'The Miniaturist,' by Jessie Burton: review
Entertainment // Books
Elizabeth Rosner
Dec. 10, 2014 Updated: Dec. 11, 2014 2:27 p.m.
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Set in 17th century Amsterdam, during the height of the Dutch Golden Age, Jessie Burton's exquisitely crafted first novel, "The Miniaturist," has already topped best-seller charts in her native Britain and promises to do the same elsewhere. In fact, its contemporary international reach will extend far beyond the seemingly limitless boundaries of its historical source, a time when the Dutch Empire was the foremost maritime and economic power in the world.
"The Miniaturist" features a lushly textured portrait of a period and a place, while serving up a dramatic centerpiece full of secrets and power struggles. Its scope is vast, even though its most remarkable creations can be held in the palm of a woman's hand. Other writers have fluently mapped the territories of the Dutch monopoly of the spice trade, the work of the old masters, and, of course, tulip mania; this story takes on issues of race, class and sex within the domestic arena, with a fascinating study of interior life at its most enigmatic.
Inspired by a visit to the Rijksmuseum, where she saw an intricately appointed 17th century dollhouse belonging to Petronella Oortman, Burton poses her young protagonist in a love-hate relationship with this real-life object, constructing the multilayered world-within-world of the novel. We first meet 18-year-old Nella, newly married to the successful and remote Johannes Brandt, upon her arrival at his home in Amsterdam. Tangled in a puzzling web of family dysfunction, she is given a cabinet-size replica of their own grand townhouse, and invited to decorate it as a form of entertainment and distraction.
Her disappointment at being neglected by her merchant-husband is further compounded by a judgmental sister-in-law and an oppressive social atmosphere. When a miniaturist hired to create both furnishings and characters for the dollhouse goes from artistic imitation to clairvoyant prefiguration, Nella's worlds begin to collide. The disturbing truths that have been carefully hidden behind walls and locked doors slowly begin to reveal themselves.
Burton's own imagistic artistry deserves special mention. She not only enlivens each moment with sensory vitality but also makes brilliant use of motifs that serve the narrative as a whole. Here is Nella's surreptitious visit to her sister-in-law's private space, "nun-small" yet filled with exotic objects from floor to ceiling. "The room is full of smells. The strongest is of nutmeg, but there is also a sandalwood tang, and clove and pepper imbuing the very walls, scents of heat and warning. ... Beetle carapaces, shiny as coffee beans, iridescent in the light, glow black with a tinge of red. An upturned tortoise shell rocks gently at her touch. Dried plants and berries, seed pods, seeds themselves — the source of these intoxicating scents — are everywhere. This room is not from Amsterdam, though it shows an Amsterdammer's drive for acquisition. This is the republic's reach, in four small walls."
One of the greatest achievements of this ambitious novel has to do with its simultaneous focus on intimate detail and universal observation. The characters wrestle with inner demons at the same time that they are engaged in a battle for physical and cultural survival; personal betrayals and redemptions reflect large-scale conquests in commerce and ideology. We even get a glimpse of the Dutch East India Company as the first-ever multinational corporation, financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange. As Johannes explains to his wife when she asks if they are rich: "You cannot really touch my wealth, Nella. It is in the air, swelling, diminishing. Growing again. The things it buys are solid but you can put your hand through it like a cloud."
When Calvinist values of austerity are juxtaposed against the opulence gained by colonial treasure hunting, sugar becomes more than a commodity: It's a symbol for self-indulgence and unrepressed pleasure. There are parallels in sexuality, of course: So-called vices of the body threaten to undermine the careful taming of a passion-driven nature. Burton is able to include all of these themes while keeping her gaze on many of the daily ways that men and women see and yet do not see each other. Petronella's dollhouse is a representation of the intricacies and mysteries of anyone's disguised inner life: the naked skin hidden beneath clothing, the heart hidden inside the cage of the ribs.
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Ultimately, the novelist who created "The Miniaturist" includes an echo of herself among these pages, subtly and masterfully: "In showing me my own story, [Nella] thinks, the miniaturist has become the author of it." Readers of this intricate and imaginative novel will very likely discover their own reflections in its mirrors, too.
Elizabeth Rosner's third novel, "Electric City," was published in October by Counterpoint Press. E-mail: books@sfchronicle.com
The Miniaturist
By Jessie Burton
(Ecco; 400 pages; $26.99)