When I began reading this book, I realized I had read it before, but since it was a good story I read it again. Tracy Chevalier has made a career of writing novels about art. She tells the story of the creation of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries through the voices of multiple characters and mixes in class, sex and pregnancies. Nicolas Des Innocents is a French painter who is commissioned to design the tapestries for Jean Le Viste, a French nobleman. Jean wants a painting of war and horses, but his wife intervenes and convinces Nicolas to paint the story of the Lady and the Unicorn. A womanizer, Nicolas seeks to bed every woman he can including Le Viste's daughter, Claude. The tapestries are created in Brussels by Georges De La Chapelle and his family. The novel tells the tale of two families: one a noble family in Paris and the other the family of a weaver in Brussels. Nicolas and the tapestries are the connection between the two families. The Lady and the Unicorn is a quick, easy and enjoyable read. I would recommend it to anyone interested in art, history and good story.

As always, Chevalier writes about the obsessive power of art, sexuality, and (women's) agency with a force that is unparalleled in historical fiction. In some ways, The Lady and the Unicorn is even more impressive than her best-known work, Girl with a Pearl Earring, as her ability to give voice to women - influential in the creation of art and yet marginalized throughout history - is flexed in not just one central character, but three or four. My favourites: Claude, obviously, the best fourteen year-old with a SEX DRIVE, Alienor with her garden, Christine and her desire to weave, and Genevieve, whose confession ('mon seul desir') eventually makes its way into the tapestry of the title.

Reading this book has reminded me of how much I just love Tracy Chevalier.

Tu la ce gândești atunci când cineva aduce în discuție tema Evului Mediu?

Ceea ce mă fascinează la această perioadă este arta, în special tapiseriile de dimensiuni impresionante, ce împodobeau pereții privilegiaților de viță nobilă.

O știți pe scriitoarea George Sand? Ei bine, femeia a descoperit într-o stare de deteriorare avansată, un set de șase tapiserii înfățișând o femeie cu un inorog, ulterior fiind restaurate și expuse la muzeul Cluny din Paris.

Și pentru că aceste tapiserii sunt de un detaliu și o frumusețe uluitoare, mulți experți au încercat să descrifreze mesajul din spatele acestei creații, nereușind însă în totalitate. Interpretarea exactă și mesajul transmis este pierdut pentru totdeauna în faldurile timpului.

Pornind de la acest "mister" Tracy Chevalier țese pe pânza literară, o intrigă a tapiseriilor, capabilă să cucerească cititorul încă de la primul capitol. Pictorul Nicolas des Innocents ( să știți că nu era el chiar așa de inocent

Tracy Chevalier
The Lady and the Unicorn
New York: Penguin, 2004
250 pp. $23.95
0-525-94767-1
“The Lady and the Unicorn,” written by Tracy Chevalier, is a historical fiction novel about medieval French tapestries which depict a woman seducing a unicorn. Although not much is known about the tapestries, Tracy Chevalier has written an excellent love story based on the few known facts. Jean Le Viste, a French nobleman, commissions a Parisian painter, Nicolas des Innocents, to create a set of six tapestries. Set in France, the story travels between Paris and Brussels, where the tapestries are being weaved. Meanwhile Nicolas becomes caught between three women, yet the one he loves most is Claude, the daughter of Jean Le Viste. However they are separated by society, prohibited to even walk on the same side of the street together. Because of pressures from family, Claude undergoes an emotional transformation throughout the novel.
Being the first born, Claude plays a crucial role in securing the Le Viste name around the Court. Jean Le Viste was not born to noble status, rather he earned his way in. To maintain the family name Claude must marry into another royal family, causing her parents to shelter her from ineligible men. Nicolas des Innocents is popular with the ladies and becomes very fond of Claude during several encounters at the Le Viste household. When Jean Le Viste’s wife, Genevieve De Nanterre, sees that Claude has fallen in love with Nicolas, she does everything in her power to isolate them from each other. She states, “Claude knows only too well how valuable her maidenhead is to the Le Vistes-she must be intact for a worthy man to marry her” (Chevalier 56). But to ensure Claude will not lose her maidenhead, Genevieve De Nanterre banishes Claude to the convent until she is to become betrothed.
While at the convent Claude spends numerous months in solidarity, reflecting on her love for Nicolas. There she lives modestly, sleeping on a straw mattress surely not fit for a queen. Though joining the convent is truly her mother’s dream, not Claude’s. Genevieve De Nanterre thinks, “It would be a mercy to let me enter a convent” (51). Genevieve dreams of entering the convent someday, and to be free from her loveless marriage. When Claude is welcomed back home for her engagement party, she stubbles upon Nicolas. Nonetheless he has already noticed she is not the same person she used to be, recalling, “Her eyes were still like quinces but they were not as lively as they had been” (239). Claude’s stay at the convent had mellowed her soul and all enthusiasm had been lost.
“The Lady and the Unicorn” is an exciting tale of secret love. Chevalier does an exceptional job combining French vocabulary, French culture, and imagery to portray a reliable account of what might have been during the time period. The emotional changes Claude faces during the story sheds light on pressures felt from family and society and the different standards noblewomen are held to.

