Chevalier, Tracy

Average customer rating:

FLICKERING LIGHT
Chevalier conjures the sights and sounds of 1792 London
Not the Tracy Chevalier I once loved
Hidden Treasure Found Inside
Problems with the shape of the book

Burning Bright
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Whitethorn Woods

ASIN: 052594978X
Release Date: 2007-03-20

Book Description

Unabridged CDs - 7 CDs, 8 hours Tracy Chevalier captivated readers when Dutton published The Girl with a Pearl Earring in December 1999. Since then, she has written two New York Times bestsellers, Falling Angels and The Lady and the Unicorn. Now, three years after the publication of her last book, Chevalier is at the top of her form in the breathtaking novel Burning Bright.

Customer Reviews:

FLICKERING LIGHT.......2007-06-23

This was a book I listened to as I drove to Arizona. The fact that the drive was boring and the landscape barren made the book fairly enjoyable. Not a prize winner by any stretch of the imagination, the story portrays Georgian England competently and gives the listener a glimpse into the everyday lives of "average" folks. We experience every aspect of their lives and work as well as the influence of the French Revolution on their existence. The reading by Jill Tanner is adequate (although I could have lived without her singing the three or four bawdy pub songs that were peppered throughout the book).

As others have indicated, this is NOT "The Girl With A Pearl Earring" in which Vermeer was a central character. Those purchasing the book with the belief that it will tell the story of poet, artist and printer William Blake will be sadly disappointed. His appearance in the novel can best be compared to standing on a railway platform as a train goes by and looking at the people on the platform across the way. You only catch a fleeting glimpse between the passing cars. So also with Blake.... he is a mere "footnote" in this book as he makes appearances here and there and acts as mentor of sorts to the Kellaway and Butterfield children, who are in truth the central characters of the story. The children do, however, act as a sort of catalyst in inspiring the poet to create one of his most famous poems, "Songs of Innocence and of Experience".

In reality, this is part coming of age tale, part story of young love, with a side trip to examine the anguish of being an independent thinker in an era when dissidents were looked upon with great suspicion.

Not the best book on tape you will ever listen to, but good enough to keep you from falling asleep at the wheel. Two and a half stars.

Chevalier conjures the sights and sounds of 1792 London.......2007-05-30

Tracy Chevalier brilliantly brought to life the 17th-century world of the Netherlands in the fictional biography of Johannes VerMeer in GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. Now, in BURNING BRIGHT, she turns her spell-weaving skills toward painter, poet and visionary William Blake in 18th-century London.

Maisie Kellaway, daughter of a woodworker, has just moved with her older brother Jem and her parents from a North Country village to an upscale London row house owned by her father's new employer, Phillip Astley, of the famous Astley Circus. Her father, a skilled chair maker, seeks a better life for his family by working as a carpenter for the circus. Maisie is befriended by street-wise Maggie Butterfield, the daughter of a con artist and rogue who lives in a rough nearby neighborhood. Maggie is a few years older than Maisie and has her eye on Jem.

The Kellaways live next door to William Blake and his wife, who are shunned yet regarded with fearful respect by their neighbors. The story is set against the far-off rumblings of the French Revolution, a cause in which Blake seems to sympathize. As a poet and an engraver, Blake's obscure prolific publications perplex even the most erudite Englishmen, but they seem to impart the sense of lust for freedom and equality roiling on the continent that the fervid Royalists of the age see as seditious.

Maisie, Jem and Maggie begin to spend time in the Blake garden, as their landlady won't allow renters in her formal backyard. Blake does not outwardly try to influence the young people, but he and his wife encourage them to learn to read, and his poetry is all they have at hand aside from the Bible.

Blake's role in the book, while pivotal, is not as central to the story as was VerMeer's in GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. Servitude and class distinctions are not as strictly drawn in the late 18th century as they were in the 1600s. As the 1700s draw to a close, a new awareness of the power of the masses is on the horizon. As the French Revolution grows, so does its threat of spreading to England. When Maggie's Royalist boss at the vinegar factory intimidates his employees into signing a petition in support of King George, she manages to slip away without doing so. She heads for the local pub where her mother, father and brother hang out.

The boss shows up at the pub and declares that dissenters to signing the petition are traitors to the crown and may suffer the same consequences as the French Revolutionaries if they don't support the king. When a few in the pub, including Maisie's father, stand up to the man, they are threatened with a visit to their homes. Maggie is shocked when her own father so easily bends to the will of the petitioner. She follows Maisie and her father to their home. Soon, a torch-bearing throng marches down the street where the Kellaways and Blake live. They confront Blake at his doorway, and when Blake staunchly refuses to sign, a riot breaks out. What follows seals the fate of our young heroes.

Chevalier is adept at evoking a powerful sense of time and place. In GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, one could almost see the muted hues of the city of Delft, which so influenced VerMeer's paintings. In BURNING BRIGHT, Chevalier conjures the sights and sounds of 1792 London, shrouded in fog and coal smoke, and bustling with street vendors, charlatans, prostitutes and thieves. She captures ordinary people at the dawn of the radical changes in social, moral and political opinion that will shape the centuries to come.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

Not the Tracy Chevalier I once loved.......2007-05-25

It seems so unfortunate that a really dynamic writer, in an effort to get another book out quickly, will write just anything. This book was a terrific disappointment. Country kids; very little Blake and no reason to keep on reading except to "get it over with" !

