my pace. Years of hauling water, wringing out clothes, scrubbing floors, emptying chamberpots, with no chance of beauty or colour or light in my life, stretched before me like a landscape of flat land, where a long way off the sea is visible but can never be reached. If I could not work with the colours, if I could not be near him, I did not know how I could continue to work in that house”.

While Griet has been working at the Vermeer’s household she has picked up an unwarranted admirer. A powerful, and rich admirer. He is Vermeer’s patron van Ruijven and he has his eyes set on Griet.

Although Vermeer is a famous painter, the household is in debt. Vermeer’s extreme slowness in painting leaves him with only a few paintings to sell each year. So, when his patron van Ruijven requests that he paint Griet, Vermeer has little choice but to comply.

Griet is trapped, she does not want to sit for the painting, but Pieter sums up her situation in a sentence,

“But you have little power of what happens to you”.

The painting of Griet has an almost pornographic taboo feel to it. It feels as if lines have been crossed and that boundaries have been broken.

There is no illusion that Griet thinks she is in love with Vermeer. Griet is seventeen and naïve, apart from Pieter she has never been courted by a man and is blithely unaware of her beauty. When Vermeer sees Griet with her hair down, freed from the cap that has always remained on her head. He realises that he may be falling in love himself. There is always a sexual tension, almost like a charge of electricity, between the two. But will this tension result in action? And if the two do engage in a clandestine affair whare does that leave Griet? What hope is there for her? She is placed in an impossible situation with no positive outcome in sight.

This novel makes the reader think about the relationship between master and servant. How Griet, only seventeen and very naïve, is caught up in the grey area that exists between the two roles. She sways back and forth like a ship in a storm, one minute reminded of her humble life while working on the household tasks, then a completely different world, mixing colours and helping Vermeer with his painting. Griet’s place in the Vermeer household is never secure, she seems to be always teetering of the verge of being thrown out with Vermeer himself the only tether keeping her safe.

How is Griet going to get herself out of this situation, and is she more than just the naïve country maid that everybody thinks she is?

This was a reread for me and it has lost nothing in the years since I read it. Not much is known about Vermeer during these years, so Chevalier had a great deal of license to play around with, and she has done a wonderful job, creating a believable and enjoyable novel. 4.5 Stars.

This was a very light historical fiction and I honestly seemed to enjoy it very well.

This is the story about Griet, a teenage girl who is hired as a maid to work at Johannes Vermeer’s house; attending to all his necessities and his family’s.

That’s basically it. Through the days, she develops even more complex relationships with not only her boss but with his entire family. And not only that but her life changes in unexpected ways.

You could say this is the story of a portrait.

—————

I, for some reason, felt like this was somehow cozy. It was a very light and super fast historical read that you could literally read in a day (I know I read it in 2 days, be quiet).

I enjoyed the main character enough, I feel like she was very decent and she knew hot to establish her own boundaries. She was strong and surely knew how to cope with everyone’s shit and actually deal with it unlike other protagonists.

Some may call it unnatural, but I feel like it wasn’t, not entirely. It’s set on a whole different country and a whole different century (the 16th one to be more specific).

The other characters were alright. Though I did feel a bit uncomfortable with a few interactions or thoughts regarding Vermeer.

I guess you could say there’s romance but it was just there. Wasn’t too huge or really interesting, but I kinda expected for it to be that way because of how the book is written, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. You can just tell sometimes how things are gonna be.

I CAN'T SHOUT "MEH!" LOUD ENOUGH!!!

The popular fame obtained by this book and its subsequent movie version starring Scarlett Johansson...

*two hours later*

(Sorry, I was daydreaming)...had me expecting a tumultuous romance, a grab-ya and hold-ya reading experience. But this...I don't know what this was, but it wasn't exciting in the least.

Girl With a Pearl Earring is about a maid, who becomes a model, who gets her picture painted and attracts the notice of a few men. The painter is famous, so that's interesting. His patron is rich, of course, and expects to get what he wants, so there's your villain...kind of.

Really, our protagonist's main enemy is jealousy. But that enemy's effectiveness is quashed by another force: money. And that leaves us with a less dramatically, emotionally affecting book.

