 Product Description
If you think you wouldn't raise your skirts for a rakish legend about the purifying powers of a unicorn's horn, then maybe you aren't a 15th-century serving girl under the sway of a velvet-tongued court painter of ill repute. In keeping with her bestselling Girl with a Pearl Earring, and its Edwardian-era follow-up, Falling Angels, Tracy Chevalier's tale of artistic creation and late-medieval amours, The Lady and the Unicorn is a subtle study in social power and the conflicts between love and duty. Nicolas des Innocents has been commissioned by the Parisian nobleman Jean Le Viste to design a series of large tapestries for his great hall (in real life, the famous Lady and the Unicorn cycle, now in Paris's Musee National du Moyen-Age Thermes de Cluny). While Nicolas is measuring the walls, he meets a beautiful girl who turns out to be Jean Le Viste's daughter. Their passion is impossible for their world--so forbidden, given their class differences, that its only avenue of expression turns out to be those magnificent tapestries. The historical evidence on which this story is based is slight enough to allow the full play of Chevalier's imagination in this cleverly woven tale. --Regina Marler, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews
enjoyable historical-modern mix, 06 Aug 2008
I picked this from the bookshelf unsure as to whether I would like - I don't tend to read many historical dramas - but was plesantly suprised.
I gave it four stars because I found the switch from modern to historical slightly implausible. Some reviewers didn't like it as a method - I didn't mind it as a method but I found the premise it was based on was slightly too-far fetched.
I enjoyed the story and I would class it as a thriller -I was gripped in many parts and felt I was educated about the Hugenots. Actually for me the historical drama was more entertaining than the modern day - I found Ella to be mildly annoying and I'm not really sure I 'cared' what happened to her.
I am now reading The Girl with the Pearl Earring so haven't been put off Chevalier as an author, but I wouldn't say she was up there as a favourite (well unless The Girl gets better -finding it a bit plodding...)
Far inferior to Girl with a Pearl Earring, 14 Jul 2008
I am a newcomer to Tracey Chevalier, having read Girl with a Pearl Earring a few weeks ago! Absolutely loved it and couldn't wait to read more from Chevalier. Virgin Blue was the next one I picked up but I have to say, I was very disappointed. Wheareas Girl.. really stood out as an outstanding novel, Virgin Blue was very average. I didn't feel the characters were portrayed as strongly as they should have been and I ended up sympathising with the wrong people i.e I had more sympathy for Rick than Ella and Jean Pierre. Their love story had nothing to it at all and Ella just came across as a bit wet and contrary. The story set in the past had more promise but came to a bit of nothing in the end. As I loved Girl... so much, I am determined to persevere and read more from this author. Hopefully this book was inferior simply because it was the first. However, if this had been the first I had read, I probably wouldn't have bothered to read any more.
A good story, 05 Mar 2008
I enjoyed this book. I liked the two stories and how they were interwoven with history. The book carried a lot of personal resonance as I recently had a child with a midwife and am an American in Europe. Ella Turner's character did disappoint me as her internal thoughts were more British than American. For example, American women don't "get on with it". That sort of expression or way of dealing with life doesn't enter their mindset - but Ella Turner's character said this on one or more occassion as a way of dismissing her thoughts. It just didn't jar with the character's culture. I think that Ella Turner could have been better researched, to give her a more American attitude, and written out for this reason instead of just being given what someone who is writing an American woman assumes they think like a British woman. Also, not all Americans are obsessed with their ancestory!
Not so good!, 02 Feb 2008
I'm really surprised to read previous reviews. I found the characters very superficial. Ella is a very annoying person, the love story doesn't make sense and the historical events are completely disconnected with the present. Ella had an urge to find out about her ancestors, and this is where the past comes in, but the book ends up not making any emotional connections, which was a very big dissappiontment to me. Also, the language is very tacky that it takes me out of the story mood! Its good enough entertainment for a long trip, but doesn't offer more than that.
Captivating, 18 Aug 2007
France - the mid 1500's during the Protestant Reformation. A story of a girl called Isabelle who is nicknamed La Rousse after the Virgin Mary. Her nickname soon loses it's affection when a Calvinistic preacher arrives in the village a few years later, to preach 'The Truth'.
France - the present day. American Ella Turner is trying to fit into the village her and her husband have moved to with his job. Whilst her husband is busy working, Ella goes in search of her ancestors the Tourniers.
The author alternates between the two story lines although it is clear that they are inextricably linked. The writing style is very fluent, written in both the first and third person, slipping easily between them both.
A book that draws you in further with every page. Although I had already guessed the outcome, I found myself almost racing to get to the end such is the tension evoked as the book comes to it's conclusion. Chevalier manages this not only with the characters, especially Isabella, but by replacing the alternating chapters with alternating paragraphs, forcing a quickening pace.
