It was about time that I got back on track with my list and finally I found one. I read this book in two days, I couldn’t put it down. My boyfriend says that I am cancer for books, I just eat right through them and with this book it was so true.
It is such an easy read with an engaging story. The story is based on the painting of the same name. Tracey Chevalier creates a fictional history for the creation of this remarkable, well known painting.
Griet is a young women whose family is thrust in to poverty when her father has an accident at work. She is forced to leave her home and cross in to the Catholic quarter and serve in the house of the dutch painter Johannes Vemeer. Griet is curious of her masters vocation and through him she learns to understand his painting visions and techniques.
The relationship that develops between Vemeer and Griet is one of master and apprentice but also the fact that he is master of the house and she a young, female servant cast a sinister shadow. Deeper feelings are developed and tested when Vemeer’s patron commissions a portrait.
I found it fascinate that someone could create a whole world around a simple painting of a young girl looking over her shoulder. It was also nice that the story explained the artistic creation of the painting, the making of paints and the lighting etc. I do wonder though how many people will read this book and take it for fact because it is so convincing.
After reading the book I really wanted to watch the movie. I did watch it and I have to say I was so horribly disappointed. If you don’t have a budget to make the movie long enough to build the characters relationships and fill in all the required details then don’t make the movie. Please if you are thinking about watching the movie, skip it and read the book instead, in that you won’t be disappointed.
Ole said:
I guess most movies fail to achieve the same emotions books do. I don’t know a movie that is better than the book 😉
moi said:
I do. “M. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran” by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt. I likes the book, but loved the movie with Omar Sharif. Beautiful pictures, great music. The only book I know which comes better as a movie.
thepocket said:
I thought Memoirs of a Geisha was very true to the book. Sometimes I think the movie can be just as good but also different. I loved The Lord of the Rings book and I really enjoyed the movie, I am glad that they took out all the songs etc and instead sort of gave you the history in the beginning. I think movies just need to take care to preserve the emotions of the book, not blockbuster over them.
Ole said:
Yes, Lord of the Rings was very good. The best thing to do if you don’t want to be disappointed when watching a movie after reading a book is to not read the book in the first place 😉
thepocket said:
Then no one would read and Hollywood would have no ideas.
Ole said:
Hollywood has ideas?