Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

-
Image
A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
5 comments

The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier

-
This book found its way into my TBR shelves some years ago. Mainly because I loved The Girl with the Pearl Earring so much. The last story was woven around a painting by Johannes Vermeer with the same name, and considered to be one of his master pieces. This book is about another painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Portrait of a Girl. Not much is known about the painting, but it is thought to have been done around 1490.

Inspired by this painting Tracy Chevalier has written a tale of a painter, a young girl from the upper classes, her mother and the weavers of tapestries in Brussels. The painter, Nicolas des Innocents,  gets a commission to make paintings which will be transfered into tapestries. He falls in love with the daughter of the noble man, and it seems, in most women that come his way. Once the paintings are ready he leaves for Brussels where the real weaving masters work. Here he gets involved with the family of the weaving master, who is taking on the challenge of his life in producing the tapestries with a tight time frame. The influence of the charming painter also upsets the family's routines and plans for the future.

I did not like this novel as much as the 'earring' one, although it is a rather more burlesque story. Maybe because the narration changed in each chapter.  The story is told from the views of the painter, the daughter, the mother, and the daughter and wife of the weaver. This approach provides an insight into the various worlds of the characters, that is true, but it somehow made it more 'unruly' for me. On the other hand the characters are well drawn and the way of telling the story tells us first hand thoughts and impressions from the various persons. Each of them are 'prisoners' under their social status and the unspoken rules of society.

It is definitely worth reading and the painting can be interpreted in many ways, and Tracy Chevalier has found one of them. I find this way of telling a story, inspired by something like a painting or a historical event very appealing.

Comments

  1. Carol16 March 2016 at 03:30

    I so agree with your last sentence but I haven't read either of Chevalier's books yet. Someone mentioned to me recently how much they enjoyed The Pearl Earring & I hope to read it soon. Enjoyed your review.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisbeth 16 March 2016 at 15:04

      Thank you Carol. She is definitely worth reading, writing very well. These two stories are very interesting from an historical point of view as well.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Magical Room, Saloons in 1920s Paris by Ingrid Svensson

-
Image
Better late than never as they say. This post was supposed to go up last year. At a museum in Sweden I found a book about 1920s saloons in Paris. Very interesting and it generated the post:  Paris in July - French Saloons.    As promised then, here is the first of two posts about four of the main hostesses.  Still picking from the "Magical Rom" and events from Paris in the 1920s. There were four main characters who put their mark on the literary scene of the time; Gertrude Stein, Natalie Clifford Barney, Adrienne Monnier, and Sylvia Beach. For most of you, they are already well known. These ladies had one thing in common, as well as many of the women holding salons, in that they were all lesbians. This was maybe one reason why they ended up in Paris, being more liberal (although you had to be discreet) than many other countries, and the US specifically. They were very creative and talented and did a lot for the cultural scene in Paris, introducing new talents and hel...
Read more

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson

-
Image
This is one of those popular help yourself books that seems to overflow these days. However, it defies all the good advices we have been given during the last years, that is; stay positive. Manson says: "Let's be honest; sometimes things are fucked up and we have to live with it."  Right! That is life after all. "One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful." Sigmund Freud  With this quote in mind Manson argues that values such as "pleasure, material success, always being right, staying positive", are poor guidelines for a persons life. After all, some of the greatest moments in our lives are " not  pleasant, not successful, not known, and not positive". Which leads him to the belief, and I am bound to agree with him, that it is the individual who is responsible for everything in his/her life. We just have to act due to external circumstances. We are not always in control of all aspects of our...
Read more

How To Read Novels Like A Professor by Thomas C. Foster

-
Image
I am not a professor in literature, but I would like to be. Unfortunately, this will never happen, so, I have to go along trying to read novels and literature like a professor. Thomas C. Foster's book is therefor a very useful tool. He has also written How To Read Literature Like A Professor , which sounds like another useful read. It is not only a book for readers. I would say it is also useful for aspring writers. How do you make a novel interesting? What does it have to contain? Who should be the narrator and what should he/she do? The content gives a hint on what makes up a good book.  Pickup Lines and Open(ing) Seductions, or Why Novels Have First Pages - are we not fascinated by how certain writers manage to hook you on the first sentence? This seems to be one of the most important sentences in a book and Foster mentions a few excellent openings. I love good openings and cannot help but quote them here, although I am sure you are already familiar with them (I only knew 2,4 a...
Read more