The Virgin Blue is probably the most colorful book I have ever read. The first of Tracy Chevalier's novels it is definitely well done and researched. The thing I loved the most about The Virgin Blue was the way Chevalier let you into the lives of her characters. When you read the story you are not told what the characters are thinking or what their next move will be. Instead you move along with their thoughts and actions as you read first hand what they are thinking and how they decide to act upon their thoughts.
The Virgin Blue weaves between two women in two different places in time. Ella Turner is a present day American woman who just moved to France with her husband. You follow her search for her French ancestor and her personal search for herself. Isabelle du Molin is Turner's 16th century ancestor living in the same region of France during the uprisings that followed Protestantism.
Haunted by strange dreams Ella eventually uncovers a family secret that gives you goose bumps, but for all reasons is believable. I love this book for so many reasons, the main one being that it does not have that all is well that ends well cliche attached to it. Honestly, the story does not give you happy feelings at all, but the characters are still able to find peace and that in itself is amazing.
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Comments: 12
What did you think about Ella? Did you like her? I'm wondering where the difference comes from between mye really disliking the character and the story and someone who really loved this book. What do you think?
Funny that you mention you hated the book. I picked up the book from my roommate who had to read it for a class, she hated it to.
I, though, love this book. The two characters is one of my favorite aspects of the book. I do not think the story would be complete without Ella in it. I see it as showing how two women from two different cultures and societies relate to their husbands and deal with their relationships. The issues they are dealing with run parallel to each other but they choose different paths at the end.
Ella did not leave her husband because of her skin condition, that was just a phsyical aspect of the relationship. There are several glimpses into the way the two of them as a couple drift apart, he is no longer to relate to her. In a simpler sense its like talking to someone on the phone and they kep saying uh-huh even though you are asking them for a direct answer, they arent listening, youve lost their attention. Many couples go through this type of thing and Ella feels as though her husbands life is moving along while hers has stopped, he never stops to pick her up he just keeps going.
What I like the most about that aspect of Ella's life being included in the story is that it kind of mimics Isabelle's relationship with her husband, she too is just going through the actions of living in her husbands wake. But I like the way Isabelle is able to understand her husbands motives and actions and that Chevalier lets us read her thoughts in this respect.
We only know that Isabelle obeyed her husband, she really did have no other choice. The epilogue left us with "Isabelle has three choices......" I like to think that she left her husband. In Ella's case we know what she did, she made a choice.
Granted, it is not the choice I would make but I understand the "modern" woman in her that decided she had to look to herself first. If it was me I wuold've worked harder on the realtionship.
And Heidi, I understand that creepy feeling. I think I dropped the book when I realized the family secret. Yikes!