Incredibly clunky and just flat-out dull. If you've read Girl With a Pearl Earring you can pretty much track where this story's going to go. It's very predictable and the sexual subplots were laughable in places. Sorry, Ms Chevalier, but this was just not worth my time, even for the really lovely scenes describing the tapestries (and those tapestries are amazing. Seriously, google them).

Fairly interesting quick read. I love the Unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters in NYC and will make sure to see the ones discussed in this book next time I’m in Paris.

I have never quite clicked with Tracy Chevalier. Her subject matter is always attractive to me but the writing I find stiff; it's as if I can't quite get close enough to 'see'....whatever I am missing. So I never quite get involved in her story. My experience of this book followed the same pattern.

I'm happy this was a short book, because I didn't enjoy it at all.
It was just obscene and no idea why this is even historical fiction when there's barely any of what it was supposed to be about.

I thought it was going to be more about the tapestry but it was just about strange, inadequate characters.

This book is a mesmerizing magic trick! It's like you're watching a shell game and trying to track all of the cups in rotation. Except the cups are couplings.

Also, you find out very early that 'unicorn' is a euphemism for penis. Saucy!

Mixed feelings about this book. I was interested in reading it because of the famed medieval tapestries by the same name. I've never seen them in person but photos of them are just incredible and the craftsmanship involved in creating them absolutely phenomenal. I've never woven anything but it seemed the author had knowledge or researched the process pretty thoroughly. It was a laborious process and done upside down, in mirror image of the finished project. So incredible especially considering the amount of detail involved. These tapestries tell a story using the five senses, which is another amazing aspect. They aren't just beautiful but give the viewer a lot to ponder about the how's and why they were created when looking at the women and scenes depicted in them. I ended the book with huge respect for the master craft of weaving.

I started out thinking the author might have delved more into the Le Viste family, especially the head of the family who would have been the authority who ordered them. Instead very little time was devoted to him ~ was that because little is known & the author didn't want to put suppositions on him?? I wish she'd shown the same constraint with the character she created as the artist behind the tapestries. He was a lothario of the first order and portrayed as the complete opposite to what the unicorn means spiritually. Very little likeable about him except his apparent painting skills.

I'm still deciding if the book does justice to the creation of the tapestries or not? Made that many years ago, their conception is open to interpretation but somehow the book left a more sordid taste about these works of art than I ever expected to feel.

Brīnišķīgs stāsts par mākslas darba tapšanu un kaislībām, kas neizbēgami raisās tā radīšanas procesā.

DNF at page 134.

This book did for unicorns what Jeanette Winterson’s The PowerBook did for tulips.

I’m all sorts of set.

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.

A historical novel about the lives of those connected with the Unicorn and Lady tapestries. The designs are iconic and the story behind their creation as well as the families who brought them to life make for compelling reading.

What I learned from this book is I should never ever read anything by this author ever again. A friend of mine was enthralled by The Virgin Blue and requested I read it. Although I hated it I thought I'd possibly give The Lady and the Unicorn a chance since I love art history. Sadly, I cannot say I liked a single thing about this book. I hated the plot, story, characters and writing style. Hated.

In this book the writer returns to the very successful recipe of Girl with a Pearl Earring and writes a fantastic story about the creation of a well-known artwork. The execution of the recipe is quite different, as many different situations are woven in the story and the narrative is from different angles, but the result is just as positive, although I certainly prefer the first. The book is distinguished for the same virtues, with the author showing us in a very nice way the life at that era and puts us in the textile world, in the same way he put us before in the world of painting. Love plays a particularly important role in a quite different way, however, with sensuality being more intense, which also gives the writer the opportunity to talk about the sexual morals of the time. With these elements, we have an interesting history that has humour and sensitivity and is full of the joy of creation and the optimism that the very existence of art can bring.

Σε αυτό το βιβλίο η συγγραφέας επιστρέφει στη συνταγή του πολύ επιτυχημένου Girl with a Pearl Earring και γράφει μία φανταστική ιστορία γύρω από τη δημιουργία ενός γνωστού έργου τέχνης. Η εκτέλεση της συνταγής είναι βέβαια αρκετά διαφορετική καθώς μέσα στην ιστορία υφαίνονται πολλές διαφορετικές καταστάσεις και η αφήγηση γίνεται μέσα από διαφορετικές οπτικές γωνίες, το αποτέλεσμα, όμως, είναι εξίσου θετικό αν και σίγουρα προτιμώ πολύ περισσότερο το πρώτο. Το βιβλίο διακρίνεται για τις ίδιες αρετές, με τη συγγραφέα να μας δείχνει με έναν πολύ ωραίο τρόπο τη ζωή σε εκείνη την εποχή και μας βάζει στον κόσμο της υφαντουργίας, με τον ίδιο τρόπο που μας έβαλε πριν στον κόσμο της ζωγραφικής. Ο έρωτας παίζει ιδιαίτερα σημαντικό ρόλο με έναν αρκετά διαφορετικό τρόπο, όμως, με τον αισθησιασμό να είναι περισσότερο έντονος, κάτι που δίνει και την ευκαιρία στη συγγραφέα να μιλήσει για τα σεξουαλικά ήθη της εποχής. Με αυτά τα στοιχεία έχουμε μπροστά μας μία ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία που διαθέτει χιούμορ μα και ευαισθησία και είναι γεμάτη από τη χαρά της δημιουργίας και την αισιοδοξία που μπορεί να φέρει η ίδια η ύπαρξη της τέχνης.