Thoughts on "Girl With a Pearl Earring"
Feb. 19th, 2004 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newmoonstarNow that I'm almost finished writing 'the French story', I've already started thinking about what I want to write next. On my latest library excursion I got a couple of Vermeer books, and I'm really tempted to do something in that world.
I curse Tracy Chevalier eternally for taking "Girl With a Pearl Earring" though. It was always one of my favorite paintings, but now every time I look at it I think of the book, and it makes me so upset. I really hoped the book would be good, and that the relationship between Vermeer and the girl would have been more of a student/teacher relationship, which lots of interesting things to say about art and ideas, and for a while I thought it was going that way, but then it sidetracked into all this unrequited love and lust and useless crap like that.
It was really a painful story, and now I'll never be able to look at the painting without it conjuring up those associations of pain and sadness. I almost wish I'd never read it. Actually, I wish it'd never been written, because now if anybody else writes a story about that painting, it will be dismissed as trying to imitate the success of Tracy Chevalier's book. I'd kind of like to write one myself though, just because it would make me feel better. My view of Vermeer is a lot different from hers anyway, and it's not like anybody would ever read mine.
Of course, I've got at least ten other stories I could choose for my next project, and all of them are already more thoroughly fleshed out and researched, so I'd probably wait on the Vermeer one for quite a while. Still, it's something to think about. And planning a story really is half the fun. ;-)
I curse Tracy Chevalier eternally for taking "Girl With a Pearl Earring" though. It was always one of my favorite paintings, but now every time I look at it I think of the book, and it makes me so upset. I really hoped the book would be good, and that the relationship between Vermeer and the girl would have been more of a student/teacher relationship, which lots of interesting things to say about art and ideas, and for a while I thought it was going that way, but then it sidetracked into all this unrequited love and lust and useless crap like that.
It was really a painful story, and now I'll never be able to look at the painting without it conjuring up those associations of pain and sadness. I almost wish I'd never read it. Actually, I wish it'd never been written, because now if anybody else writes a story about that painting, it will be dismissed as trying to imitate the success of Tracy Chevalier's book. I'd kind of like to write one myself though, just because it would make me feel better. My view of Vermeer is a lot different from hers anyway, and it's not like anybody would ever read mine.
Of course, I've got at least ten other stories I could choose for my next project, and all of them are already more thoroughly fleshed out and researched, so I'd probably wait on the Vermeer one for quite a while. Still, it's something to think about. And planning a story really is half the fun. ;-)
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Date: 2004-02-19 06:53 pm (UTC)You should consider majoring in Art History. It's one of my minors, and I adore it. It's right up your alley.
THE FRENCH STORY. COMPLETE. My heart rejoices. Note the starry eyed emoticon: *___*
I'd love to read your Vermeer story (if you were to ever write it). I'm sure it'd be quite better than hers, and much less...unsettling. :D
Re:
Date: 2004-02-23 05:36 pm (UTC)Art History would be a fun thing to major in. *thinks of all the books on the Impressionists and the Dutch Masters that I've just hauled home from the library*
The French story is ALMOST complete. And that's a BIG almost. I was working on it this weekend, and it's turning out to be much longer than I thought.
And of course you can read the Vermeer story, providing, of course, that I actually write it sometime. ;-D