Sketchbook doodles … always people in trains.

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Girl with a Pearl Earring

Yesterday I didn’t draw anything while I was in the train. Instead I finished reading Tracy Chevalier’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”. I must say that I was disappointed by this book, which (so it seems to me) everyone loved. It’s a nice story, and there are a lot of detailed descriptions, and you really get into this world of Vermeer’s paintings … but that’s all. The love story isn’t very exciting, though the author tries to create a subtle and intense atmosphere. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because of the german translation (for that reason I haven’t read german translations of english books for a long time …). I was searching for the magic and the poetry of Vermeer’s paintings, but all I could find was a stage, a coulisse whithout life. Even a text in school about Jean Siméon Chardin’s paintings communicated more fascination and magic to me than Tracy Chevalier’s novel.

The main character Griet is very simple, even too simple in my opinion. She just obeys, thinks that things are sad, and she believes in good. All she want to do is to do good. She wants to be nice all the time. That’s boring. In the end, she accepts her fate pragmatically, without any notable regrets or doubts. She doesn’t ask herself anything and is very occupied by her daily work. Ok, simple people in that time may have been like that …

By the way, this book is just an affirmation of the chliché that all historic novels got the same plot: A poor woman falls in love with a man who is in a higher social class, she does something rebellious, but in the end, nothing changes, the social barriers remain and she gets married with someone and they have lots of children together.

If anyone of you think that I just didn’t get the point, let me know it and tell me, why this book is good.

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Seit mehreren Tagen bin ich nun im Besitz des neuen Finntroll Albums “Ur jordens Djup” … und bin begeistert! Die neue Scheibe könnte neben Moonsorrows Meisterwerk “Hävitetty” zu einem der Höhepunkte dieses Jahr in Sachen Folk Metal werden. “Ur jordens Djup” bedeutet “Aus den Tiefen” und ist ein bisschen düsterer ausgefallen als sein Vorgänger. Die typischen fröhlichen mit-gröhl-Melodien fehlen natürlich nicht, aber insgesamt macht das Album einen ernsteren, epischeren Eindruck. Zwischendurch erinnern mich gewisse Passagen an Moonsorrow, Windir, Turisas oder Ensiferum (was positiv zu sehen ist, da ich Vielfalt schätze). Das Album ist als Gesamtwerk sehr rund geworden, die Lieder passen gut zu einander, sodass immer ein Spannungsbogen bestehen bleibt.

Empfehlenswert für alle, die auf Humppa, Gitarrengewitter, Met und nordische Mythologie stehen.

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