In Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring, the narrator, Griet, is a quiet Dutch girl from a family that has fallen on hard times. She takes a job as a servant in the household of the famous painter Vermeer, but due to circumstances quite outside her control, she begins to cause turmoil in the family, at the sam time that she becomes entranced by her intense but taciturn master.

Chevalier writes simple yet effective prose that reflects the budding artistic sensibilities of her heroine. (The vignette of Griet apportioning her vegetables into exact, color-coded strips is an apt metaphor for Chevalier's style.) While her novel fails to evoke a rich feeling for 17th-century Dutch life--there are simply too few details, too far apart--Chevalier excels at describing human and social relationships. In the course of matter-of-factly narrating Griet's humdrum duties, Chevalier somehow effectively portrays Vermeer's tense family life, Griet's awareness that she lacks any real future, and, of course, Griet's unusual relationship with Vermeer. That being said, the story is never really exciting. Passions rise and fall, of course, but Griet is a little too self-aware and painstaking to make the story emotionally resonant.

In the end, The Girl with a Pearl Earring is just a simple story, but it is exceedingly well told and will likely linger in your memory long after its brief, placid narrative ends.

Copyright © 2003 Steven Wu