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The Glassmaker
From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to present day.
It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers in Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass—but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.
Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure.
Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is spellbinding: a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.
It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers in Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass—but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.
Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure.
Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is spellbinding: a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published June 18, 2024
About the author
Tracy Chevalier
59 books10.7k followersBorn:
19 October 1962 in Washington, DC. Youngest of 3 children. Father was a photographer for The Washington Post.
Childhood:
Nerdy. Spent a lot of time lying on my bed reading. Favorite authors back then: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madeleine L’Engle, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Joan Aiken, Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander. Book I would have taken to a desert island: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.
Education:
BA in English, Oberlin College, Ohio, 1984. No one was surprised that I went there; I was made for such a progressive, liberal place.
MA in creative writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, 1994. There’s a lot of debate about whether or not you can be taught to write. Why doesn’t anyone ask that of professional singers, painters, dancers? That year forced me to write all the time and take it seriously.
Geography:
Moved to London after graduating from Oberlin in 1984. I had studied for a semester in London and thought it was a great place, so came over for fun, expecting to go back to the US after 6 months to get serious. I’m still in London, and still not entirely serious. Even have dual citizenship – though I keep the American accent intact.
Family:
1 English husband + 1 English son.
Career:
Before writing, was a reference book editor, working on encyclopedias about writers. (Yup, still nerdy.) Learned how to research and how to make sentences better. Eventually I wanted to fix my own sentences rather than others’, so I quit and did the MA.
Writing:
Talked a lot about becoming a writer as a kid, but actual pen to paper contact was minimal. Started writing short stories in my 20s, then began first novel, The Virgin Blue, during the MA year. With Girl With a Pearl Earring (written in 1998), I became a full-time writer.
19 October 1962 in Washington, DC. Youngest of 3 children. Father was a photographer for The Washington Post.
Childhood:
Nerdy. Spent a lot of time lying on my bed reading. Favorite authors back then: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madeleine L’Engle, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Joan Aiken, Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander. Book I would have taken to a desert island: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.
Education:
BA in English, Oberlin College, Ohio, 1984. No one was surprised that I went there; I was made for such a progressive, liberal place.
MA in creative writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, 1994. There’s a lot of debate about whether or not you can be taught to write. Why doesn’t anyone ask that of professional singers, painters, dancers? That year forced me to write all the time and take it seriously.
Geography:
Moved to London after graduating from Oberlin in 1984. I had studied for a semester in London and thought it was a great place, so came over for fun, expecting to go back to the US after 6 months to get serious. I’m still in London, and still not entirely serious. Even have dual citizenship – though I keep the American accent intact.
Family:
1 English husband + 1 English son.
Career:
Before writing, was a reference book editor, working on encyclopedias about writers. (Yup, still nerdy.) Learned how to research and how to make sentences better. Eventually I wanted to fix my own sentences rather than others’, so I quit and did the MA.
Writing:
Talked a lot about becoming a writer as a kid, but actual pen to paper contact was minimal. Started writing short stories in my 20s, then began first novel, The Virgin Blue, during the MA year. With Girl With a Pearl Earring (written in 1998), I became a full-time writer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,469 reviews
May 31, 2024
This novel is an imaginative telling of the art glassmaking through the centuries on the island of Murano off the city of Venice. Tracy Chevalier blends history, the Murano and Venetian cultures, the role of women, family, the essence of life, death, love and all of this with one family at the center of it. The structure is fascinating as we follow the Rosso family over 500 years, and how their lives are affected by historical events bringing prosperity, plague, poverty, with the same characters positioned in various time frames, only a few years older even though decades have passed. With “time alla Veneziana”, the passage of time , like a “skipping stone”, they remain themselves just in a new time, each time the current time for them. It’s one of those stories where you just have to trust your imagination. I’m glad I did.
Orsola Russo from six to her sixties is a character to remember for her passion for the art of glass bead making even in times when women were forbidden from working with glass, for her perseverance, and for her dedication to family in times of prosperity and hardship. All of the characters are fully realized from Orsola’s strong and sharp mother to her brothers and sister in laws to the business connections in Venice and her loves.
