Saturday, August 15, 2009

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier


GwaPE was a re-read for me but I consider this to be the book that started my love affair with biographical fiction. It doesn't take much to describe the plot. Chevalier takes a somewhat mysterious historical figure, Johannes Vermeer, and one of his most famous paintings and imagines what led to its creation. What I love about his story takes much longer to describe.

Vivid imagery, characters I could love and quite a few I dislike (I would have slapped Cornelia constantly), ambiguous moral questions, period detail that you can practically touch...a wonderful story all in all! If you haven't yet gotten around to this book, I highly recommend it!

I also Netflixed the movie and it is good, though it's choppy and a lot was sacrificed for forward momentum. Scarlet Johanssen is magnificent as Griet and the little girl playing Cornelia has exactly the nasty attitude and facial expression that is described in the book.

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