Dissapointing, 25 Jul 2008
I consider myself a big fan of Girl With A Pearl Earring and so decided to read The Lady And The Unicorn as it covers more or less the same ground but with a different work of art... needless to say I was simply dissapointed. I am not a prude but I do feel that the books revolves far too much about the sexual relations of its protagonist with, well, pretty much every woman in the book - it's far too sexually graphic for my taste and I had to force myself to keep reading it. Truly a missed book in my eyes.
A TAPESTRY OF MEDIEVAL LIFE AND ART..., 19 Jun 2008
Once again, Tracy Chevalier, author of a number of well-written works of historical fiction, lets her imagination run wild, weaving her story around another actual work of art. In this book, the author builds her story around the series of medieval tapestries known as "The Lady and the Unicorn", currently hanging in a museum in France, creating a work of historical fiction that is somewhat interesting and moderately enjoyable. Although not as well written as her best selling novel, "Girl with a Pearl Earring", or even her debut novel, "The Virgin Blue", those who like their historical fiction with some romantic overtones will be pleased with the author's efforts.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, a talented, handsome, and cocky painter, Nicolas des Innocents, is commissioned to design and paint scenes depicting the Battle of Nancy for a series of tapestries. His paintings would then be enlarged in preparation for having the images woven into tapestries by a master weaver in Brussels. The commission is given to Nicholas by a prominent French nobleman, Jean Le Viste, a cold man who is given to self-importance and wishes to memorialize his status, as his star is on the ascendancy in the Royal Court.
Nicolas soon discovers, however, that it was Jean Le Viste's wife, Genevieve de Nanterre, who suggested him for the commission. She lets him know, however, that she does not wish for the tapestries to depict the Battle of Nancy but, rather, scenes of a lady and a unicorn. Genevieve de Nanterre, a pious and unhappily married woman, leaves it to him to convince her husband that this new idea should replace the Battle of Nancy as the subject of the tapestries. Nicolas manages to do this, and so it begins.
Nicolas is not only a fine painter but also a confirmed lothario who falls for Le Viste's daughter, a beautiful teenager named Claude. Of course, Nicholas has already dallied with Marie-Celeste, one of the household's maids with the usual, not unexpected, result, a fact that will eventually lead to some serious personal consequences for him. Meanwhile, Genevieve de Nanterre, who would rather be a nun than married to Jean Le Viste, discovers that her daughter reciprocates the painter's passion. Claude is ultimately shipped off to a nunnery to repent for her sins and to remain chaste until a suitable betrothal may be made for her. Genevieve's motives in doing so, however, are not wholly altruistic.
Eventually, Nicholas travels to the workshop of master weaver Georges de la Chappelle, who has been selected to convert the paintings to tapestries. Nicholas meets with cartoonist, Philippe de la Tour, to ensure that the tapestries stay true to his paintings and that the process of enlarging them does not substantively change his seductive design. Of course, his stay in Brussels is made more pleasant by the fact that Georges de la Chappelle has a lovely daughter named Alienor, who is ripe for the picking. Unfortunately, her father, for business reasons, wishes to marry her off to the local tanner, a smelly brute whose noxious scent is a result of an expected occupational hazard. Unbeknownst to them all, however, Alienor has a secret admirer, whose love will eventually make right all that goes wrong.
This is a mildly entertaining novel in which the underlying theme is seduction. The tale is told from the perspectives of each of the main characters through individual first person narratives. The lives of some of them become intertwined, because Nicolas des Innocents has come into contact with them. The story describes their lives and loves, as well as the impact that their lives have on the actual tapestries. The novel also gives a good deal of interesting information on the weavers' guild of the time and its practices, as well as information on the painstaking art of weaving high quality tapestries, such as that of "The Lady and the Unicorn".
very disappointing, 07 Mar 2008
I bought this on the basis of the positive reviews. Clearly loads of people love it so perhaps you will too, but I suggest you think twice if you prefer classic or challenging fiction. This is very light, using titillation where serious character development is lacking. Fine as far as it goes; sadly in my opinion that's just not far. I find Sarah Dunant's fiction is along similar lines, with the same mild erotic element, but of higher quality.
do not read in a bus, you can easily miss your stop!, 08 Feb 2008
Very absorbing book, could not put it down. Similarly to Girl with a Pearl Earing, relatively thin book provides a big story. Tracy Chevalier leads you to unexpected but how smartly thought through situations! Really made me think and perceive many aspects of surrounding differently. Highly recommended, brilliant book.
A Real Page-Turner, 01 Feb 2008
I loved this book, far better in my opinion than 'The Girl with the Pearl Earring'. The way the author weaves her story around The Unicorn Tapestries is both fascinating and I found the novel to be very, very addictive. Throughout the story the reader is allowed a personal insight into the thoughts of each of the main characters and this coupled with the historical detail of one aspect of life in fifteenth century Paris and Brussels made for a satifying and exceptional read.
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