The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
A Historical Novel by Author of The Girl with the Pearl Earring
Nov 13, 2008
Tracy Chevalier opens her novel The Virgin Blue with a quote from Goethe. The quote posits that yellow is a color of light but that blue always brings an element of darkness with it. Goethe feels that it is a peculiar and powerful color that is like a “stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.” The idea of blue as a color of darkness is an important idea to remember in the novel.
Interwoven Stories
The story is that of two women, Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin, who are separated by decades but are drawn together by a mysterious family secret. The story opens four-hundred years ago with a statue of the Virgin and Child being placed in its niche in the church of a small village. The child, Isabelle, watches as the painter prepares the niche by painting it a deep blue and then places the statue in it. As the setting sun touches young Isabelle’s hair it turns a coppery red and she received the nickname La Rousse after the Virgin Mary.
A few years later a minister comes to Isabelle’s village preaching the Bible and the ideas of John Calvin. As a result, what once conferred honor on Isabelle becomes a thing of danger and sorrow. The opening chapter of the book ends with the birth of Isabelle’s third child a girl who she names Marie in honor of the Virgin to whom she had asked to give her a girl.
The second chapter of the book introduces us to the modern woman named Ella Turner who moved to France from California with her husband Rick. Ella looks forward to living in France, the home of her ancestors. Where she hopes to refresh her knowledge of the language and study her ancestry. However, it doesn’t take long for her become disenchanted with her temporary home because she finds that the French are neither friendly nor welcoming.
Soon her discontent grows as she begins to lose sleep due to a frightening dream that she describes as being like “movement between dark and light. It wasn’t black, it wasn’t white, it was blue. I was dreaming in blue.” Her dream ends with a resounding boom and the blue color was replaced with an impenetrable black.
A Child
Children form an important and constant theme in this story. The loss of children and the light of children are interwoven in the lives of both Ella and Isabelle. The stories of the two women are drawn together by the life and death of Isabelle’s daughter Marie. Isabelle’s child is lost to her and is found decades later by Ella after intense research on Ella’s part; research that propels Ella away from her husband into the arms of a musician, historian, and librarian named Jean-Paul who helps her find the truth of her family.
Closure
The ancient story is beautifully written and the reader genuinely feels the religious struggles and heartache of Isabelle. Chevalier seems to have captured the hopelessness of the lives that many people find themselves trapped in four hundred years ago or even today.
However, despite the emotional authenticity of Isabelle’s story, Chevalier seems intent on claiming that the story finds its true closure when Ella chooses to remain in France, write a history of what she learned about Isabelle, have her baby, and live with her new lover. It is as if, while she is able to write a story of true hopelessness for Isabelle, Chevalier can’t help conjuring up a fairy tale ending for her ruthless, selfish, ‘modern’ heroine. The lack of consequences for Ella’s selfish and even immoral behavior spreads like a bloody stain across the beautiful and evocative writing of Chevalier.
Chevalier, Tracy. The Virgin Blue. Plume. 2003. 978-0452284449
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