Hidden Treasure Found Inside.......2007-05-20

Other than The Girl With a Pearl Earring, I think this is Ms. Chevalier's second best work.
Her ability to create another world is powerful. The reader can see the countryside and smell the city, as we travel with one family from rural farm country to London. As most people then, they were escaping the pain of loss and thus were running from the world they knew, to a totally foreign existence. They meet hostility in the new culture of city life. They struggle to understand a new dialect, as well as learning big city mores and expectations.
As they journey, they encounter three angels in the unique form: of business man, Mr. Astley, who runs a successful circus and gives them employment; a political writer, Mr. Blake, who teaches them to be true to themselves; and a worldly young woman, whose lot in life is to be servant to others, who helps them survive daily challenges.
The bibliography is impressive and the author certainly demonstrates an accurate portrayal of life in that very important time in European History, the early 1790's.
Her book besides being a very interesting glimpse into the life of both the wealthy and the humble is also a representation of today's world events.
Mr. Blake is persecuted for standing up for the people by writing poetry and children's stories, which reveals the oppressiveness of the current powerful elite. I think perhaps as American's, we fail to see this same system taking advantage of us because our officials are elected...or are they? When was the last time a moral person got elected to Congress or even dog catcher without loads of money from Corporate sponsors? This is the world Mr. Blake is almost martyred in, are we not approaching this censorship today with the control of the Media by a select few such as Media Corp, Clear Channel and Tribune Communications tell using, who is morally right and who is deceiving us and immoral and just plain wrong?When we hear the same arguments over and over that are proven lies told to get support of the people. When talking heads constantly berate anyone, who doesn't walk lock step with the President.
Though like other reviewers, I too felt that William Blake could have been better developed and more integral. Perhaps, Ms. Chevalier wanted to make us relate to the world from the view point of being ordinary, but living in extraordinary times?
Well Done Ms. Chevalier!

Problems with the shape of the book.......2007-05-17

The times of the delivery were accurate but the shape of the book was not very good. It seems to be a problem of impression, because it's like if the pages are not well cut. It was in offer (reduced price), and maybe that's why, but in the description of the product didn't say anything about that.

Average customer rating:

This book is as haunting as the painter's work!
rich in detail
Riveting but ...?
So Good!!
Get the special edition if you can

Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0452282152
Release Date: 2001-01-08

Amazon.com

With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meager facts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents. Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. His portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted a particular fascination for centuries--and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.

Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist.

Throughout, Chevalier cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style, whose exactitude is an effective homage to the painter himself. Even Griet's most humdrum duties take on a high if unobtrusive gloss: <blockquote> I came to love grinding the things he brought from the apothecary--bones, white lead, madder, massicot--to see how bright and pure I could get the colors. I learned that the finer the materials were ground, the deeper the color. From rough, dull grains madder became a fine bright red powder and, mixed with linseed oil, a sparkling paint. Making it and the other colors was magical. </blockquote> In assembling such quotidian particulars, the author acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study The Embarrassment of Riches. Her novel also joins a crop of recent, painterly fictions, including Deborah Moggach's Tulip Fever and Susan Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue. Can novelists extract much more from the Dutch golden age? The question is an open one--but in the meantime, Girl with a Pearl Earring remains a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, and an appealingly new take on an old master. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description

History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. Girl with a Pearl Earring tells the story of sixteen-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius ... even as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil.

Download Description

Chevalier transports readers to a bygone time and place in this richly imagined portrait of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer's most celebrated paintings. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is the story of 16-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius, even as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil.

Customer Reviews:

This book is as haunting as the painter's work! .......2007-06-04

Tracy Chevalier's narrative of Griet, Jan Vermeer's domestic servant, is an intriguing project. The fact that the book is so fascinating is simply marvelous. In the same manner that the artist's work glows and captures our imagination, so does this book spark curiousity and hold our interest.

rich in detail.......2007-06-01

A wonderful book, rich in detail and impeccably researched. With a perfect blend of fact and fiction 17th century Delft comes alive as do the characters. I found it hard to put down. Historical fiction at its best

Riveting but ...?.......2007-04-22

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is well-written and researched, very poetic and really - more than anything - compelled me to learn more about the Dutch masters. That said it did not resonate much for me after the reading. While I loved the world and characters depicted by Chevalier, the social constraints borne upon the protagonist did not make for great literature. From my perspective, she was never able to speak her true mind or act on her true desires even to the very last sentence, largely because of her circumstances, her gender, and the era. While I'm sure there were many stretches and risks taken in this story that would require a 17th century Dutch person to suspend their disbelief, making Griet into a credable character of the day just limits too many interesting possibilities because of the way she has to make her choices. I know her constraints were part of the point - being captured in a painting and all - and really this is a small issue. I still would recommend it.

