Book Review: Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead

A Da Vinci Code for kids? Actually Chasing Vermeer is far better and accurate than The Da Vinci Code. Mystery and secrets surround the work of the great painter Johannes Vermeer. Around an art theft, a painting by Vermeer called A Lady Writing, Blue Balliett twines patterns, puzzles, blue M & Ms, coincidences, secret letters, and codes. Into this mix she throws a couple of intelligent, curious and "weird" kids — Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee. Then just to notch it up a bit more on the intelligence quotient, Balliett arranges the narrative and the clues around pentominoes (a mathematical tool consisting of twelve pieces used by mathematicians to explore ideas about geometry and numbers. Pentominoes can also be used as puzzle pieces, akin to Tetris, and put together in numerous different rectangles). And then, she encourages her young (and old) readers to hunt for the clues, and use their creativity and logic to solve the mystery in the book.

Eleven-year-olds Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee, both in sixth-grade, are a little "weird." They are both unusually intelligent and curious. They come from eccentric families and have unique hobbies. Petra is quirky with a deep interest in writing and art. Calder is excellent at patterning and compulsively fidgets with the pentominoes he carries with him at all times. Both are receptive to the idea that is one of the themes of this book, that apparent coincidences are not always coincidental.

The mystery in Chasing Vermeer is set into motion when Ms. Hussey, their teacher (who herself is very "non-conventional"), as a part of learning communication, takes her class to an art museum to look for paintings that may possibly contain some messages. Soon a chain of coincidences and various unexplained happenings in Calder's and Petra's lives begin piling up. The two feel that all the strange happenings seem in some way connected with the painter Vermeer. Three mysterious letters show up in their neighborhood, a scrap of which happens to fall in their hands. Soon the two have enough of these coincidences to believe that Vermeer's painting, A Lady Writing, will be stolen. When it is indeed stolen, Calder and Petra team together and try to solve the crime. The two use their intelligence to try to fit the unexplainable occurrences and coincidences together. Blue Balliett enjoys playing with the coincidences, both believable and implausible. The theme of chance and coincidence is weaved cleverly through the novel.

In Chasing Vermeer the illustrator, Brett Helquist (who has illustrated Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events), includes an illustration in each chapter. Some of these, in conjunction with the story in the chapter, have a clue in it. Readers, If they find the clues, can have a crack at the mystery along with Calder and Petra. The hidden clues are fun to figure out and really tough to work out. But along with the quirky plot and the wonderful characters, it is these "puzzles" that keep the reader interested in the story and succeed in making the book interactive.

Soon however Calder and Petra come to realize that it is not intellect alone that they have to use to find the thief (who soon enough threatens to destroy the painting if his/her demands are not met) but also bring their imaginations and intuitions to the task. Petra then finds herself communicating in her dreams with the lady in the missing Vermeer painting. Calder finds that his pentominoes give him hints.

It is at this point that Chasing Vermeer and its initial promise begin to crumble away. I had picked up the book from my library intrigued by the possibility of a different an intelligent children's book. The blurb and the introduction to the book by the author, led me to believe that I was going to read something clean and logical. But when the mystery is solved primarily by some very nebulous "feelings" and really farfetched coincidences, it began to feel like a betrayal. The problem is solved not so much by logic but by implausible mental leaps and some supernatural help. It is then that you find the narrative structure of the pentominoes and interspersion of clues within the book for the reader very forced and artificial. A mystery, too me, needs to be tight and offer all clues to the readers so that they too can have a chance to solve it. If a book offers to organize the clues around a pattern of pentominoes and then sneaks in a bit of hocus pocus it feels like the author is taking too many liberties with both the story and the reader. Things are often connected in ways by Balliett that no reader can fathom. It is the way the mystery is solved that makes a largely interesting book disappointing in the end.

Having said that, Chasing Vermeer still has much going for it: charming and likeable characters, Brett Helquist's magnificent illustrations, and the weaving of codes and clues through Calder's pentominoes. I am sure the book does succeed in one of its stated aims — to get children to think about art (the book also includes two reprints of Vermeer's paintings) as something cool and relevant to their lives. Even for a jaded and cynical adult, the book did a good job in piquing my interest in puzzles, art and art history (at least enough to spend half a day in reading numerous articles on Vermeer and Pentominoes). Readers will have no problem in going along the journey with Petra and Calder and make an enthusiastic attempt to decode messages in the book. If only the book and Balliett had delivered entirely on its intriguing premise Chasing Vermeer would have been both a different and a thoroughly intelligent book. It however delivers only half the promise. Considering however the kind of books dominating the children's book scene these days that half promise still isn’t half bad.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Code-Coolie/Call-Center Executive?

[. . .] many contemporary writers are notably silent about a key area of our lives: our work. If a proverbial alien landed on earth and tried to figure out what human beings did with their time simply on the evidence of the literature sections of a typical bookstore, he or she would come away thinking that we devote ourselves almost exclusively to leading complex relationships, squabbling with our parents, and occasionally murdering people. What is too often missing is what we really get up to outside of catching up on sleep, which is going to work at the office, store, or factory.