I read through to the end, expecting something bigger to happen the whole way, but even though it never did, I did still manage to get through it all, so there's something to be said for that.

In the end, however, this book has to say about as much as does a picture of a beautiful woman. Not much.


In related news...
My overly sensitive and irrational wife would like me to take down my Johansson picture collage homage from the ceiling over our bed. But as I've explained, ScarJo needs the support of her #1 fan!

این کتاب نوشته تریسی شوالیه (Tracy Chevalier) نویسنده فرانسوی- سوئیسی است که این کتاب را در امریکا و به عنوان دومین اثرش منتشر کرد و با استقبال زیاد مخاطبین و منتقدین مواجه شد. این رمان در تلاش است که با تکیه بر آثار نقاشی یوهانس ورمر (Johannes Vermeer) ، نقاش هلندی 1675-1632، و جمع آوری اطلاعات تاریخی درباره شرایط اجتماعی زندگی در هلند قرن هفدهم به بازسازی و یا بازتعریف زندگی ورمر بپردازد. محور اصلی این کتاب تابلوی دختری با گوشواره مروارید (Girl with Pearl Earring) است، که شوالیه دختر این تصویر را به عنوان راوی داستانش انتخاب می کند و با وی به درون زندگی شخصی و کاری ورمر سرک می کشد.
اکثر آثار ورمر پرتره هایی از طبقه معمولی و بورژوا در حین انجام کار یا زندگی روزمره اند. تنها اثر وی که هیچ توجهی به حرفه، مکان و زمان مدل ندارد تابلوی دختری با گوشواره مروارید است. این تابلو که سال خلق آن بین سالهای 1675-1665 تخمین زده می شود با تکنیک رنگ روغن روی بوم نقاشی شده است و به خاطر زاویه مدیوم شات، لباس های خارج از عرف و تاحدی نامانوس، پس زمینه سیاه بدون درج و ثبت هرگونه وسیله، لوازم یا نشانه ای که به ما درباره این فرد و شرایطش آدرسی بدهد به شدت محل شک و حدس و گمانهای فراوان درباره هویت این مدل شده است. گمان ها برای شناسایی معمولا در سه فرد خلاصه شده است: ماریا ورمر (دختر بزرگ یوهانس)، مدلینا ون روی ون (دختر دوست و حامی یوهانس ورمر) و مدل گمنامی که در خانه ورمر به عنوان پیشخدمت کار می کرد. شوالیه با گمان سوم جلو می رود.
در روایت شخصی شوالیه از این تابلو، این دختر، گری یت است؛ دختر یک کاشی ساز فقیر که برای کار و کمک مالی به خانواده اش به عنوان پیشخدمت به خانه ورمر نقاش می رود. وظیفه او علاوه بر انجام کارهای روزمره عادی نظیر شستن، اتو کردن، خرید و... تمیز کردن آتلیه نقاشی ورمر است. گری یت از 16 تا 18 سالگی در خانه ورمر کار می کند و در همان نگاه اول به ورمر دل می بندد و در خیال نوجوانانه خویش ورمر را هم دلبسته خود می پندارد.
این کتاب درباره ی تابلویی به همین نام که توسط یان ورمر کشیده شده و در حال حاضر در موزه ی ماوریتس هویس لاهه(هلند) نگهداری می شود نوشته شده . این تابلوی زیبا بر خلاف بیشتر آثار ورمر و دیگر نقاشان دوران خودش ظاهری مرموز دارد. تصاویر کلاسیک و رئال آن دوران یا تصویری از طبیعت و شهرها هستند و یا حالات انسانی و جو آن زمان را منتقل می کنند . مثل زنی که در حال ریختن شیر در کاسه است . گروهی که موسیقی می نوازند . مجالس و جشن های اشرافی و مردمی و صحنه هایی دیگر به همین سبک . با این حال دختری تنها و جوان در یک تابلو با زمینه ی کاملا خالی و سیاه می تواند متمایز از بقیه باشد . ما نمی توانیم بفهمیم که این دختر با این نگاه نافذ و لباسی که چندان عادی و رایج نبوده فقیر است یا اشراف زاده ؟ شاد است یا غمگین؟ به چه فکر می کند ؟ و یا کجاست ؟

Another one of my wife's recommendations (I read a lot of books that way), I picked it up from the bookshelf the night we came back from seeing the film with Scarlett Johansonn and Colin Firth. I loved the movie--it was just so incredibly sumptuous--and was curious to know the story in the novel, which I knew from experience, and from my wife's continuous comments, would be different, more detailed. I was right.

