Review

Name: Virgnia Soares Toledo

The girl with a pearl earring

The thing that created a good impression when I first saw the book
cover, while browsing at the bookshop, was its painting. A girl with a
headscarf and a large pearl earring and her ambiguous look
intrigued me to leaf the book through back and forth. Surprisingly,
the image wasnt made for the book cover, actually it was especially
made for the painting. In fact, its a real one by Vermeer, a famous
painter from the 1600s. I was captivated by its subtleties and about
what could have happened behind that unique piece of art, so I was
tempted to take it.
As being a historical novel, it had some very vivid descriptions of the
17th century in Delft, Holland. The author was competently able to
travel back to that time with her convincing and well-rounded
characters, besides the book offers most of Vermeers paintings.
Therefore, I could picture myself on that time. I found it
unputdownable until the foreseeable moment that the girl from the
cover, Griet, was about to be painted.
She is one of over forty images of women created by the painter,
thus it seems that he had some interest in the women's roles from
that time. Despite being a mixture of realism and fantasy, there were
some interesting insights into the way women were raised. They
were meant to grow up on the pressure to get a wealth husband
within Christian values, so that their duty was to deal with the
household and raising children. The protagonist Griet is an example
of a restrained woman, going far beyond of only her look to the
painter.
As youre on the feminist struggle, I would recommend it for a
reflection on how women have being repressed over the centuries
and for an inspiration to show that womens rights are getting better
so far. The author, Tracy Chevalier, has proved herself that
comparing to those former times, weve been setting our seat as
women.
Number of words: 326