The Miniaturist

I was really enjoying this novel as I went through it, and looking forward to finding out how the mystery would be solved at the end, as I couldn't think how all of it would come together...SPOILER...it doesn't. Worse than GOT, it doesn't even try to answer the questions it poses. It was like the author wrote herself into a corner, and gave up. Tainted my enjoyment of the rest of the book, which is unfortunate as Petronella was an interesting character who could have had much more done with her.

I was hoping for good historical fiction, which is a favourite of mine, but was disappointed. Even the servants weren't convincing for the 17th century. Some points were never fully explained - who kept creeping around the house at odd hours? More detail could've gone into describing merchants and general business in 17th century Amsterdam but was left for the endnotes. The premise of the book as a whole - the miniaturist - was never fully explained. At the end of the book, it was rushed with a "well, this is who the miniaturist is" but there was never real interaction with the main character to explain the "why." Even the reason for not selling the sugar was put off until the last few pages - and that in itself seemed weak - especially when the theme seemed to center around merchants in Amsterdam and the VOC. What merchant would deliberately avoid selling a product? To avoid more spoilers - the book should have been titled on the real focus - what the author maybe didn't want to make the book's title - a secondary story, which on its own could serve or reflect on as historical insight into the times/practices/laws of Amsterdam (and likely most of Europe).

In the autumn of 1686, eighteen-year-old Petronella (Nella) Oortman leaves her country home and arrives at the Amsterdam house of her new (and much older) husband, the wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt - a man she barely knows. At his house on the Golden Bend of the Herengracht Canal, Nella meets Johannes' unmarried sister, the domineering and seemingly repressed Marin, who lives with Johannes and runs his household and, up to a point, his life. Nella feels gauche and somewhat inadequate when faced with Marin's confidence and practicality, and when Johannes presents his young wife with the wedding gift of a cabinet-sized replica of her new home, Nella feels he is treating her as if she is a child. Realizing that her husband, who has not yet consummated their marriage, is trying to be kind, Nella contacts by letter a miniaturist, a maker of miniature furniture, and commissions some pieces for her cabinet house. However, when the pieces arrive, Nella is surprised by how true-to-life they are, and when further uncommissioned pieces arrive, including some dolls which are uncannily like the inhabitants of her household - even down to aspects about them that anyone outside the family would be unaware - Nella begins to feel uneasy and then rather frightened. And when she discovers something shocking about her husband, which explains why he has not consummated the marriage, Nella realizes that her new life and the tentative relationship she had been gradually building with Johannes, is in danger of collapsing - and, even more worryingly, is the fact that Johannes is putting his reputation and even his own life at risk.A compelling and beautifully observed story with some wonderfully atmospheric descriptions of 17th century Holland (I’m not the first to liken this to a Dutch still life), this debut novel from Jessie Burton doesn’t read like a first novel at all. I should perhaps mention (as commented by some reviewers) that although I found the characters to be very well portrayed, the relationships between them and their emotions could have been explored more fully (and I wasn’t wholly convinced by the ‘modernity’ of some of their reactions to the situations they found themselves in) - however, all of that said, I found this exquisitely described novel a real pleasure to read. As commented in my recent review about another highly publicised novel (‘The Essex Serpent’) which I’d held off from reading fearing it would be over-hyped, I felt the same with ’The Miniaturist’, but I was wrong; this magical and deeply absorbing story with its themes of gender, sexuality, race and religion, kept me involved from start to finish and I am now keen to read Jessie Burton’s second novel ‘The Muse’.5 Stars.

I found this book engrossing, packed with diverse and fascinating characters. Burton does a fantastic job of bringing 17th century Amsterdam to life with vivid, rich detail. Burton uses beautiful language throughout. I loved the fact Nella keeps getting sent figures she didn’t order from the miniaturist which seem to mock the problems she experiences in her marriage with a husband who expects nothing of her and has sex with men. This was a little creepy and I found myself wondering if something supernatural was going on or if it was more ordinary and Nella was being stalked or something. This is never fully resolved which disappointed me.

Petronella Oortman arrives at her husbands house in the city of Amsterdam and is given a grudging welcome by her new sister-in-law, Marin Brandt. Her husband is travelling in pursuit of business, though he knew the date of her arrival. She has her beautiful little parakeet in train, and the hopes of an 18 year-old for a loving home. The signs are not auspicious, but at first she is still hopeful that she and her husband will make a home together. It is not long before she is sadly disabused of that hope. He rejects her approaches but he also promises never to hurt her. Marin is uncommunicative and the servants are more familiar than those she had at home. She is discomforted by his wedding gift, a house in miniature that echoes all the features of her husband’s home. Peebo, the parakeet is the first to come to grief when someone leaves a window open. Nevertheless she settles in quite well, hopeful that her husband will eventually want to sleep next to his very young and beautiful wife. She is to be disappointed. It is not her last disappointment, but she orders some furniture for her wedding gift and receives the exquisitely devised results. She hardly knows what to think when she receives items such as a cradle and beautifully created dolls which consist of the members of the household. Her husband is affectionate, but does not sleep with her and meanwhile more beautiful effects arrive to be placed in the house within the house. Marin is more reconciled with her but then things begin to go wrong and her husband is accused of a serious crime.Beautifully written, this is a strange book, which hovers on the edge of the supernatural without ever quite spilling over into something more definite. Eventually the ending comes as a shock and the birth of a child. It is enjoyable, perhaps a bit too melancholy but very well put together.