Why the camera obscura*?
It plays such an important part, lending all sorts of ideas about technology and foreshadowing what’s to come. *For more information on the camera obscura, visit the book’s website at www.pearlearring.com. The camera obscura is a tangible representation of a different way of looking. Griet has the capacity to look in a different way, but she needs Vermeer to show her how. He does that partly with the help of the camera obscura. It also reminds us that in order to see clearly you have to focus, shut out the world and look at one corner of a room. That is what Vermeer’s paintings do they reveal the world in a room. That is also what the novel tries to do it is deliberately narrow and focused, and in it is a whole world. What’s next? Are you ready to work on another historical novel? Yes. The next novel is set in a Victorian cemetery in London at the turn of the century and up through World War I. It’s about two girls whose families have adjacent plots at the cemetery, and the apprentice
