As far as I can tell, I'm the only person who didn't read Tracy Chevalier's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" years ago, when it hit the New York Times Bestseller List. I admit I'm not what you'd call "au courant." I probably didn't even spell it correctly. But I read the book recently (thanks, Astrid) and loved it. For anyone out there who might be even less "courant" than I am, this is the story of a fictitious sixteen-year-old Dutch girl who becomes a maid for the family of the Dutch artist Vermeer in the 1600s. The story is told by Griet, the girl, who is working to help support her family, impoverished due to an accident that caused the blindness of her father, a tile painter. I can't describe the plot better than the jacket blurb, which says this is a novel about "artistic vision and sensual awakening." Griet's narrative is powerful - not because of what it says, but because of what it does not say--what it enables our imaginations to provide. The passion that lies beneath the surface of this story ignites the plot.
If you've been following the ramblings of my blog, you know that this "simplicity thing" is something that I've been trying to get a handle on. Once again in this novel we see the power of simplicity in writing - the old "less is more" principle. I'm going to be scrutinizing my work, looking for ways to achieve simplicity. If you know of other published works that achieve this effect, please leave a comment.
Perky
You might like OLIVE KITTERIDGE by Ann Strout.It's an interesting format - short stories each of which can stand alone with Olive as a bit player or the main character in each of them. The author is an excellent observer of people and her writing is spare and expressive. Our book club - 8 OLD ladies - loved it.
ReplyDeleteOoops - OLIVE KITTERIDGE - is by Elizabeth - not Ann - Strout.
ReplyDeleteI am normally a 'book' person rather than a film person, but I recently was given the DVD of 'Girl With A Pearl Earring'and can easierly recommend such.Obviously they could not put everything that the book contains, but still it is very enjoyable to watch.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sarah and Ann. Sassy Pat had seen the movie also, and said that she felt it did justice to the book - which we all know is not always the case. I looked at the book on Amazon, and was interested to notice different cover treatments - one with what I believe to be the Vermeer portrait, and another that looked much more suggestive. I liked the first better.
ReplyDeletePerky