Alain de Botton argues the time is ripe for for an ambitious new "literature of the office."

Meanwhile I'll ask my colleagues if anybody has given a thought to describing the life and times of an instructional designer.

Fifty-Two Stories

Short stories lacking coverage? The genre dying out? Not yet. The folks at Harper Perennial are celebrating the short story by sharing a new one every week this year on Fifty-Two Stories — some classics from established authors, some new stories from relatively unknowns. Over the last few weeks they have published pieces from Mary Gaitskill, Louise Erdrich, Willa Cather, and others.

Check out Fifty-Two Stories if you would like a quick dip in some fiction of the short variety. It's free.

World War II — Simplified

and comic.

Never Judge a Book by its Cover?

30 novels worth buying for the cover alone.

Oh Christ ... I Couldn't Care Less

Doris Lessing on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.

More here.

If you had a Time Machine . . .

What literary era would you travel back to?

My problem: I prefer the postmodern.

Benares Vignettes: Religious Art

Note: Click the picture to open a larger image.

I noticed this painted on a wall next to a small restaurant in Benares. The restaurant is very close to the Kal-Bhairav temple, actually a stone's throw away — if one throws in the right direction and makes the stone take a couple of turns around tight corners in the narrow alleys that lead to the temple.

Back to the painting: I have tried fathoming what it was that the artist was trying to convey. But it's umm. . . well I found it a bit diffcult to stop smirking horribly and laughing when I saw the painting for the first time much to the chagrin of my friend.

A week and some days later, I may no longer laugh but the grin persists.

What do you think?

Wordsworth's Daffodils as a Rap Song

Two hundred years after its publication, Wordsworth's Daffodils has been "updated" a bit and given a 21st century upgrade with a pop video and rap version.

Read by a zany red squirrel in a series of dramatic mountain and lakeside locations, the hip take on the 24 lines of verse aims to lure more young people to the national park this summer.

Bouncing past tearooms and hotel discos, as well as the bay on Ullswater where the poem was inspired, the rapping rodent - a local busker in red fur - marks the bicentenary of the poem's publication.

Listen to the Daffodils rap and watch the video here.

And Thus it Begins . . .

Image From: The Leaky Cauldron

The cover artwork of the seventh Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, is released.

And of course the cover art has summaries.

Time for Potter-maniacs to go crazy. The insanity that whips itself around this series (with all of us doing our little bit to add to it) is simply amazing.

I am already looking forward to nice long discussions with a couple of fellow potter fans during chai-time (and some over IM) in office tomorrow.

Looking to read more on Harry Potter? Click here.

Running the Numbers — An American Self-Portrait

A series of large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs that look at contemporary American culture through statistics. Each print portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption), 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, $12.5 million spent every hour on the Iraq war, and so on.

Chris Jordan is the artist behind this project that visually depicts these vast and bizarre measures of the American society.

I wonder if any artist is up for doing a similar series on Indian society and culture. Imagine images of: Number of people traveling in Mumbai locals during peak hours, the amount of garbage that we throw on the streets every hour, or the number of new cell phone connections everyday.


Via: Vidyut Sonde

Word Perfect

Tired of using the same old, boring MS Word? Word Perhect is the program for you.
Any program that asks you to "make sure your alarm is set for the next appointment before taking a nap," and seriously informs you when you click Save — "Sometimes things get lost," and that features a bored icon that advises you to "Go and play outside" is surely worth a try.

Try Word Perhect here.

Link via Geetha Krishnan.

The War on Terror

In the war on terror, who's the terrorist and who's the protector?

While enough can be (and has been) said on this, sometimes it is better to let an animation clip do the talking.



Watch The Homecoming.

Rarely is a point made with such clarity.

Awesome animation too.

Spam Art: Reason to Recycle Spam

Now no longer waste your spam.

Email them to this id: spam@spamrecycling.com
The spamrecycling site then sends you a link where you can watch how your spam mail is recycled into art.

Quite cool.

Here's one:

One More for Your Blogrolls

If you like books, especially children's books hop over to this new blog: Anita and Amit Vachharajani : Writing and Illustrating Children's Books.

Apart from contributing regularly to various magazines and newspapers, Anita also writes and translates stories and books for children. Amit illustrates children's books. The couple is crazy about children's books and on this blog you'll find a number of delightful examples of the kind work they have been doing.

The blog, hardly about two weeks old at the moment, already has a number of interesting posts. You'll find a lovely piece by Anita on picture books from the Soviet Union. There are some adorable pen and ink illustrations from a 1939 Gujarati translation of Pinocchio and a few illustrations from some Soviet books. A there's also a short post on how the couple has cracked the fine art of baby-and-work management.

Interesting Blog. I suggest all bibliophiles bookmark this blog. Bloggers, this one should definitely find a place on your blogroll.

Done that? Finished reading the entire blog? Patience, my friends. I am sure Anita and Amit will oblige us with another post soon.