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Title: Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach ISBN: 0-385-33492-3 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.55 (44 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Lust, greed, envy, jealousy etc. etc.
Comment: all come to play in this tale of Holland in the 1600's. Of the five main characters there is not one who does not have all of these failings.
Cornelis, old and seeking an heir, is married to Sophia, young and seeking nothing in her hundrun existence, until that is, Cornelis commissions a portrait by Jan Van der Loos. Passions rise as the painter and mistress of the house lock eyes across the canvass. Thus begin the trysts and deceptions.
Meanwhile, the maid, robust and jolly Maria, and the equally passionate Willem are getting cozy in the back room of the kitchen and subsequently planning their marriage and family life with their imagined children.In the background tulip fever rages and fortunes are made and lost in the blink of an eye.
How these five lives become entangled in an almost unbelieveable series of events is interesting, but not compelling. The situations seemed too ludicrous to me but I enjoyed nonetheless as a light read and I do commend the writer for her style and her wonderful descriptions of the town and life style of the times...the story line is what I found wanting.
If you read this first and then GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, I am sure you will enjoy both.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gimme "Fever"
Comment: Amsterdam in the mid-1600's in all of her damp; misty; chilling glory. Days of mystery and forbidden love. Nights of sharing secrets of "tulip fever". Speculation in a commodity with money changing hands which, will ultimately, change many lives.
I enjoyed this story, from the mysterious beginning to the surprising end. Lies; cheating; deception; instantaneous and heart-stopping love - what's not to like?? Secrets unfold chapter by quick chapter, I had a hard time putting it down.
An extra plus I felt, were the snippets that were written by some of the world's masters - Confucius; Rembrandt; Da Vinci; Aristotle, as well as passages from The Bible. These tidbits give an inkling of what's upcoming in each chapter.
The circumstances that Ms. Moggach puts before us certainly were feasible, and may very well have happened during the time of the tulip explosion. I felt the book was much more about the characters and their lives, and what they brought to (or took away) from each other, than the "tulip" phenomenon.
I highly recommend this book as it is an interesting and quick read. I for one will spend time with this author again.
Rating: 3
Summary: 17th Century Soap Opera
Comment: "Tulip Fever" was bit too soap-opery for my taste, complete with a faked death and switched-at-birth baby. Even those somewhat over the top touches, however, could have been pulled off if the rest of the plot were less bodice-ripping, swooning-in-her-lover's-arms, torn-between-two-worlds melodramatic.
The basic story is, well, basic: Pretty younger wife married to old but rich husband falls in love with talented yet penniless painter. Ah, chuckles Benevolent Yet Oblivious Hubby, kids these days, with their heaving bosoms and trembling lips! Let me invite Hot Young Artist back into my home again and again, since it amuses my Modest and Demure Young Wife so! Let me rejoice when Young Wife suddenly, after years of barrenness, becomes conveniently pregnant!
You can see how this becomes tiresome after awhile. Do we sympathize with poor Sophia, stuck in her marriage with a man she doesn't love while her lover awaits her in a seedy apartment in the Jordaan slums? Sure. Can we appreciate her pluck when she devises several implausible, "that's so crazy it just might work" schemes in order to keep up with her mounting indiscretions? OK. Do we want to beat all three (four, if you count the maid who ends up becoming entangled in the whole mess) of them upside the head and tell them to get a clue? You bet.
The twist at the end, which brings the whole house of cards crashing down, is the best part of the whole book. I laughed aloud, then felt a little guilty about it, then shrugged and settled back in with a smirk on my face. Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing.
Tulip Fever was a very real phenomena in 17th century Holland, akin to the Internet bubble of the 90s. When the market crashed, countless people lost everything. The ups and downs of the tulip craze were, in my opinion, quite exciting and dramatic enough, without turning them into a deus ex machina in a morality play. Too complicated to be beach reading, too bosom-heaving to be serious historical fiction. Too bad.
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Title: The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0452284449 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland ISBN: 014029628X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Music Lesson : A Novel by Katharine Weber ISBN: 0312252854 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 02 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland ISBN: 0142001821 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 31 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0525947671 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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