So much happens here, but I prefer not to give plot details which you can find elsewhere. I can’t quite give it 5 stars as it felt a little too ambitious trying to cover all the decades and that resulted in some time frames dragging on a little and others glossed over from the Plague to Covid. However, I’ve read several of Chevalier’s novels and this is my favorite. A touching ending to say the least with a little of the “terrafirma” where time moves ahead not as “time alla Veneziana”. Recommended for Chevalier fans and historical fiction readers .
I received a copy of this book from Penguin Random House through
Edelweiss & NetGalley.
Orsola Russo from six to her sixties is a character to remember for her passion for the art of glass bead making even in times when women were forbidden from working with glass, for her perseverance, and for her dedication to family in times of prosperity and hardship. All of the characters are fully realized from Orsola’s strong and sharp mother to her brothers and sister in laws to the business connections in Venice and her loves.
So much happens here, but I prefer not to give plot details which you can find elsewhere. I can’t quite give it 5 stars as it felt a little too ambitious trying to cover all the decades and that resulted in some time frames dragging on a little and others glossed over from the Plague to Covid. However, I’ve read several of Chevalier’s novels and this is my favorite. A touching ending to say the least with a little of the “terrafirma” where time moves ahead not as “time alla Veneziana”. Recommended for Chevalier fans and historical fiction readers .
I received a copy of this book from Penguin Random House through
Edelweiss & NetGalley.
June 10, 2024
The Glassmaker is a captivating work of historical fiction that depicts one family of glassmakers living on Murano. It is a glimpse into the life of a women, Orsola, who has a passion for glass in a time where it is looked down upon. Readers are shown her triumphs, her losses, her successes, her love, her passion, and her drive throughout time.
1486- Murano, Italy
Venice is the center for trade. The Rosso family are glassmakers living on Murano, who have recently lost their patriarch. Orsola is the eldest daughter who aspires for more in her life, as her brother Marco takes over as glassmaker. He is young, stubborn, cocky and lacks the experience, expertise and skill that his father possessed. The family struggles and Orsola learns to make glass beads from a female mentor and does her best to make money for her beads. She experiences scorn, jesting, and insults from her brother Marco, but is determined and keeps making them.
This book takes place during the times of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day. It follows one family who age slowly during this time. It was a very clever touch, and readers are shown how the characters grow, adapt, struggle, triumph, and survive. During this time, they will fall in love, endure heartbreak, grow, marry, become parents, and survive the many changes that Venice will experience through time.
Who knew I would be so invested in a tale about glassmakers? Years ago, I took a Vaporetto from Venice to Murano. I visited a touristy glass shop and had to smile as Orsola discusses the tourist shops vs. the other glass shops on Murano.
I enjoyed how the book transcended time and the family endured through time, experiencing all the changes and challenges of each decade.
Tracy Chevalier discusses her extensive research and visits with glassmakers that were made prior to writing this book. Her research paid off and the result was this beautifully written book. I enjoyed the vivid descriptions, the writing, the family dynamics, and the well thought out plot.
Beautifully written, well thought out, and gripping.
Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Viking | Viking and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖
1486- Murano, Italy
Venice is the center for trade. The Rosso family are glassmakers living on Murano, who have recently lost their patriarch. Orsola is the eldest daughter who aspires for more in her life, as her brother Marco takes over as glassmaker. He is young, stubborn, cocky and lacks the experience, expertise and skill that his father possessed. The family struggles and Orsola learns to make glass beads from a female mentor and does her best to make money for her beads. She experiences scorn, jesting, and insults from her brother Marco, but is determined and keeps making them.
This book takes place during the times of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day. It follows one family who age slowly during this time. It was a very clever touch, and readers are shown how the characters grow, adapt, struggle, triumph, and survive. During this time, they will fall in love, endure heartbreak, grow, marry, become parents, and survive the many changes that Venice will experience through time.
Who knew I would be so invested in a tale about glassmakers? Years ago, I took a Vaporetto from Venice to Murano. I visited a touristy glass shop and had to smile as Orsola discusses the tourist shops vs. the other glass shops on Murano.
I enjoyed how the book transcended time and the family endured through time, experiencing all the changes and challenges of each decade.
Tracy Chevalier discusses her extensive research and visits with glassmakers that were made prior to writing this book. