Tracy Chevalier: Girl With A Pearl Earring

[scooter13]

YESSS. Definitly. I saw the movie first, and thenr ead the book (after a certain time period...maybe a year and a bit) and i still very much enhoyed the book.

They arent the same, there are a lot of differences, and yer.

Definitly read the book!

Lani

Thank you.

 

[CattiGuen]

I just bought this book new for 25 cents. i told all my friends and they all started punching me in jealousy. lol. I dont know if i should see the movie first or read the novel first. the people in the other movie forum i post all said to watch the movie and forget the book. i really want to do both but im afraid if i do one, i'll ruin the other for myself. (that goes for every book into movie adaptation). what should I do?

 

[KristoCat]

Read the book first. Then at least you have the freedom to imagine the characters and settings any way you want to. I find that once you see the movie, you get "locked in" to how the director of the movie saw things and you can't imagine it looking any other way.

 

[Sabenankh]

I haven't read the book yet but i did read another book by Tracy Chevalier The Virgin Blue and i must say i loved it!!! It was great and i strongly recommend it. I'm going to try to get "The girl With the Pearl Earing" soon too but the thing is i have already seen the movie... still i think i'll love it.

 

[Flowerdk4]

I am surprised to hear that anyone would find Girl With a Pearl Earring boring, but then I remember that everyone has different tastes. Chevalier's novels are, like Anita Brookner's, intellectually and emotionally demanding.

Some people prefer not to make the effort. IMHO, it is their loss.

I have just finished reading "girl with a pearl earring". I wouldnt call it intellectually and emotionally demanding, not at all. Dont know Anita Brookner though.
I think the author did a great job in describing the feelings growing in Griet. The tention she feels when she is next to Vermeer and what it does to her understanding of herself and the family.
I would call the book a nice book about what could be a story behind the painting. Even though I have always thought of the painting to be of a somewhat exotic girl. not a dutch cinderella.
Flower

 

[Rogue]

I read this book some months ago so the details are a bit blurry.

All in all I enjoyed it but nothing more. The tension building between Grit and Vermeer was beautifully described and there is the urge to finish the book to see how it all ends, but all in all there are too many little details that don't seem to fit in the frame of this story.

Spoiler

The one thing that annoyed me most was that little brat of a child that tried to get Grit thrown out of the house. She definitely was way too intelligent and plotting for a kid in that time and of that age.
Furthermore the fact that Grit slapped her the very first time they met was too bold a move for a terrified new maid. It just didn't fit. Sure there had to be a reason for the brat to start plotting, but still it seemed queer.

Vermeer is portrayed as a cruel sadist and the moment he made Grit put in the second earring, he prooved that he couldn't have cared less for the people around him (given the consequences arising from this move). Also he refused to paint either more pictures or pictures with more people in it and got his family into financial problems, while still producing more children.
I'm aware that art isn't something to do for the money but having a family should get you thinking about what your priorities are.

Grit was a bit too intuitive concerning the arrangement of the paintings and her problem with the picture in her room and also the other Christian pictures around the house got a bit tiresome after the first couple of encounters.

Nice book but doesn't give much of a thrill.

 

[h_carnahan]

While I found the book exiciting and interesting, the movie was a huge disappointment. I guess that most of the flavor in the book was emotions and description, they just didn't transfer on the big screen. Throughout the whole movie I could barley keep my eyes open!

 

[Pearl]

I just bought this book new for 25 cents. i told all my friends and they all started punching me in jealousy. lol. I dont know if i should see the movie first or read the novel first. the people in the other movie forum i post all said to watch the movie and forget the book. i really want to do both but im afraid if i do one, i'll ruin the other for myself. (that goes for every book into movie adaptation). what should I do?

I read the book first, then saw the movie. It was great both ways, Scarlett Johansson does a great job. Though my complaint is that the Grit in the book and the Grit in the movie, seem like two different characters.

 

[angerball]

Just finished this book. I loved it – one of the best books I’ve read. It was just so full of sexual tension between Griet and Vermeer. Contrary to what some other people felt, I think that Vermeer loved Griet in a way – not purely as an object of his art. He seemed to feel some kind of possessiveness over her, or he probably loved her in the only way he was capable. I don't know - I can't really justify it; it's just the impression I got from the way the author described their interactions.

I too noticed that Griet never referred to Vermeer by name (even in her own thoughts). It was always “He….”

The writing reminded me a lot of Margaret Atwood, and when I started the book I found myself thinking of Alias Grace (Griet reminded me a lot of Grace). I love her style of writing. She puts so much detail into things – makes you feel like you are there observing what is going on. I will be reading more of her work for sure.

 

[Chez]

I read this book last year, and it prompted me to seek out more work by Tracy Chevalier ["The Lady and the Unicorn", and I'm currently on "The Virgin Blue"]. "Pearl Earring" has a pretty quiet, bleak tone, somewhat depressing, but nevertheless I found it compelling. The "He was going to paint her" passage gave me chills, which no other book had done before.