Word: pearling
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...days right after Pearl Harbor, Michael, the prudent son of a Baltimore, Md., grocer, meets the spirited Pauline, his opposite in most things. Just because opposites attract doesn't mean they attach--it's a lesson Tyler has taught before--and the link between these two is going bad even before they get to the altar. For the next 30 years or so, it's all touch...
When a Pakistani judge ordered the death penalty for Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh in July 2002 for the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, the Islamic militant was defiant. In court Sheikh had his lawyer read a threat to Pakistan's President: "Let's see who dies first, me or Musharraf." Now, after two bomb attempts in December on President Pervez Musharraf's life, investigators are treating Sheikh's warning as more than just bravado. Most of the dozen or so plotters who twice placed bombs on Musharraf's motorcade route belonged to Jaish-e-Muhammad, an outlawed militant group...
...immensely popular 2000 novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier created a fictional backstory for a famous 17th century work of art. In her new book, The Lady and the Unicorn (Dutton; 250 pages), she has created a fictional backstory for a famous 15th century work of art. It would seem the author is only too happy to be pegged as reliably formulaic. This will no doubt attract fans of the earlier novel (the movie adaptation of which is now in theaters), but it also invites inevitable comparisons, and in this regard, the new book stumbles...
Girl with a Pearl Earring, which concerns the Vermeer portrait of a delicate young woman with an intense gaze, was all sublimated passion and quiet decorum. The Lady and the Unicorn centers on the series of tapestries that today hang in Paris' Musee National du Moyen Age depicting a woman's seduction of a unicorn. Not surprisingly, the proceedings are more overtly carnal. The story begins in 1490 when the painter Nicolas des Innocents, whose appetites pointedly contradict his name, is commissioned by the wealthy Parisian Jean Le Viste to design six tapestries glorifying the nobleman's status at court...
...nice job of evoking the physical conditions of the era--the muddy roads and poorly lit, dank rooms--and her descriptions of the weaving process are interesting without getting overly technical. The Lady and the Unicorn is satisfying in its familiarity, but ultimately it feels less rewarding than Pearl Earring, mostly because we've seen the technique before. --By Michele Orecklin