Monday, January 07, 2013

For the TBR Pile Challenge: Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn

Entry in the 2013 TBR Pile Challenge:  #1 out of 12

Years on TBR: 9

Edition owned: HarperCollins UK, 2003 (hb, 279pp).

Now you'll know why I picked Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn as one of my choices for the TBR Challenge.  It's been sitting on my shelves for over nine years - which is unconscionable!  My copy is a first edition UK hardcover, too, which makes a strong argument in favor of physical books.  It's simply stunning, from the cover painting to the endpapers and back jacket, which reproduce five of the six Lady and the Unicorn tapestries now housed in the Musée de Cluny.  I had the opportunity to view them in the mid-1980s, when I traveled to Paris with my high school French class, and went back to view them during a term abroad in college.

The novel imagines the circumstances surrounding the tapestries' creation, from the original, groundbreaking design for the "cartoons" (the paintings used as their blueprints) through their weaving at a Brussels studio and their return and display in the Grand Salle of the Parisian home of Jean Le Viste, who commissioned them.  The book's focus is as much on the individuals involved in the process and whose lives were affected by them, though. The tapestries were a collaborative effort, and the book's structure reflects and emphasizes this; the viewpoint switches back and forth among seven people.

In Paris in 1490, wealthy nobleman Jean Le Viste, eager to impress his king and enhance his status, wants to commission tapestries depicting the Battle of Nancy.  Upon hearing this, Nicolas des Innocents gets slightly panicked, since he doubts his ability to do his patron's ideas justice. His talent is in painting miniatures of court ladies, not large horses and bloody battle scenes.

Fortunately, he finds a way (following subtle suggestions from the women of the house) of persuading Le Viste toward a more appropriate subject.  And so the concept of the "lady and the unicorn" tapestries goes forward.  Georges de la Chapelle, over in Brussels, is selected as the weaver.  My favorite aspect of the novel was how it brought me into his busy workshop, observing the long, intricate, painstaking process by which the pieces were woven and noting the symbolism that went into each of the six designs.

Nicolas is a cheeky, arrogant young man who enjoys seducing women as much as painting them, but Le Viste's wife, Geneviève de Nanterre, presciently sees his ability to capture women's spiritual nature in his work.  Despite his bad reputation, both Claude Le Viste, her eldest daughter, and Aliénor de la Chapelle, the blind daughter of the family of Flemish weavers, find him irresistible.  Nicolas is trouble, and it's fun to see his antics in action.  Like the unicorn in his designs, he finds himself caught in the ladies' web. Other reviewers have called this novel romantic, but I'd only call it such in the sense of courtly love, with its yearning for the unattainable.

Tracy Chevalier's clear prose doesn't call attention to itself. There's nothing flashy about her writing; rather, it burns with a warm, steady glow that illuminates the era and her characters.  And as with the "millefleurs" carefully selected by Aliénor from her garden to include in the tapestries' backgrounds, this novel is full of important tidbits on topics such as late medieval artisanship, women's restrictive lives, and the intersections between them (women weren't allowed to do any actual weaving, lest their husbands and fathers lose their guild membership).  Although I didn't find the underlying storyline especially unique, these little details make the novel shine. 

12 comments:

  1. Lovely review, Sarah. I read this one several years ago and your review has reminded me of why I enjoyed it.

    Doesn't it feel nice to check some novels off your TBR list, especially if they'd been there a long time? I admit to having a couple books that have been sitting on shelf for at least nine years, too.

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    1. Yes, it does! I seriously needed to do this challenge... I can get distracted by the new and shiny. I've read Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Virgin Blue, but Falling Angels has been on the TBR even longer. I have a whole room full of these older unread books (sigh).

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  2. Man, to know how long many years a book has been on your TBR. I really wish I was that organized! I am sure there are books that are that old and older on there, though. This one, for example. I can't remember the last time I read something by her. (Her newest book looks good.)

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    1. I thought it might be fun to include that little bit of info. This one was easy to remember because it came out in 2003 and I bought it new. It'll be a guess for many of the others I review for the challenge! Her new book looks excellent. I was hoping a review copy might show up in the mail, but so far, nope, so I'll either request one or buy it. Or read it from a library copy because we'll undoubtedly be getting it. The last one I read of hers was Pearl Earring, which was well over a decade ago.

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    2. I also really enjoyed Remarkable Creatures, which I believe was her last novel? Two very strong, distinct voices in that one, and such an interesting subject.

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    3. I should read Remarkable Creatures soon. It has the same subject as another book I reviewed last year (Joan Thomas's Curiosity), in one of those odd coincidences - they came out at the same time - so I wanted my memory of the other book to fade somewhat before starting the Chevalier. I understand the approach she took is very different.

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  3. I've read two of her books but this one is a new one for me!

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    1. I really ought to catch up more with her work! There are a few others I haven't read yet.

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  4. I felt the same way, that it was the little details that really make this novel. Despite Nicholas and his somewhat questionable morals, he was an engaging narrator and I appreciated how the women in the story held their own against him.

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    1. Questionable morals, that's a good way of putting it! I'm not sure I liked him, but he was definitely entertaining.

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  5. I read this when it came out. Unlike Girl With the Pearl Earring, nothing about it has stuck with me. When I read what you say about it these things come back, but in the sense that scenes of Girl -- particularly the butcher shop and others -- nothing in this book did. Eeek.

    Love, C.

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    1. I wonder how memorable this one will be. For me the storyline didn't have the same intensity as Girl with a Pearl Earring did (and I still remember scenes from it, as well as the last line, over 10 years later).

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