A nonsensical account of an equally nonsensical piece of prose (fire wood), “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, by Tracy Chevalier

Girl with a Pearl earring is one of the titles that has been attributed to Dutch 17^th century painter Jan Vermeer’s painting of a young girl, wearing a turban and, of course, a pearl earring. The painting has been called “The Mona Lisa of the North”, and is remarkable for its enigmatic history and nature. The book with the same title is Tracy Chevalier’s completely fictional account of what could have been the story behind the making of this widely recognized portrait.

Griet is a sixteen year old girl who in the beginning of the book receives the news that she will be working as a maid in the household of the Vermeer’s. Griet’s family is poor; her father has recently lost his eye sight after an working accident, and they desperately need any money that they can get hold of.

Griet is set to do the most normal and mundane of daily tasks, like washing clothes, grocery shopping and so on, but also, she is supposed to clean in the artist Vermeer’s working room. Throughout the book, it is described how the relationship between the maid and the artist grows more intimate and complex, and a secret but very silent bond is created between the two. She is awarded with more responsibility, and learns to help the painter with the preparation of colours and pigments, while in the meantime, he teaches her to view objects and paintings with the eyes of an artist. Not to be forgotten, is the role played by the painters jealous wife, who from the very beginning despises Griet’s presence in the house.

Besides the main intrigue – the relationship between the two central figures, and how he one day is forced to paint her – the family of Griet’s is important, as well as the relationship she develops with the butcher’s son.

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” is described by The Wall Street Journal as a work of triumph, and a lovely story. Time refers to it as a jewel of a novel. All in all, it has been praised as a wonderful love story.

Bollocks.

This book is a pathetic attempt at a love story and portrait. Though the roughly 250 pages of this book is written in a first persona narrative, the insight and understanding of the psyche of the main character that we receive as readers isn’t exactly in-depth. The devastating monotony of first person Griet’s “I and I and me” might just have disturbed my mental health so much as to actually have brought upon me the cough that currently bothers me. Griet is a stupid chick, rendered dreadfully obvious as what can seemingly fit into the lenghty and dull monologues of hers, is narrowed down to laundry, how she can’t understand her masters art, and how she still somehow fancies him for it. Griet is a nonsensical character, and I wish to cleanse her off my mind forever as soon as I’ve finished tearing this book apart; she is the one literary character, described in first person, who is actually more of a tabula rasa (clean slate) AFTER I’ve read the book, than before.

What regards the element of love in this story, I don’t know where to begin. Supposedly, there is something like a secretive, loving tenderness, intangible, between Griet and Vermeer, though I was late to in fact acknowledge it at all. And as Griet describes it to us, it seems that Vermeer himself didn’t recognize it; “Now when the painting had been finished, he didn’t need me any longer”, after which she cries. Supposedly, Vermeer had touched Griet once – something that would prove, seeing the fragility of a master/servant relationship – that there was something more than mere professionalism between the two. Heartbreaking. Try Romeo and Juliet.

I can’t go on about this book any longer. If you have nothing else to read, or you simply just want something that reads quickly (Chevalier is about as stylistically sophisticated as sheep), read Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The youth in “Sweet Bird of Youth”, by Tennessee Williams

‘Sweet Bird of Youth’ is play that was written in 1959; at the time of its release on theatres, it was partly acclaimed, partly rejected by contemporary critics, some who claimed that the drama was another masterpiece from the hand of Williams, other who asserted that the aforementioned were losing his touch.

 

Independently of whatever critics have had to say about this drama in comparison with other works of Williams’, and its status as a literary text, it is hard to deny that this is a highly engaging read. The play is divided in to three acts, sets mainly in two different environments in the town of St Cloud’s, and takes place in modern time. It begins with the main character, Chance Wayne, waking up next to the Princess Kosmonopolis, also known as Miss Alexandra Del Lagos, a former movie star. Chance is a twenty-nine year old, handsome man, who in his early youth showed off a remarkable talent for acting, but who in the end never quite made it to the big screens, and now moves around living like a washed-up no-body, earning his wage as a gigolo for older women. He has returned to St Cloud to meet his teenage girlfriend, Heavenly Finley, the daughter of a prominent politician.