So Good!!.......2007-04-08

I am not a big art fan, but this book made me fall in love with Vermeer's work! I know, its fiction, but I love looking at the paintings and imagining the version of Vermeer portrayed in this book. The story is beautifully written. Chevalier's description on the art is flawless. However, do not skip this book even if you aren't an art fanatic. The story itself is breathtaking! Who knows, you may even discover that you love Vermeer's work as well!

Get the special edition if you can.......2007-03-30

There are so many reviews that have been written for this book, that I am not going to bother with basic story line etc.

I would just like to recommend to purchase the special edition if you are able. Although Chevalier is wonderfully descriptive, it is nice to have coloured plates of Vermeer's paintings throughout the book to give further reference to the writing.

An excellent read either way.

Average customer rating:

Meh
entertaining
Praise to Nancy Chevalier
A good first novel
A tale of two women

The Virgin Blue
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Falling Angels
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ASIN: 0452284449
Release Date: 2003-06-24

Book Description

Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin - two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family's French ancestry. As the novel unfolds - alternating between Ella's story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier - a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.

Customer Reviews:

Meh.......2007-06-24

I loved Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Lady and the Unicorn; The Virgin Blue not so much. While the book was interesting enough to keep me going to the end, I can't say I actually liked it. I found almost all of the main characters unappealing, and couldn't see any reason for Ella's dissatisfaction with her marriage other than her inexplicable infatuation with Jean-Paul.

Not exactly a waste of my time, but this book won't be a permanent addition to my library.

entertaining.......2007-06-01

The Virgin Blue, being Tracy Chevalier's first novel, isn't as compelling as The Girl with the Pearl Earring, still it was interesting and a good read. I liked her descriptions and the mood of the book, although the characters could have been better developed. Still, it's worth checking out.

Praise to Nancy Chevalier.......2007-04-12

Another valuable literary work of Nancy Chevalier.
After I have enjoyed Fallen Angels, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Lady AnfD The Unicorn, I looked forward to The Virgin Blue, and have not been disappointed.

A good first novel.......2007-04-08

You can see that Tracy Chevalier has talent in her first novel. This novel is about 2 women (one from the 16th century and one from the present day). Ella Turner does research on her family history in Europe and discovers that she has some common ground with her ancesters. The author has a gift of describing things that really put you where there characters are. I can't give this recording 5 stars because of the foul language that is used (both curse words and taking God's name in vain). I won't spoil the ending, but it is a good mystery right until the end. This review is for the audio cd.

A tale of two women.......2007-04-06

VIRGIN BLUE is two stories separated by 4 centuries, in the modern day Ella Turner has followed her husband, Rick, to France. Rick is working and is quite pleased with the move, Ella is left on her own and not adapting so well. She is unable to make friends in the village they have moved to, she struggles with the language and cannot work at her profession, midwifery. At loose ends she discovers the local library and gets the idea to research her family history.

The second story centers on Isabelle du Moulin who has married into a well-to-do Huguenot family. Isabelle has been regarded with suspicion by the villagers due to her red hair and her position as the local midwife. Isabelle's family is forced to flee to Switzerland when the Protestants are driven from France.

The book switches between the two stories and gradually they begin to entwine. The questions begin to arise of just how these two women are connected and what will ultimately happen to each.

This is the debut novel of Tracy Chevalier (GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING) and while this one is good it hints at better things to come. The stories are quite compelling but, like most first novels, this one lacks focus. Is it a modern day romance?, historical fiction? a mystery? supernatural thriller? Also at times it is a bit difficult to keep the various characters sorted out. There are many characters in each timeline and many of them are little more than names on the page. Still the overall story draws a reader in, turning page after page to discover how the two are connected and just what each's fate will be.

Average customer rating:

Historical fiction that educates as well as entertains
Insight into history
"Absolutely loved this book!!!!"
yawn....
o.k.

Falling Angels
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Virgin Blue
The Lady and the Unicorn
Girl with a Pearl Earring
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ASIN: 0452283205
Release Date: 2002-09-24

Amazon.com

Set among the sweeping skirts and social upheavals of Edwardian London, Tracy Chevalier's Falling Angels is a meditation on change, loss, and recovery. Her central characters are two young girls of the same age, whose family plots are situated side-by-side in a cemetery modeled on Highgate. Lavinia Waterhouse is respectably middle-class, devoted, like her conventional, doting mother, to the right way to do things, although suspiciously well- schooled in subjects like funerary sculpture and the English practices of mourning. Her friend Maude Coleman comes from a slightly more privileged and free-thinking background. In contrast with Lavinia's mother, Maude's mother Kitty Coleman is well-educated by the standards of the day, and it has made her restless and irritable. But neither her reading, nor her gardening, nor her affair with the somber, high-thinking governor of the cemetery is enough for Kitty. She comes alive only when she discovers the women's suffrage movement, and her devotion to the cause takes her away from Maude in every sense.

Although the point of view shifts between many characters (with even the Coleman's maid and cook getting their say, sometimes unnecessarily), Falling Angels is essentially the children's story, since it is their lives that are most open to change. The narrative spans exactly the years of Edward VII's reign, from the morning after his mother Queen Victoria's death in January 1901 to his own death in May 1910. Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring) deftly uses the nation's dramatically different mourning for these two monarchs to signal the social transformations of the period. Readers at ease with English history will find Falling Angels an unusually subtle novel, with an emotional range that recalls the best of the Edwardian novelists, E.M. Forster, and his quintessential novel of Edwardian manners, Howard's End. --Regina Marler

Book Description

Time magazine crowned Girl With a Pearl Earring "a portrait of radiance...a jewel." In her New York Times bestselling follow-up, Tracy Chevalier once again paints a distant age with a rich and provocative palette of characters. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives- wives and husbands, friends and lovers, masters and their servants, and a gravedigger's son-Falling Angels follows the fortunes of two families in the emerging years of the twentieth century. Graced with the luminous imagery that distinguished Girl With a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels is another dazzling tour de force from this "master of voices" (The New York Times Book Review).

Customer Reviews:

Historical fiction that educates as well as entertains.......2007-04-25

The story of Maude Coleman, Lavinia Waterhouse and their families is told in the first person by each character involved so it reads very much like a diary. I like how the reader gets to see everyone's perspectives on a situation instead of hearing a story from just one angle. We hear the traditional and modern views of the time...in a changing world where the women's suffrage movement is getting more and more forceful leading (in this story) to the Hyde Park demonstration.

As someone who enjoys walking around old Victorian cemeteries it was lovely to have this one brought to life with the people who visited and worked there. I found the details of mourning etiquette during the Victorian period and the early 1900's fascinating: How long is acceptable to mourn, what to wear and what to do with it after the mourning period is over, and the views of the time on cremation and who should be buried where in the cemetery.

A sensitive and fascinating book.

Insight into history.......2007-01-03

Boy, a cemetary as the lead character! This was the way our book club handled the discussion of this book. We were able to tag each character with how the cemetary affected their lives. I liked the short bursts of narative in the small chapters. There was much to discuss regarding the customs of the time and the role of women. How the marriages worked out - or not - was quite surprising.
We left the book wanting to know what happened next.

"Absolutely loved this book!!!!".......2006-11-07

I could not wait till bedtime to pick this book up and read on. It was written so well and kept me wanting to know more. This book was fantastic and I would recommend it to everyone.

yawn...........2006-10-31

I typically loved historical novels but this one was a snoozer. Totally uneventful until the end--and then bad things happen to the only characters you can actually like! The constant change of voice was too choppy.

o.k........2006-08-06

i didn't find is quite as good as her other books, but it''s still a very good book.

Average customer rating:

Descriptive and entertaining
seductive historical fiction
The Artist, The Weavers, The Gentry, The Lady, And The Unicorn
Average
Umm..did I read the same book as everyone else?

The Lady and the Unicorn
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Falling Angels
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Girl in Hyacinth Blue
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Girl with a Pearl Earring

ASIN: 0452285453

Amazon.com

If you think you wouldn't raise your skirts for a rakish legend about the purifying powers of a unicorn's horn, then maybe you aren't a 15th-century serving girl under the sway of a velvet-tongued court painter of ill repute. In keeping with her bestselling Girl with a Pearl Earring, and its Edwardian-era follow-up, Falling Angels, Tracy Chevalier's tale of artistic creation and late-medieval amours, The Lady and the Unicorn is a subtle study in social power, and the conflicts between love and duty. Nicolas des Innocents has been commissioned by the Parisian nobleman Jean Le Viste to design a series of large tapestries for his great hall (in real life, the famous Lady and the Unicorn cycle, now in Paris's Musee National du Moyen-Age Thermes de Cluny). While Nicolas is measuring the walls, he meets a beautiful girl who turns out to be Jean Le Viste's daughter. Their passion is impossible for their world--so forbidden, given their class differences, that its only avenue of expression turns out to be those magnificent tapestries. The historical evidence on which this story is based is slight enough to allow the full play of Chevalier's imagination in this cleverly woven tale. --Regina Marler

Book Description

A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn is Tracy Chevalier's answer to the mystery behind one of the art world's great masterpieces—a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown—until now.

Paris, 1490. A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic, arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them. Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house—mother and daughter, servant, and lady-in-waiting—before taking his designs north to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the tapestries—his finest, most intricate work—on time for his exacting French client. The results change all their lives—lives that have been captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look.

In The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier weaves fact and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry—an extraordinary story exquisitely told.

Download Description

"Bewitching art experts and enthusiasts alike for centuries, the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries hang today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. In each, an elegant lady and a unicorn stand or sit on an island of grass surrounded by a rich background of animals and flowers. Little is known about them except that they were woven toward the end of the fifteenth century and bear the coat of arms of a wealthy family from Lyons. Tracy Chevalier takes readers back to the tapestries' creation, giving life to the men who designed and made them, as well as the wives, daughters, and servants who exercised subtle (and not so subtle) influences over their men. Like the many different strands of wool and silk that were woven together into one cloth, the lives and fates of these people entwine in complex patterns, crisscrossing as they seek desires sensual and spiritual, temporal and eternal. An extraordinary story exquisitely told, Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn weaves history and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry that rivals in grace and grandeur the masterpiece that inspired it."

