Ms. Hen reviews The Miniaturist

Ms. Hen with the doll's house at the Museum of Fine Arts

The Miniaturist

Jessie Burton

Harper Collins

2014

Ms. Hen first learned about this novel through the PBS miniseries. She didn’t watch the whole thing, she only watched a few minutes of it. She doesn’t have patience to watch a TV show when it’s on TV; she prefers to watch it on her own time. She went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston shortly after the show was aired, and in the Dutch 17^th century room, there was a doll’s house similar to the one on the show. The house is a perfect tiny piece of art, and it looks like everything inside is real: real dishes, real vases, tiny beds and chairs; it’s so adorable that Ms. Hen can gaze at it for a long time. She went back to the museum as she was reading the novel to inspect it further and take a picture with Ms. Hen.

She decided to read the novel because she wants to learn about that time period, which is the same as another novel she read recently, TULIP FEVER. But she thinks THE MINIATURIST is superior. It’s better written; it’s not written in a thriller type of style, and it’s full of surprises.

Petronella comes to live in her husband, Johaness’ house with his sister and his two servants. They were married in her town, and they did not consummate their marriage when they were wed. She wonders if he does not love her, or something is wrong because when she moves into his house, he continues to treat her with indifference. She married him because her family is poor, and she needs to survive. His sister, Marin, is domineering and cruel to her at first.  Johaness buys her a cabinet house as a wedding gift, which is expensive. It has tiny rooms that are an exact replica of their house.

At first, Nella hates the cabinet house. She would prefer his love rather than receive gifts from him. She does not know what to do. She hires a miniaturist to furnish the house, and she becomes frightened by the objects that are delivered. She becomes friends with Cornelia, the maid, and is fascinated by Otto, the manservant who is a black man. There are no people of color in Amsterdam at that time. People stop and stare at him in the street. Nella doesn’t like how they stare.

This novel shocked Ms. Hen, then it continued to shock her. She knew something creepy would happen, then creepier things kept happening. In this way, it reminded her a lot of a novel she read recently, FROG MUSIC, by Emma Donahue, which was also historical fiction, about San Francisco in the 1800s. Ms. Hen thinks the style in which THE MINIATURIST is written is admirable; the writing is excellent, the pacing is well done, and it did not cease to surprise her. She likes to be surprised by what she reads, because she prefers not knowing what is going to happen. The ending of the novel is not as exciting as the rest, but it is like life, it continues on. A quality novel shouldn’t have an ending; it should be realistic, a line which does not end. Ms. Hen doesn’t like to spoil things, and she doesn’t think this is a spoiler.

Ms. Hen adored THE MINIATURIST. It is a perfect winter novel, because it takes place in winter in Amsterdam, and the descriptions of the frozen canals are lovely. She enjoyed being taken away to a different time by a novel written in a way that would not have been written in the time it took place. But that doesn’t mean situations similar to this would not occur. Bizarre things have always taken place, in every point in history. Civilization can demented, and the more advanced we become the stranger the world gets.