Chevalier has won a place in my heart and bookshelf. Her novels are well-crafted, simple to follow, and addictive; Girl was no exception. The story of the maid Griet in 1600's Delft, Holland, was amazing in its simple prose and endless emotion. Completely fictional (no one knows who exactly were the models for any of Vermeer's paintings), it nonetheless possesses a veracity that makes you believe Chevalier found the long-lost journal of this unknown woman and wrote her novel based on it. The details of seventeen century Holland are rich; you feel you are walking the canal-lined streets of Delft, smelling the pungent scents of the Meat Market, holding your breath as Vermeer paints next to you. Griet is a wonderful protagonist, taking you into her world, yet retaining a few secrets for herself, especially where Vermeer is concerned.

Girl is one of those novels that truly invites you, and almost kidnaps you, to become part of the story, to walk next to the characters, to share in their lives, to feel as they feel. Watch the movie, by all means (the photography is absolutely incredible), but then read the novel and get the whole story. You will not be disappointed.

A sharp, sensitive and absorbing novel of 17th century Netherlands, combining history art and fiction. The remarkable author Tracey Chevalier fleshes out and embellishes the story who the girl in the painting by Johannes Vermeer could be.

Griet, a 16 year old Dutch girl in the town of Delft from a poor Protestant family is hired out as a housemaid to the wealthy Catholic painter. His household include Vermeer's vain and jealous wife, Katharina, Katharina's cordial and wise mother, Maria Thins, Tanneke, the Vermeers' other older household servant and the Vermeer children.

Griet is wooed by Pieter, the handsome son of the local butcher, while Griet's parents worry she is losing her soul in the ostentatious Vermeer household.
Griet's sister dies of the plague, and things grow more difficult for Griet, in her place of work, and in the circumstances of her family.
which become more desperate.

But the novel reaches its climax when Vermeer coerces Griet into being the model for one of his most ambitious works. Things spin out of control though for Griet there will be happy ending.
Heartwarming, in parts amusing, a fable of self and disparate components, and hope and despair. A sterling piece of literature form a master novelist.

I tagged this "based-on-fact" because all the members of the Vermeer family, plus Vermeer's patron, van Ruijven, and friend, van Leuwenhoek, all existed. Griet, the title "girl with a pearl," did not, at least as far as anyone knows. However, someone posed for that painting, so why not Griet? And by the way, if you're like me and say the names mentally as you're reading them, and you don't know Dutch, this book will be a challenge.

As I said in my status update, this book reminded me of why historical fiction was one of my first loves. I think I read at least half the historical fiction books in my high school library. To be truthful, the plot of this one is something of a soap opera, but I enjoyed reading about everyday life of both rich and poor in the seventeenth century. If you like historical fiction, and especially if you enjoy art, I highly recommend Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Wow, I love art inspired by art. I was so enamoured by this book and the nature of the main character, I found myself consistently going back to the cover where the original painting was displayed and just looking at it seeing the story unfold. I love how this author was so inspired to create a story surrounding such a visceral painting.

Great reading experience, written so accessibly and beautifully that I honestly feel like anyone could pick this up and enjoy it.

Story of a girl who goes to work as a maid in the Vermeer household. She is entranced with his paintings and also with his "mystique". His wife is jealous of Greit's beautify immediately. Vermeer's patron, a sleazy, domineering man, eventually orders Vermeer to paint a picture of Greit for himself.

The portrait is done. Greit enjoys sitting for her Master and also assisting him with mixing paints, etc. She begins to feel affection for him and thinks he feels the same.

There is also a "butcher's" son who is in love with her and she eventually marries him. In the end Vermeer's wife orders Greit out of the house when she discovers the portrait.

I enjoyed the book but had hoped there would be a more substantial and fulfilling ending. Fans of Vermeer and historical fiction will enjoy this book. I love the actual painting itself and have a small copy of it in my home.