Customer Reviews:

Descriptive and entertaining.......2007-03-31

Far raunchier than The Girl with the Pearl Earring...with the key character in the book being a Parisian artist whose main hobby is seducing women (or should that be farming?!) ;-)
Chevalier tells a good story though and I enjoyed the way each character had their own chapters where we heard their take on things.
Chevalier's particular talent is for bringing the sights and smells of her settings alive to the reader, therefore she was the ideal author to describe a tapestry relating to the five senses. I felt I could see and smell the places described, from the fragrant lily of the valley in Aliénor's garden to the early warning smell of Jacques Le Boeuf!!
In addition, the colour plates depicting the tapestry were very useful to refer to throughout the story.

I found this book interesting historically, artistically and in the very human way we conduct our relationships. The author has surely suceeded in making us look at the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries with new eyes and a little romance.

seductive historical fiction .......2007-03-19

Nicolas des Innocents, renowned at the court as a miniaturist, painter of tiny portraits of ladies, is commissioned by nobleman Jean le Viste to complete what at first seems to him a daunting and colossal task: tapestries depicting the battle of Nancy to cover all of the walls of the Grande Salle of the le Viste mansion, a room no fewer than twelve paces long and six wide.

Nicolas stands in awe, pondering the sheer enormity of the task, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead, when he suddenly catches a glimpse of Claude...Jean le Viste's daughter...

Chevalier masterfully weaves fictitious threads to create a seductive and alluring tale based on sensible suppositions concerning "The Lady and the Unicorn", a famous set of tapestries woven towards the end of the fifteenth century.

Pure magic, sheer elegance dotted here and there with tiny specks of vulgarity, just so to evoke the spirit of the era. A magnificent set of characters, a carefully thought-out plot, the book itself flows effortlessly and makes for an addictive read.

The Artist, The Weavers, The Gentry, The Lady, And The Unicorn.......2007-01-29

When Tracy Chevalier writes (or perhaps a better word is "composes") one of her novels, her extensive research into the period lets her deliver a story that is impeccably accurate in terms of the feel of the era, from the grandest down to the most intimate and trivial of matters. That's what Tracy Chevalier does best. Where she slides a bit in her plotlines is in her capacity to really maintain a full head of steam from start to finish, and every time I've read her books, I've found it an effort to get through certain chapters, even as I greatly enjoyed others.

The Lady and the Unicorn is Chevalier's imaginative, historically-sound re-telling of the creation of the lovely fifteenth-century "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries that today hang in Paris' Musée National du Moyen-Age. Creating a back-story to replace the great unknown behind this most glorious of late-Medieval textile art, Chevalier tells us of the lusty, womanizing artist, ironically named Nicolas Des Innocents, hired by the callous social climber Jean Le Viste to design for his home a tapestry of the brutal Battle of Nancy, in which the French triumphed over the forces of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. However Le Viste's wife, the would-be nun, Genevieve de Nanterre, persuades the artist that a more fitting subject might be one that depicted the classic Medieval ideal, a virgin seducing (to its death) a unicorn.

The novel shifts through Nicolas' design for the tapestry, followed by its painstaking creation by a family of Flemish weavers. During the two years of this massive artwork's creation, the reader follows the lives of a half-dozen central characters, from Nicolas and Genevieve, to the blind daughter of a master Brussels weaver, to the vibrantly beautiful Le Viste daughter, Claude, whom Innocents' portrait in cloth depicts for us to this very day. Chevalier does a fine job of explaining how the great tapestries of the era were produced, and she is to be congratulated for her unflinchingly realistic take on Medieval sexual morality, which was far different in so many ways from that of our own times: in some ways more restrictive, in others shockingly licentious, with children being at times a far from treasured "consequence" of momentary passion.

Overall The Lady and the Unicorn is a well-told story set in the carefully-realized world of northwestern Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. It has a number of memorable scenes and moments, and wraps up nicely with a hint of irony and black humor amid all the celebratory relief at the collective accomplishments of so many. Where Chevalier went wrong was in not reproducing the tapestries for us to see either in an appendix or as a centerpiece in her book. Seeing what she was describing would have made a difference in following which figure appeared in which panel. Still, photographs of the tapestries may be found online, at the author's website, as well as several other places, and I'd recommend a reader seek them there.

All in all, this is a book worth reading, and one which should do Tracy Chevalier proud.

Average.......2007-01-05

An interesting storyline about tapestries but not a book I feel compelled to own-- not a 'keeper' in my opinion, but certainly not a waste of time to have read.

Umm..did I read the same book as everyone else?.......2006-11-10

What on earth did everyone else read?!?....this book isn't even worth 0.1 of a star. It's terrible! I'm pretty sure 20c mass produced romance novels are better than this drivel. I'm not really a fan of historical fiction, but it was given to me as a present so I felt I had to read it. The 'plot' is terrible. None of the characters have any depth or any real storyline.