I suppose that's how you write historical fiction (looking at you, Simone van der Vlugt!)

The Brussels section is glorious, with all the weaving details and the particulars of the craft. I'm beyond amazed each time an author takes the hard way and engages in lots of research, such as tapestry techniques in the Middle Ages—setting up looms, threads, colours, dyeing methods and all that jazz—and manages to bring everything together in an enthralling narrative. Also, I'm constantly amazed at how incredibly well the craft guilds were organized in Medieval Flanders.

The Paris section is a bit trivial, but somewhat appropriate, I guess?

Unfortunately, I didn't connect with any of the characters (definitely didn't root for the unlikely pair), but having the story told from multiple pov certainly helped with shaping and depth.

I liked this book but didn’t love it. It had moments. I found the characters hard to get close to. The writing seemed to lack the flow that keeps you reading when you’re not supposed to. Perhaps due to the different points of view in every chapter.

This book reminded me of why I typically try to have as few preconceptions about novels as possible -- I avoid the summaries on the inside flap/back cover, rarely read reviews past the first few lines, and never examine cover art too closely. Otherwise, I start forming expectations of plot lines, style, and tone for the book, and usually end up (perhaps unfairly) disappointed when the book doesn't measure up.

All that to say, I've seen the tapestries on which this book is based, and I was really hoping for a better story than Chevalier has given them. I got to spend quite a while in the tapestries' special room in the Musée national de Moyen Age, and between the moody archival lighting, the exhibit design, and the impressive presence of the tapestries themselves, I left with a strong sense that these were artifacts of consequence.

So, to have much of the story boil down to, "Well, there's this artist, and he really wants to get into some ladies' pants. . ." was frustrating. I would have much preferred to read more about the mechanics of weaving, the symbolism of the tapestries, and the politics and economics of creating a work of art like this. The story actually had all of these elements, but the characters felt silly and shallow, and I just didn't care if the fictional cartoonist got to sleep with any of the women he chased, or if the weaver's blind daughter ended up marrying the smelly woad-dyer.

I certainly see the appeal in taking something as grand as these tapestries and giving them a frivolous backstory, but since I'd already been won over to the Fuck Yeah, Tapestries! team, I was simply not in the mood for it this time.

The story of The Lady and the Unicorn is quite interesting: according to the author they were rediscovered by Prosper Merimee in 1841 and he found them in poor condition. Georges Sand became their champion, writing about them in articles, novels and her journal. In 1992 the French government bought the tapestries for the Musee de Cluny in Paris - where they still hang, restored and in a specially appointed room.
I didn't enjoy this book as much as The Girl with a Pearl Earring. And certainly Chrissie wont like this kind of book also.

The "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestry at the Cluny Museum in Paris

3.5 stelline.
Ispirato al ciclo di arazzi de “La dama e l’unicorno”, nell’omonimo romanzo la Chevalier, partendo dalle poche notizie storiche a sua disposizione, e muovendosi tra Parigi e Bruxelles, ripercorre, in un arco temporale che va dal 1490 al 1492, tutto il progetto di realizzazione delle sei opere aiutandosi con personaggi e avvenimenti che ben si intercalano nel contesto storico di cui si narra.

