Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

[lightreads]

Fiction. Speculative history about the Vermeer painting of the same name, narrated by the girl herself. The highlight here is the portrayal of this deeply erotic relationship conducted entirely through gesture and art, so that the narrator's loss of virginity to her butcher fiance is pedestrian compared to the simple act of dawning the earrings to sit for the painting. They never say a word, but the book crackles with wanting, an intensity of desire which is not just physical but also about the creation of enduring art. I liked it for this conceit alone, though the narrator is something of a Mary-Sue and
the style is occasionally clumsy.