Our protagonist, if you can call him that; Nicolas, only has one trick up his sleeve to "plough" his girls...a tale about how a unicorn's horn makes everything pure. He then sets about trying to sleep with basically any girl over 12. There's a bit of talk here and there about tapestries...but I think a primary school course in art history can give you more meaningful information than this book. The story is complete nonsense and VERY poorly expressed and to be honest with you, I cannot believe it ever got published, let alone sold and read.

Girl with a Pearl Earring: (Deluxe Edition)

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Great book
A Winner
Which of the "Vermeer books" to read?
Mesmerizing
BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED HISTORICAL FICTION...

Girl with a Pearl Earring: (Deluxe Edition)
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Girl With a Pearl Earring
Girl in Hyacinth Blue
The Lady and the Unicorn
The Virgin Blue
Falling Angels

ASIN: 0452287022

Book Description

A Deluxe Edition of the National Bestseller with Over 2 Million Copies Sold: • Eight Pages of Full-Color Plates Include Every Vermeer Painting Discussed in the Book • French Flaps • Rough Front • Larger Trim Size • Premium Stock • With a New Foreword Celebrate Tracy Chevalier's modern classic Girl With A Pearl Earring, featuring a gorgeous new edition illustrated with eight pages of Vermeer's masterworks. History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. The story of Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with a genius as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil, is new again.

Customer Reviews:

Great book.......2007-03-19

A fantastic book, pure delight. Perfect from the first page to the last: consistent quality. A book one cannot leave aside.

A Winner.......2007-03-05

One of the best books I've read in a long time. Read it in a couple of days. Beautifully written. The story is subtle yet beckons to be read so it can unravel itself to a perfect ending. I would highly recommend it. I felt like I was wandering the streets of Delft. The descriptions were amazing. Chevalier did another great job. I also recommend The Lady and the Unicorn.

Which of the "Vermeer books" to read?.......2005-09-19

Art lovers, and particularly Vermeer lovers, have had two "Vermeer novels" available for the past few years, Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier and Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland. Both are short, both are well written, both involve a hypnotizingly seductive Vermeer painting, and both tell of the influence of the painting on the lives of the main characters. As for which is better, that may be a matter of taste, though Girl with the Pearl Earring has had the lion's share of publicity, especially after the production of the film. Many readers will be interested in reading both novels.

In Girl With A Pearl Earring, author Chevalier focuses her literary microscope on Griet, a maid in the Vermeer household who becomes an assistant to the painter. Griet is a young woman who maintains her integrity despite the turbulence and social pressures to which she is subjected in the household. Life in Delft and in this family during the time of the painting is replete with petty jealousies, economic pressures, class distinctions, religious differences, and political and social uncertainty, and Griet has to navigate her way through this milieu. It is through her character and domestic situation that one comes to know Vermeer and his painting.

The second Vermeer novel, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, on the other hand, is not a "character novel." Here the author does not concentrate on one character or even the painting as an end in itself. Instead, Vreeland takes a broader, more global view, using the history of a hitherto undiscovered Vermeer painting to work backward from the present to the painting's inception in Delft. The "story" here is a careful tracing of themes--the relationship between personal love and responsibility to mankind in general, the role of art in the lives of ordinary people, and what constitutes lasting value both in art and in human interactions. In seven or eight chapters we see how the painting has affected the lives of its various owners.

Ultimately, comparing these beautifully wrought novels is like comparing pearl earrings to hyacinths. Both are gorgeous; each is unique. Girl with the Pearl Earring is more accessible and more popular, while Girl in Hyacinth Blue is more complex and literary. Lovers of Vermeer are encouraged to read both--and enjoy. Mary Whipple

Mesmerizing.......2005-09-19

Having been born with a love for an era previous to my own along with a yearning to paint like an "Old Master", it did not take much insistence to purchase a copy of "Girl With The Pearl Earring"
Tracy Chevalier presents her heroine, Griet, as a shy but wonderfully inciteful housemaid with a quiet wisdom beyond her years, forced into a life of virtual doom knowing full well her parents had no option but to send her unwillingly out into the world with a cleaning rag constantly in her hand.

Griet's life working for the Vermeers in the affluent Delft, left little to be desired until her master found a intelligent curiosity lying deep within this frightened lackey.

Chevalier has written a beautiful, descriptive, colorful, magical account of the daily workings in a busy artist's household.
Oh, how I wish I could have spent just one day there!

If you have an enormous appetite for the artworks of yesteryear, do not hesitate to devour this book.
It is one not to be forgotten.

-Yvonne Bornstein, Author, Eleven Days Of Hell- My True Story Of Kidnapping, Terror, Torture and Historic FBI and KGB Rescue

BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED HISTORICAL FICTION..........2005-09-04

This gifted author weaves a mesmerizing tale around Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer's most famous painting, creating an incandescent and luminous work of her own. His painting is a simple, though enigmatic, portrait of a girl with a pearl earring, about which little is known. The author, however, a born storyteller, creates a living, breathing story around it, using a singular, first person narrative. Told in spare, elegant prose, the author leaps into literary renown with this book.

