This novel
is set during the Golden Age of Dutch painting.
In 1633, in Haarlem, Judith Leyster is a young woman striving to have
her own artist’s workshop and to be the first woman admitted to the artists’
guild. She struggles with money problems
because the male-dominated art world seems to be conspiring against her. Meanwhile, Judith’s friend Maria is a
guilt-ridden Catholic, in a time when her religion is banned, always looking
for ways to atone for her perceived sins.
This book
felt so flat to me. It is full of
historical detail about domestic life and the technical aspects of painting, so
the author obviously did considerable research.
However, the novel’s style, inconsistencies in plot, and poor character
development left me feeling that considerable revision is needed.
Let’s start with style. The author has a tendency to
overuse short, choppy sentences: “The
flash of wet paint suggested a few lines.
On the right sparkled a small star.
She gave a slight smile and used the back of her hand to wipe away
another tear. Her monogram now marked
the building as her own. She dabbed a
bit . . .” Then there’s the repetition
of words. For instance, some form of the
word shiver is used 18 times, and cold appears 38 times! And paragraphs are so disjointed. For example, Judith and Maria go to visit a dying
man: “The green-striped coverlet
stippled as Maria added her hand’s weight to the bed, and Judith thought of the
fields of hay bending in the wind that she had seen once while traveling to a
countryside tavern. Someone had since harvested
that hay, and what did the field look like now?” Is this supposed to illustrate Judith’s
obsession with painting? Later, “She
walked slowly along the canal and watched the ripples as well as the few
remaining raindrops fracturing the reflected trees. Why was it so complicated, she wondered, to
have what so many others had? A
livelihood, a scrap of freedom to do as she pleased?” She admires the beauty of nature, as an
artist might, but then that beauty has her bemoaning her lack of independence? Some transitions are definitely needed.
Then there
are the inconsistencies and gaps in logic.
Judith tells a man she has “urgent business in Den Haag” but that man
later comments that she can go to Den Haag to help her friend. How does he know her urgent business is to
help a friend? Judith asks a friend how
long he apprenticed with the painter Frans Hals when that friend started at the
same time as she did? A young boy
approaches Judith and says, “’I’m from the prison. They sent me to find you, right?’” Who is “they”? Maria sees smoke coming out the window of a
house but she is distracted by a bird cooing?
Maria
describes a relic as “’Bone fragments.
In a silver reliquary, which was itself inside a gold reliquary’” though
she was told the relic was “’An ornamental silver box holding sacred bone and a
carved bronze reliquary’”! Maria hopes
that a priest “had not segmented the bone, [a relic], which was already small.” So it’s not bone fragments but one “already
small” bone? And why would a priest lend
part of an “already small” relic to
a friend whose parish has “Not painters, but sculptors or some such trade”? Why would sculptors need a bone fragment?
The problem
with characterization is that characters behave inconsistently. Judith is all over the place. When a friend is so ill she could die, Judith
doesn’t tell her friend’s father, a loving father who is very worried about his
daughter?! Then later she just blurts
out the truth. She promises, against all
common sense and obligation, to keep a secret and does so for the longest time,
but then breaks that promise?
Oh but
Maria is even more scattered. She has a
traumatic experience that leaves her afraid to walk in Haarlem but then shortly
afterwards she convinces her father to let her travel alone to Leiden and to
stay overnight in a city she has never visited.
She worries about “how she was going to find her way in a new city” but
then “she declined the directional guidance of the older gentleman who had
chatted with her during the ride [in the carriage to Leiden].” She stupidly doesn’t find herself
accommodation for the night before curfew, thereby placing herself “in danger.” For someone so guilt-ridden about her “sins”,
she lies in a letter to her father? Maria is supposed to be about 25 years old,
but she behaves as if she’s half that age:
“she needed to learn to sacrifice her pride. Though perhaps Judith should sacrifice
hers. Maria had sacrificed so much
already.” She becomes upset with Judith
for breaking a promise rather than being grateful for her saving her life?
I think
there’s an interesting story to be told about Judith Leyster, a real person,
but unfortunately, this novel does not do that.
Note: I received a digital galley of this book from
the publisher via NetGalley.
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