The music lesson in book reviews
- April 9, 2014, 12:18 p.m.
- |
- Public
author: Katharine Weber
The book is about politics, art theft, art forgery, two people who really do NOT know each other despite having an intense relationship.
Yet, oddly, the painting at the center of this lovely novel is NOT Vermeer's Music Lesson although the author keeps saying it is. That painting is very different from what is described in the book. You'd think that wouldn't be an issue. I did enjoy the small book, but the fact that the painting described is not the painting with that name makes me uncomfortable in the end.
I recently saw a movie about The Music Lesson and how a man "proved" it had been done with some form of optics by recreating it.
11 Comments
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Thomas ⋅ April 09, 2014
I think I will pass on this one. I trust your misgivings.
Darcy0207 from OD Thomas ⋅ April 09, 2014
thank you.
Reader in Ohio ⋅ April 10, 2014
The Vermeer painting in The Music Lesson is clearly a fictional painting! The author says this clearly in a Note to the Reader on the first page! "The world has never seen this particular painting by Vermeer, because it does not quite exist."
Darcy0207 from OD Reader in Ohio ⋅ April 10, 2014
I guess I skipped that part. But, then why call it by the name of a REAL painting by Vermeer? Lack of originality?
Reader in Ohio ⋅ April 10, 2014
Why assume something like that? (And why the fixation on this?) It is a novel, a work of fiction, yet it takes place in a country called Ireland, which is, I assumed when I read this novel a few years ago, a representation, a fictional Ireland. John Updike wrote in a list of rules for book reviewing: "Succumb to the spell that is being cast." He also wrote: "Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt." I doubt Katherine Weber was trying to deceive you, and I also doubt that the problem was a lack of originality.
Darcy0207 from OD Reader in Ohio ⋅ April 10, 2014
Why choose a name of a known Vermeer painting, if the description is of a wished for painting? I went to a book talk years ago where the author was describing how people wrote to him because they tried to trace the route his characters took and the streets were wrong. I am stuck with the idea that if a book is set in a specific time and place, that should be accurate. I love reading about places I know, times I remember. It throws me for a loop if the person changes the geography.
Reader in Ohio ⋅ April 13, 2014
I just don't see this as an issue of "accuracy." One assumes Vermeer didn't actually call this painting a title in English anyway. I agree with you that a novel shouldn't have errors in geography or facts about a location, but an error and a fictional revising of facts for specific reasons involved with telling a fictional story are a different matter. Were you bothered by the way in the movie of Titanic there were people named Jack and Rose on the ship, though they were made up characters? Anyway, the note from the author in the front of The Music Lesson explained very clearly in a way I appreciated that there was no village of that name, and no actual Vermeer painting, and no IRA splinter group exactly like the ones in the story!