Customer Reviews
Atmospheric - By: Net, 13 Nov 2008 
Beautiful & evocative, this was a joy to read & was told expertly & eloquently. The quiet tension that existed between maid & master was palpable & dramatic whilst understated at the same time. I loved Chevalier's descriptions of Griet's daily life & of the world around her especiallly the explanation of how the colours for Vermeer's paintings were produced. I enjoyed the book as much as the film (which I saw first) & thought they represented each other well. A lovely read.
Excellent read - By: Ms. K. Marsh, 22 Aug 2008 This is the second novel I have read by Tracy Chevalier, & I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here is the synopsis from Amazon on Girl With A Pearl Earring:
The Dutch painter Vermeer has remained one of the great enigmas of 17th-century Dutch art. While little is known of his personal life, his extraordinary paintings of natural & domestic life, with their subtle play of light & colour, have come to define the Dutch Golden Age. The mysterious portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has fascinated art historians for centuries, & 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 centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, perceptive heroine of the novel, the servant Griet, graduallly throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer & Griet become increasingly intimate, an increasingly tense situation that culminates in her working for Vermeer as his assistant, & ultimately sitting for him as a model. Chevalier deliberately cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style in homage to Vermeer, & the complex domestic tensions of the Vermeer household are vividly evoked, from the jealous, vain, young wife to the wise, taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant & master seems a little anachronistic, but Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist in its tail. Chevalier acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study of the Dutch Golden Age, The Embarrassment of Riches, & the novel comes hard on the heels of Deborah Moggach's similar tale of domestic intrigue behind the easel of 17th-century Dutch painting, Tulip Fever.
Girl with a Pearl Earring is a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, but how much more can novelists extract from the Dutch Golden Age? --Jerry Brotton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I reallly enjoyed this book. It was fast-paced & gripping. There were no boring parts & I read this book so quickly.
Chevalier's descriptions were amazing. I could easily picture the marketplace & the eight-tipped star, as well as the house the Vermeer's lived in & his studio. The book was written in a way that made me feel like I was there watching the events unfold before my very eyes.
There were characters I liked, such as Pieter the son. I loved how he sought out Griet & never gave up. And characters I disliked, such as van Ruijven who believed he could have whatever he wanted because he was rich. I found myself getting angry at him as I read the book, which is good, as a book should spark emotions in the reader.
My only complaint was the ending - it was a little abrupt for my liking. I still have questions that I would have liked answered, but with the ending as it is, that won't happen.
This was a quick, enjoyable read.
9/10
Interesting concept but lacking spark - By: UK reader, 08 Aug 2008 
I thought the novel was based on an interesting concept - making a story to fit a painting. Quite often I will see a painting or photograph & wonder the story behind it & so I can see how this came about.
I thought the descriptions of Delft were interesting & the author had certainly done her homework. I had to award this book 3 stars because whilst the story was relatively enjoyable I kept hanging on thinking it was going to move a little faster, that some scandal was going to occur, that in fact anything was going to happen. It was a gentle read, but for me, it needed a bit of spark.
breathtaking - By: Ms. J. L. Hughes, 07 Jul 2008 
this is without a doubt the most beautiful book ever written. I have read it what seems like a million times & i love every moment. the way in which chevalier describes the city, the people & vermeer's studio is so evocative. i thoroughly recommend this book.
The artist and his muse - By: Annabel Gaskell, 12 Apr 2008 I adored this book finding it very evocative of a time when social standing was everything ... with servants naturallly at the bottom, tradesmen in the middle with their own pecking order in the Guilds, & then the noblemen patrons.
Griet is forced down a level - when her father can no longer work as a tile artist her family becomes impoverished, & she is sent to work for the Vermeers. Soon the artist sees something in her and, initiallly unknown to the matriarch of the family, starts using Griet as his assistant. Their relationship has very few words & is unrequited although intense. Eventuallly Vermeer's wife finds out & Vermeer engineers to get Griet out of the house - she marries the butcher's son.
Although we know very little about Vermeer's life, we do know enough about the techniques of painting, including use of the camera obscura to help get proportions right, that the author can write convincingly about the creation of great works of art.
We see everything through Griet's eyes & we find she has an artist's vision herself for detail when she helps to improve a painting by altering the drape of a tablecloth in the setting.
Superb.
