Uncomfortable Reading

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It is impossible to read 'The Miniaturist' without out at times feeling trapped inside a dolls house - part enchanted, part stifled part panicky. Jessie Burton creates this effect by bringing to life every detail of the repressed, vindictive, hypocritical and greedy world of seventeenth century Amsterdam, when the exotic possibilities of the outside world were clashing with draconian religious and social practises of the old European order. Our hearts go out to Nella, the innocent eighteen year old bride of a wealthy merchant, who places her in his austere grand home like a doll in a dolls house and then leaves her to sink or swim on her own. To ram home the metaphor (at times a tad too heavily, I felt), the merchant gives Nella a dolls house as her 'wedding gift' which she gradually fills with the help of a mysterious 'miniaturist' (aka:someone who makes small objects and figures) who seems to know more about Nella's strange new life than Nella herself.

For a while, the exploits of the miniaturist are so uncanny that I thought the novel was going to turn into a sort of historical whodunnit. I couldn't help wondering if Jessica Burton had thought so too during the course of writing her story. But after teetering on the edge of such possibilities the novel asserts a more conventional plot denouement, compellingly and movingly told to the last word. Nella and those closest to her endure the most terrible losses and suffering, but glimmers of hope emerge, in the form of a baby (always a cheery promise for the future!) and the blossoming of Nella herself into a true and formidable woman, more than capable of surviving and taking on the world.



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