TULIP FEVER by Deborah Maggach (fic)

Deborah Maggach's book "Tulip Fever" is about to be released as a movie this fall.  I thought it would be interesting to read the book first, especially as it is about an interesting period in Dutch history when speculation in the market for tulips was wild and crazy.  Of course, like all Ponzi-like schemes, it came crashing down with horrible consequences for many people of the rising bourgeois including the protagonists of the Maggach fictional account.  The book is not new and was written at the turn of the 21st century.  Maggach is also the author of "The Best Marigold Hotel," which was such a huge hit several years ago.

Maggach brings Amsterdam and its citizens to life and does a creditable job of leading the reader into a Dutch-master-like painting turned into the written word.  Indeed, the author has said in interviews that the paintings of Vermeer and Jan van Loos were her inspirations.  Jan van Loos becomes a character in this book and falls in love with the subject of one of his paintings.  She is Sophia Sandvoort, the wife of the wealthy merchant, Cornelis.  Sophia and Jan begin a passionate affair, that is filled with foreboding and darkness.  To bolster this, the book is filled with lovely illustrations of the paintings of the Dutch masters.  Many of the paintings deal with mortality and death using symbols such as succulent fruit resting near a worm or a skull lurking in the background of a seemingly happy couple.  As they become more deeply entwined, the lovers become more reckless.  Grave and dire consequences arise when they begin to speculate in tulip bulbs and become part of the financial bubble that is engulfing Holland.  Sophia is the mastermind of a scheme using the money raised from speculating that will help her escape from her loveless marriage to the much older Cornelis.  Soon Sophia has ensnared her maid, Maria and Maria's lover, Whillem into her plan which leads to a tragic conclusion.

Maggach does an excellent job of presenting 17th century Amsterdam and paints her descriptions as if on canvas.  The moodiness of the Dutch interiors with their bright rays of sun intruding upon the darkness of the background reminds the reader that along with good, evil is able to threaten the subject at any given moment.  The story is interesting and a good one, although one must suspend logic when falling in with the intensity of Sophia's scheming.  I recommend the book as a beautifully written story that is also a 17th century thriller.