Petronella Oortman remains unconvincing due to the underlying discrepancies in her character. Burton’s sentences are rich, elegant, and flowing like a well-cut summer dress.The Major ShortcomingBurton provides us with a menagerie of compelling characters, however, she does not give us a deep enough look into the psyche of the protagonists, the motivation that lies beneath the calm surface. The next day things get tense in the Brandt household: ‘The air is hot, the atmosphere a bruise,’ in the Brandts’ dining room at the first mention of drowning as a punishment for men. The Miniaturist is beautifully written, overflowing with flamboyantly colorful figurative language used to portray the contrast between the delightfully vibrant, sugar-infused interior of the rich Amsterdamers’ townhouses and the morose, meagre, and stringent public life.įor instance, Nella lies awake in her bed listening to the house settling down for the night and looks at the ‘hairline crack of moonlight glinting over painted hare and rotten pomegranate.’ Nella’s first night in her new home involves the moonlit sky, the eerie sounds coming from somewhere in the house, and moon rays on an expensive painting hung in her room. The house, and the miniature house within it, is a microcosm that mirrors Amsterdam and the society itself the surfaces are shiny and well-polished, the secrets buried deep underneath. Burton focuses particularly on the Brandts’ house where most of the action takes place. Artful Storytelling Just like her enigmatic miniaturist, Burton portrays a highly vivid image of the 17th-century Amsterdam, where accruing wealth is considered a virtue, an investment in the city’s prosperity, whereas, at the same time the Calvinist ministers condemn the city’s wealthy merchants for flaunting what their bulging bags of guilders can buy.
The Miniaturist is a true reading delight, well-structured, well-worded, with intriguing characters who go through a major metamorphosis by the time the novel reaches its thrilling denouement. The purpose of the gift is to distract curious Nella from focusing on her rather distant husband, but she sees it as ‘no more than an insult to her fragile status.’ It all begins like a naive child’s play, but it eventually turns into something rather ominous with disastrous consequences. Burton’s Petronella Oortman is an 18-year-old country girl, from an impoverished aristocratic family, married off to a wealthy merchant, who, instead of his affection, presents her with the minute replica of the house that she was brought to. Jessie Burton’s debut, The Miniaturist, derives inspiration from a 17th-century hobby for young wives, an ostentatious curiosity cabinet on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, that was built in the late 17th century, commissioned by Petronella Oortman, who wanted a replica of the luxurious townhouse in which she lived in the centre of Amsterdam.
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