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A review by imaginarymeetings
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
4.0
I absolutely loved Burton's rich descriptions of 17th century Amsterdam with all its people, smells, details and the food that was around at that time. No problem imagining those scenes, they even made me hungry at times. Nella and the people around her (except maybe for Agnes) seemed believable enough for me to get into that state of mind where I temporarily forget that I'm being annoyed with people who are not around. Always a compliment to the author, that is. I also sometimes found myself comparing Nella Oortman to Heidi, also a story about the country girl who reluctantly comes to the big city and through great difficulty tries to work her way through her unhappiness, even though she is surrounded by wealth. A turnip in tulip soil, but was it really only Nella who was the turnip in this book? Also, I liked the clever plot twists.
SPOILER ALERT
However, the ending left me both dumbstruck and slightly disappointed. I really REALLY badly wanted to know who the miniaturist was. Her father's description was not satisfying, although it was a good effort to try to tie some loose strings together whilst preserving the air of mystery that surrounded her. I also secretly hoped that there would be a different ending than the one both described and foreseen, but as the amount of remaining pages shrunk and the story didn't seem to get anywhere different, my hopes dwindled to nothing.
Somewhere after Johannes' sentence, I almost thought that the miniaturist would show up as a Deus Ex Machina, solving everything and explaining the state of affairs to the crowd. But no, of course not. My imagination wants her to haunt Jack and the Meermanses with her eerie miniatures forever for their greed and hypocrisy.
So in my somewhat awestruck and distressed state after finishing this book, I had to look up the real Petronella Brandt née Oortman. A TOTALLY different story. People who, like me, loved everything about The Miniaturist except for the ending might find some kind of satisfaction in reading it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronella_Oortman
https://www.bookish.com/articles/jessie-burton-on-petronella-oortman-and-her-beautiful-cabinet-house/
SPOILER ALERT
However, the ending left me both dumbstruck and slightly disappointed. I really REALLY badly wanted to know who the miniaturist was. Her father's description was not satisfying, although it was a good effort to try to tie some loose strings together whilst preserving the air of mystery that surrounded her. I also secretly hoped that there would be a different ending than the one both described and foreseen, but as the amount of remaining pages shrunk and the story didn't seem to get anywhere different, my hopes dwindled to nothing.
Somewhere after Johannes' sentence, I almost thought that the miniaturist would show up as a Deus Ex Machina, solving everything and explaining the state of affairs to the crowd. But no, of course not. My imagination wants her to haunt Jack and the Meermanses with her eerie miniatures forever for their greed and hypocrisy.
So in my somewhat awestruck and distressed state after finishing this book, I had to look up the real Petronella Brandt née Oortman. A TOTALLY different story. People who, like me, loved everything about The Miniaturist except for the ending might find some kind of satisfaction in reading it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronella_Oortman
https://www.bookish.com/articles/jessie-burton-on-petronella-oortman-and-her-beautiful-cabinet-house/