Breathe To Read

Breathe To Read

Sunday, March 21, 2021

2021 Challenge: A Book That Is Set In the 17th Century: Girl With A Pearl Earring

 Book: Girl With A Pearl Earring

Author: Tracy Chevalier

Pages: 240


This is my 34th read for the year

This is the story of Griet.  She is a 16 year old girl who is hired as a maid for the Vermeer family in 1664.  Her father was recently blinded, so Griet needs to make money to help her family.  One of her main tasks in the household was to clean Johannes Vermeer's studio.  While doing so, she becomes fascinated in his paintings and the women he paints.  Johannes soon enlists Griet's help in getting his supplies and mixing his paints, and then finally - asks to paint her.  She becomes the girl with the pearl earring.  Her time as a maid in this household is tumultuous- one of the daughters constantly tries to get Griet in trouble, the other help in the household become jealous of her relationship with Johannes, and she develops an unwanted admirer.  The lines start to bleed between master and servant to the point that Griet needs to make a difficult choice.

This was a pretty good book.  I listened to it, and I was worried that it might be slow or dry.  IT was neither.  I can say there wasn't incredible character development, and the story was pretty low key.  But I liked the idea of an author taking a real person (Vermeer) and a real painting (The Girl With A Pearl Earring) and develop a fictional story around it.  Nothing is known about Vermeer's muses, and I felt that her idea of what lead to him painting this particular picture was an interesting one.

Good read.  I need to now watch the movie. We visited The Hague where this painting lives, and I wish I would have known that while we were there.

Stars: 4


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