The girl with an earring

Girl with A Pearl Earring (Tracy Chevalier)

The novel is set in Delft in the mid-17^th century. It is a story based upon historical figures, principally upon the painter Vermeer, and narrated, in the first person, by an imagined character, Griet, taken from one of Vermeer’s paintings.

Griet comes from a poor, protestant family. At sixteen, she is the eldest of three children. Her parents cannot work because her mother is unemployed and her father is blind. Her younger brother works in a factory and his is the family’s only income. Since they need more money and Griet can work, her parents send her to work as a servant for Vermeer, a man who painted pictures for an acquaintance of her father.

Vermeer lives with a very strange family. There are four daughters; a baby; Catalina, his wife; Maria Thins, his mother-in-law; and Taneke, the servant. Vermmer is very reclusive. He spends all day painting in his studio at home. When Griet arrives at Vermmer’s home she notices the family members’ different personalities, above all the differences between Vermmer and his wife. Vermmer has a very special friendship with Maria Thins, and a colder, more distant relationship with Catalina. For example, the only one who is allowed to go into his studio is his mother-in-law. When he then contracts Griet to clean his studio, Catalina feels a little jealous, so her relationship with Griet is troubled from the start.

The novel doesn’t have a strong plot. It centres around the development of the (very awkward) relationship between Griet and Vermeer. This relationship, like nearly all those in the novel, is characterized by a permanent, increasing tension resulting from the closeness of the relationship between the painter and his servant. Fundamentally, this is a story of a relationship that doesn’t fit in the society in which it is set.

Vermeer increasingly confides in Griet over the course of the novel. Vermeer first hires Griet to clean the studio, because he doesn’t have confidence in Tanneke or his clumsy wife to do it. Early on, Vermeer doesn’t appear much in the story, but he appears with increasing frequency as his confidence in Griet increases. Unlike Catharine or Tanneke, Griet tries to understand his work and he recognizes that she learns and understands. At some point, though, the work that Griet does for Vermeer must become secret because Catharine doesn’t like for her husband to confide in a servant more than in her. Griet and Vermmer’s feelings toward one another aren’t love, but by the end of the novel they come to feel a very close confidence.

Via the development of this relationship, Chevalier creates a very unique atmosphere. Since she focuses on an illicit relationship between a servant and master, she can generate tension between Griet and almost every other character in the story. Since the story is written in the first person, from Griet’s perspective, the reader never loses contact with the tension created by Griet’s singularly awkward position.

It is through this tension that Chevalier portrays the society that surrounds Griet. The reader only has access to the world around Griet through her thoughts, impressions, and feelings about the people around her. What this creates is a very detailed picture of a very small section of 17^th century Dutch society. Readers interested in 17^th century Dutch society will find this book’s scope to be narrow, but it’s focus intense.

Personally, I liked it very much because despite the book moving rather slowly, it is continually interesting. I would recommend this novel to anyone, be they interested in the period or not; aside from being useful in offering a unique perspective historically, it is fundamentally a great story.

Miguel Pérez – author and William Clark - editor