The Miniaturist

Fiction has been on the back burner for me for quite a while now. I tend to be a binge reader, and recently I've been ploughing through non-fiction, especially getting to grips with the Puritans and blogging about my discoveries in a blog of the same name. It took a recent trip to Amsterdam to whet my appetite for the novel again. I had bought Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist some weeks before, but standing in front of the dolls' house at the Rijksmuseum, which inspired her to write the story, reawakened my interest in finishing it.

The real dolls' house on show at the Rijksmuseum

Shortly after returning to the UK after that weekend break, I did just that. Walking along the Herengracht canal and the Golden Bend where the heroine, Nella Oortman lived, was just the impetus I had needed. I marvelled at how skilfully the author evokes the life and times of the wealthy Dutch merchants at the centre of the story, with her attention to detail. Her research into seventeenth century Amsterdam fashion, food, furniture, trade, social customs, religious practises and the legal system, is very evident.

While Burton succeeded in transporting me back in time to this fascinating city, constructing a completely authentic setting, I didn't quite buy into her young heroine's self-assurance and command of the situation she quickly becomes embroiled in. Nella Oortman comes to Amsterdam at the tender age of eighteen as the new wife of one of its richest merchants Johannes Brandt. this girl from the country with no experience of city life, suddenly has to deal astutely with wily merchants twice her age, doing deals over sugar, writing very accomplished epistles to the miniaturist of the title, and taking command of a fast-moving situation, which threatens life, liberty and livelihood.

The other major strand that I found quite hard to swallow, was the whole premise of the miniaturist's spooky insight into the minutiae of the Brandts' household. Its members are always sneaking around the dark corridors of the merchant's house, eavesdropping at keyholes, but to imagine that the miniaturist has the same kind of access, or has in fact some kind of occult psychic powers that enable her to see straight through walls, seems preposterous....yet these were the theories that sprang to my mind when reading the plot. Even so, I happily suspended my disbelief, and enjoyed being drawn into the intrigue and the sinister voyeurism that I imagined was taking place.

Reaching the end of the novel, I felt that overall, it was an enjoyable, well-written book, especially heightened by my visit to Amsterdam and exposure to the artefacts at the Rijksmuseum. Plus, even if Nella's transformation into a self-assured, assertive merchant's wife in a man's world is slightly unbelievable, I do love a feisty, young heroine. Many fellow novelists have declared The Miniaturist to be an accomplished novel, which it definitely is. If you are looking for an atmospheric, suspenseful, historical story with great characters, you won't be disappointed.