Tutto ha inizio nella Parigi del 1490 quando il nobile Jean Le Viste commissiona al pittore Nicolas des Innocents un ciclo di sei arazzi raffiguranti la battaglia di Nancy, con l’obiettivo di decorare le spoglie pareti della Grande Salle. La moglie di Le Viste, Geneviève de Nanterre, supportata dallo stesso pittore, riesce a convincere il marito che sia preferibile optare per un soggetto diverso come la seduzione di un unicorno da parte di una dama. Eseguiti i disegni, il giovane Nicolas si reca a Bruxelles nella bottega del tessitore Georges de la Chapelle per sovrintendere a tutta la serie di processi che porteranno alla realizzazione dei sei arazzi, incrociando sul suo cammino i diversi personaggi che popolano l’intero progetto narrativo.

“La dama e l’unicorno” è un romanzo che potremmo in qualche maniera dividere in due parti. La prima è quella in cui la lettura procede in maniera piuttosto spedita tanto che il lettore si ritrova a macinare pagine su pagine nel giro di qualche ora; la seconda, un po’ come il lungo periodo di realizzazione degli arazzi o la neve che ricopre ogni cosa impedendo la comunicazione tra Parigi e Bruxelles, fatica ad ingranare e devo ammettere che questa lentezza io l’ho percepita tutta ed è quella che non mi ha permesso di apprezzare il romanzo nella sua totalità. A mio avviso è una vera e propria fase di stallo, che si protrae fino a poco prima dei capitoli che conducono all’epilogo, ed è un intermezzo all’interno del quale avviene poco o nulla ai fini narrativi.
La particolarità di questo romanzo risiede sicuramente nella narrazione in prima persona dei diversi personaggi che, a turno, si scambiano sul palcoscenico narrativo andando ad arricchire l’intera storia con trame e sottotrame che si svolgono parallelamente e permettono allo stesso lettore di poter seguire l’evolversi della storia anche se da punti di vista differenti.
Ed è grazie a questo espediente narrativo che verremo trascinati in tutta una serie di storie che vanno a intercalarsi nel quadro generale, pensiamo all’ossessione di Nicolas per la primogenita dei Le Viste, Claude, che, giovinetta, grazie alle attenzioni rivoltele dal pittore, inizierà ad affacciarsi alla soglia del piacere; oppure al rapporto conflittuale tra la stessa Claude e sua madre Geneviève; o ancora a tutte le vicende che prenderanno piede nella bottega di Bruxelles.

Lo stile dello Chevalier, la scelta della terminologia, la ricchezza descrittiva delle sue frasi e la caratterizzazione dei personaggi sono ciò che, ancora una volta, ho grandemente apprezzato. L’ambientazione storica è come sempre eccezionale e permette al lettore di essere completamente assorbito nella narrazione, rendendolo uno spettatore silente capace di vivere a pieno quanto accade attorno a lui.

Ar geriau nei Mergina? Ne, nepasakyčiau. Bet irgi neblogai. Gražus, plaukiantis vertimas ir dar gražesnis autorės tekstas. Ne taip kaip Merginoje, čia man sunkiau patikėti istorinių reikalų autentiškumu - atrodo, kad mažiau gylio, istorinių žinių svorio, detalių - gi purvas, tamsa ir žmogaus niekingumas nėra viskas, kuo laikmetis išsiskiria? Visgi, skaitosi greitai ir įtraukia, gal tik retas kuris veikėjas iki galo atrodo patrauklus, tačiau visi savaip įsimintini - neabejotinas Chevalier tekstų privalumas. Susitaikyti su čia aprašomo amžiaus aktualijomis baisiai sunku, jei ne neįmanoma - tose pačiose tarpuvartėse chebra ir mylisi, ir mušasi, ir, nevyniokim, kakoja. Daug purvo, bet vat meilės menui, ne taip kaip Merginoje, mažokai - nebent pinigų skaičiavimą vadintume meile. Gal todėl ir gobelenų grožis nublanksta - jų kaina visapusiškai per didelė. Per skaudi.

Kad skaičiau nesigailiu, bet ne taip kaip Merginos, lentynoje nebepasilikčiau - per dažnai jaučiausi plaukianti paviršiumi: meno, santykių, skausmo. Ir moterų veikėjams man čia pritrūko atspalvių bei sluoksnių - žinant, kad Chevalier gali geriau, knyga mano akyse šiaip arčiau 3.5 gula, nei kad stipraus 4.

I obviously read this around the same time two years ago - thoughts are still the same, so now will be relegated to the discard pile.

Quite disappointed int us. Have really enjoyed the last 2 books I have read by Tracy Chevalier. This was one of her earlier ones and just didn't interest me like some of her others.