The events in the book are viewed through the eyes of Griet, a sixteen year old Dutch girl, whose changed family circumstances force her into taking a position as a maid in the home of a renowned painter, the taciturn Johannes Vermeer. There, the painter resides with his tempestuous wife, Catharina, their brood of unruly children, his commanding and shrewd mother-in-law, Maria Thins, and their loyal housekeeper and cook, Tanneke. The author lovingly details seventeenth century life in the Dutch city of Delft. It is here that Griet's story unfolds.

Sensitive and perceptive, Griet is attuned to the under currents in the Vermeer household and, at first, takes care not to draw attention to herself. Still, she, the daughter of a tile painter, is curious about Vermeer's artistry and is drawn to his work and his methods. Vermeer, sensing a kindred artistic spirit in Griet, draws her into his world of paint, color, light, and beauty, creating an intimacy of the spirit between the two.

Still, Griet, a girl on the brink of becoming a woman, finds herself confused and breathlessly desiring more than she may have. Her longing for more than a communion of the spirit with Vermeer is palpable. It is, therefore, not surprising that the undercurrents in the Vermeer household should come bubbling to the surface and engulf Griet, much to her consternation.

This is a stunning literary work that fully realizes the promise that the author showed in her debut novel, "The Virgin Blue". She is an author that understands the less is often more, and she makes every word count. Deliberate and spare, her prose is lyrical in its simplicity, weaving a tale that will keep the reader spellbound. This is historical fiction at its finest. Bravo!

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A SPELLBINDING WORK OF HISTORICAL FICTION...
A Cinderella Story about Life in an Artist's Home

La joven de la perla (Punto de Lectura)
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: Santillana USA Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

“La joven de la perla” centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, “La joven de la perla” does contain a final delicious twist.

Blurb in Spanish: En la segunda mitad del siglo XVII, el pintor holandés Johannes Vermeer inmortalizó en una tela a una bella muchacha adornada con un turbante y un pendiente de perla. Sus labios parecen esbozar una sonrisa sensual, pero sus ojos irradian la tristeza más profunda.

Conocido como La Mona Lisa holandesa, detrás de ese enigmático rostro que esconde Griet, una joven de origen humilde que a los dieciséis años entra a trabajar como doncella en casa del artista a cambio de un mísero salario.Su extraordinaria sensibilidad y el cuidado que pone en todo lo que toca atraen al maestro, quien poco a poco la introduce en su mundo, un paraíso inundado por una luz mágica y poblado por criaturas femeninas de singular belleza. “La joven de la perla” es la historia de una fascinación, de cómo surge un sentimiento que se mueve entre la admiración y el amor. La luz en los ojos de Griet, la sirvienta convertida en musa, encierra el misterio más profundo en el proceso de creación de una obra de arte. Tracy Chevalier evoca la vida cotidiana en el siglo XVII holandés en esta hermosa novela sobre el despertar a la vida y al arte.

Customer Reviews:

A SPELLBINDING WORK OF HISTORICAL FICTION..........2005-01-24

In this Spanish text edition, this gifted author weaves a mesmerizing tale around Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer's most famous painting, creating an incandescent and luminous work of her own. His painting is a simple, though enigmatic, portrait of a girl with a pearl earring, about which little is known. The author, however, a born storyteller, creates a living, breathing story around it, using a singular, first person narrative. Told in spare, elegant prose, the author leaps into literary renown with this book.

The events in the book are viewed through the eyes of Griet, a sixteen year old Dutch girl, whose changed family circumstances force her into taking a position as a maid in the home of a renowned painter, the taciturn Johannes Vermeer. There, the painter resides with his tempestuous wife, Catharina, their brood of unruly children, his commanding and shrewd mother-in-law, Maria Thins, and their loyal housekeeper and cook, Tanneke. The author lovingly details seventeenth century life in the Dutch city of Delft. It is here that Griet's story unfolds.

Sensitive and perceptive, Griet is attuned to the under currents in the Vermeer household and, at first, takes care not to draw attention to herself. Still, she, the daughter of a tile painter, is curious about Vermeer's artistry and is drawn to his work and his methods. Vermeer, sensing a kindred artistic spirit in Griet, draws her into his world of paint, color, light, and beauty, creating an intimacy of the spirit between the two.

Still, Griet, a girl on the brink of becoming a woman, finds herself confused and breathlessly desiring more than she may have. Her longing for more than a communion of the spirit with Vermeer is palpable. It is, therefore, not surprising that the undercurrents in the Vermeer household should come bubbling to the surface and engulf Griet, much to her consternation.

This is a stunning literary work that fully realizes the promise that the author showed in her debut novel, "The Virgin Blue". She is an author that understands the less is often more, and she makes every word count. Deliberate and spare, her prose is lyrical in its simplicity, weaving a tale that will keep the reader spellbound. This is historical fiction at its finest. Bravo!

A Cinderella Story about Life in an Artist's Home.......2004-09-25

Vermeer's famous portrait of a girl with a pearl earring and her hair covered completely in fabric has always beguiled me. The style of the painting, the expression, the clothes, the earring, the direct stare and longing in the mouth and eyes have always made me want to know more about the model.