Miss Del Lago is at the very end of her career as a star in the film industry, and is when she meets with Chance running away from a Hollywood that she’s losing touch with, and under a false name.

 

The main intrigue of the play is revealed early on, as the first scene does a good job to unravel the complex nature of Williams’ story. Chance has picked up the close-to lunatic Miss Del Lago in order to blackmail her into signing him under a film label; he also wants Miss Del Lago to stage a talent competition, in which Heavenly Finley will participate, and eventually win, earning herself a deal with mentioned film label. Chance will then have his career, and also, the upper class girlfriend he could never have had earlier.

 

In ‘Sweet Bird of Youth’, all main characters are in some way looking back at their respective youths, and with sadness and gloom, they regret all the chances they once missed, or alternatively, miss the times they can never have back. In desperation, Chance Wayne, a man who when he lost the glory of his youth, attempts to retrieve and win back the girl who he still loves, who to him symbolizes prosperity and hope. It is revealed early on, however, that Chance’s attempts will be in vain, as Heavenly, too, having been infected with a malicious venereal disease (many years ago, by Chance himself – remember the gigolo part), has had to go through an operation to cure herself, and has since lost touch with that inside of her which was once pure and noble, a kind of innocent youthfulness. Miss Del Lago is only with Chance, because his relative youth, compared to her age, works to satisfy her ego, and boost a belief in herself that is, in essence, a false one. Heavenly’s father, a corrupt and racist southern state politician, nevertheless a successful one, does his best to dissociate her daughter with the peasant scum he thinks that Chance is, and has his daughter marry a doctor for the money and status that it will bring. The father, too, however, tries to maintain a sincere and down to earth personality as a man to lead a people, but has since his wife’s death only been moving in a downward spiral, and does little to adhere to moral and legal standards, given that it will give him another vote.

 

In the same vein follows the spirit of the subset of characters in this play, which is one of many inherently complicated intrigues. Despite the depth these, which to some extent makes this play seem slightly disorganised, Williams manages to pull all the strings together, and present an ending that makes sense and which seems to follow logically. The author, one of America’s reputedly greatest playwrights, seems a master of dramas, for the text never becomes boring or tiring to read, but on the contrary, never fails to engage and provoke sincere interest from the reader. The plot feels at times to be a bit too weird, in plain terms, to actually be taken seriously, but seeing as the theme of youth is so vehemently focused on, a clear sense of revelation and satisfaction is brought upon us by the end of the text, as we then receive a vivid explanation of the thoughts that inspired this work of writing:

 

“CHANCE [rising and advancing to the forestage]: I don’t ask for your pity, but just for your understanding – not even that – no. Just for your recognition of me in you, and the enemy, time, in us all.”

 

The play hereafter ends, but what remains is the feeling of what Chance just pointed out. None of the characters in the play, once the intrigues have been solved and ridden, managed to secure and win back that which they all had been looking for, namely parts of their youth. Despite their ardent attempts, they all failed; Chance not being able to go back to the days when his career could still have blossomed, and Miss Del Lago to a time when she was the brightest shining star, the most beautiful actress in Hollywood, and so on… All that remained, was a sense of doom, and the impending loneliness that these people had brought to themselves.

 

In Williams’ story, there are in fact no winners, besides those who never dreamt of ever winning anything. Characters of lesser significance, those described by Chance as normal people, who settled down with regular jobs, who satisfied with what they had. All characters that in some way seems to have expressed hope in accomplishing anything of importance, go home feeling sorry, or always wanting more. The plays is, perhaps, in extension a meditation on the matter of death, and how life is a lane leading us right to it. The nature of our destiny’s aside, what we are all progressing towards is nothingness, for which reason, no-one can ever win – for which reason, in yet another extension, life seems utterly pointless. If time’s the enemy, then we must beat it to the end, and choose battle before it is too late to do anything.