- Paperback
- Publisher: Toby Pr (Aug 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1902881486
- ISBN-13: 978-1902881485
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Brian Howell's novel, like many of his short stories, evokes a strong sense of time and place. His interest in film, the perspective he has gained while living abroad, and his passion for seventeenth-century Dutch art play a role in his creation of a window to the world that one suspects exists just beyond the edge of Vermeer's paintings.
The first section of the novel follows the development of the young artist, who, at times, one fears will not become the master of the works we view from our point in history. The second section, taken from the secret journal of Balthasar de Monconys, tells of the journalist's brief encounter with Vermeer. Monconys' perspective of the real and the painted Delft and its citizens adds motion and intrigue to the characters Vermeer portrays. The final section centers on a copyist's recreation of a Vermeer painting, the imagined reliving of events in his studio, and the personal drama that provides inspiration for the forger.
Each section of the novel can stand, in a manner, on its own, but there is a thread of technique and action that ties the work together and brings Vermeer's world into our own. When one pays a final visit to Vermeer in the reprise, one has a sense of being reconnected to a world that is part of ours but isn't always visible upon first glance.
Certain paintings have the ability to draw one into other worlds and times. Howell's novel effects a similar pull.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
An intriguing and intelligent exploration of the parallax between surface perception and inner experience. The writing is compelling and meticulous throughout, though Howell excels at pinning down the unpindownable. Not only does he write with an artist's vision, he allows the reader to share that vision too.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There’s much to admire about this understated novel. I like the way Howell plays with the different narratives, but I especially like the way in which none of his narrators has the faintest idea of what's going on - all the knowledge is with the other characters, and therefore readers have to scavenge about and glean what they can. All of Howell’s fiction is unsettling, and the narrators’ bafflement is what makes this book an enjoyably unsettling read. While the structure implies metafictional reflections about truth, realism and copying, I was more drawn in by the small touches. I was very interested in the women characters, for example, and loved the idea of them being pinned down in the pictures - all that kind of stuff is great.
I think it's a most accomplished first novel, obviously well written and researched but not flashy despite the postmodern apparatus.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Sphinx of Delft
Brian Howell's ambitious novel on the seventeenth-century Dutch genre painter Johannes Vermeer is a complex and thought provoking read. Read more
Published on 13 Jun 2004 by Sarah Rees
The Sphinx of Delft
Brian Howell's ambitious novel on the seventeenth-century Dutch genre painter Johannes Vermeer is a complex and thought provoking read. Read more
Published on 13 Jun 2004 by Sarah Rees
meaningful and charming
I found this an excellent read, both as a novel and as a well-written account of what life was like for an artist in 17th century Holland. Read more
Published on 23 May 2004 by "terrythomas7"
history and mystery
I really enjoyed this book. I had expected a standard-format novel about Vermeer and his life. Instead, I was delighted to find a triple reflection on the history and mystery of... Read more
Published on 17 May 2004 by Susan O'Neill
A dismal performance
When is a book about Vermeer not about Vermeer? When it's written by someone who is unable to begin, let alone sustain, an understanding and appreciation of a painter, aesthetic... Read more
Published on 2 May 2004 by "blazerunner"
intriguing and intelligent
An intriguing and intelligent exploration of the parallax between surface reality and inner experience. Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2002 by R. N. Morris
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