Ms. Chevalier's book dealt with those questions quite well, and took my understanding of the subject to new depths that I had not considered before. If I had only gained that increased understanding of the painting, I would have found this to be a worthy book.

The story is also filled with interesting details about the artistic methods of the time and preparation of materials. That information was an unexpected bonus.

Vermeer is known for having produced few works. Ms. Chevalier has provided many intriguing ideas about why that might have been the case.

On top of these artistic questions, Ms. Chevalier has written a lively story of a young woman whose family falls on hard times so that she has to take up work as a maid in Vermeer's household. She finds herself at the bottom of the pecking order and is often treated unfairly. Like Cinderella, her true qualities are eventually appreciated and she finds her Prince Charming. The story also provides many helpful details about town life in Delft during the 1700s.

The Cinderella story was a bit overdeveloped compared to the artistic aspects of the story. Had the two aspects been in better balance I would have found this to be a five star book.

If you normally enjoy historical romances, you will probably like this book better than I did.

Keep smiling!

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DECEPTIONS AND PERCEPTIONS...

Falling Angels
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Virgin Blue

ASIN: 0007108265

Customer Reviews:

DECEPTIONS AND PERCEPTIONS..........2005-08-01

This book covers the period in the lives of two families that stretches from January 1901, the end of the Victorian era, to May 1910, the end of the Edwardian one. The lives of these two families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses, converge and become inextricably woven together when they inadvertently meet at a cemetery while paying their respects to deceased loved ones. Unbeknownst to them, their lives are moving inexorably towards a tragic denouement, one that is to have ramifications for both families.

Two of the daughters of these respective families, Lavinia Waterhouse and Maude Coleman, find that they have formed the beginning of a friendship during the brief interlude at the cemetery. The two girls also befriend Simon Field, the son of one of the gravediggers at the cemetery. The friendship of the two girls is cemented when they later discover that they are to be neighbors, as through happenstance the Waterhouse family moves onto a property adjacent to that of the Colemans. Despite differences in social class and personal taste, as the Waterhouses are definitely sentimentally bourgeois and the Colemans have pretensions to more refinement, the families are brought together, however unwillingly, through the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

The mothers of these two girls are unable to form a true friendship, as stolid Gertrude Waterhouse and pretty Kitty Coleman are unable to find much common ground. Gertrude is bound in tradition, while Kitty, dissatisfied with her marriage and her life, is looking to escape tradition and expand the role allotted in society to women. Never the twain shall meet, as these women will never see eye-to-eye, despite the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

This is a well-plotted novel with each character adding his or her perspective to the events that unfold, many of which are of a secretive nature. Even the husbands, Albert Waterhouse and Richard Coleman, have something to say that contributes to the development of the story, as does Richard Coleman's mother, Edith, as do the Coleman's maid, Jenny Whitby, and their cook, Dorothy Baker. Lavinia's younger sister, Ivy May, who plays a small but pivotal role, also has her say, as does Kitty's admirer, John Jackson. There are also a number of twists and turns in the tale.

The story is told in the clean, spare prose that fans of the author have come to expect. It is told through first person narratives, and it is almost as if the narratives were taken from the personal diary or journal of each character. Therein lies the rub, as the author is unable to make the voice of each character truly distinguishable from that of the others. The book suffers somewhat from the failure of the author to develop a truly unique voice for each one. This is, however, the only failing of this otherwise absorbing and intriguing story that is suffused with period detail. This is an otherwise excellent book that fans of the author will enjoy, as will those who love historical fiction.

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BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED HISTORICAL FICTION...

Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracy Chevalier
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Lady and the Unicorn
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Life of Pi
The Secret Life of Bees
The Kite Runner

ASIN: 0006513204

Customer Reviews:

BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED HISTORICAL FICTION..........2005-01-17

Blue Prints: The Natural World in Cyanotype Photos

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Blue Prints: The Natural World in Cyanotype Photos

Manufacturer: Rizzoli International Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

History | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Nature & Wildlife | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Photo Essays | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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Blueprints on Fabric: Innovative Uses for Cyanotype
Historic Photographic Processes: A Guide to Creating Handmade Photographic Images
Photo-Imaging: A Complete Visual Guide to Alternative Techniques and Processes (Photography for All Levels: Advanced)
Digital Negatives: Using Photoshop to Create Digital Negatives for Silver and Alternative Process Printing

ASIN: 0847824322
Release Date: 2002-11-23

Book Description

The cyanotype print is a visually arresting printing method whose small fame dates back to the pioneering nineteenth-century botanist Anna Atkins. Photographer Zeva Oelbaum revisits the beauty of the natural world, and pays homage to this botanist and this little-used and compelling process in Blue Prints: The Natural World in Cyanotype Photographs. This lushly illustrated book features captivating flower and animal images produced with a process that dates back to the birth of photography, but in a new light; butterflies, leaves, flowering plants, birds' nests, shells, and more are all seen in vibrant and striking contrast. Charmingly packaged, Blue Prints is an artistic revitalization of an important and unique printing process, and is the perfect gift book for photography and nature devotees.

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