Tulip Fever - Deborah Moggach

[nuttymum303]

In 1630s Amsterdam, fortunes were made and lost speculating on, of all things, tulip bulbs. In fact, comparisons are sometimes made between the Tulip Crash of 1637 and the stock market crash of 1929. Tulip Fever is an interesting book because of its unique and rather exotic setting, but, in the end, it is just another dull and trite story of seedy adultery.

 

Twenty-four year old Sophia is married to the hard-working, proud and pious sixty-one year old Cornelis Sandvoort. Although she has never really loved him, she does remain grateful to him for rescuing both her and her mother and sisters from a life of devastation and poverty. She thus submits to her husband's nightly advances, not with passion, but with a certain resignation and an air of obligation to provide him with a child. Trouble arrives when Cornelis decides to have Sophia's portrait painted (in a gorgeous Delft blue silk gown) by the young Jan Van Loos, a handsome and dashing artist.

While Sophia and Jan are attempting to sort out their difficulties with Cornelis, Sophia's maid, Maria, also runs into problems. The girlfriend of a fish seller, Willem, Maria now finds herself pregnant, and, of course, alone. Suffice it to say that a little blackmail ensues between the two women and Sophia ends up concocting a daring plan that involves an elaborate deception and wild tulip speculation. If it succeeds, great, but if it doesn't, only catastrophe will follow. The author does an excellent job of bringing seventeenth century Amsterdam and its citizens to life. Her details are rich, varied and vivid. History abounds in this novel but it never overwhelms it. In fact, I, myself, would have loved to have learned more about the tulip craze and what made people invest so heavily in something as mundane as an ordinary garden bulb. The short, succinct chapters are interspersed with reproductions of Northern European paintings and epigraphs from essays and literature of the period.

 

A great and good read

[Purple Poppy]

I'm reading The Coffee Trader, set in Amsterdam during the same period. You might like to read that for comparison. It's rich in history. There is more detail somewhere...can't remember which thread I put it on tho'

PP

[madcow]

Sounds interesting, just gonna add it to the list!

[Janet]

I've read one Deborah Moggach book - These Foolish Things. It couldn't be more different from the book you describe.

 

I really don't do historical books, but I may look out for this one in the charity shops. Thanks for the excellent review.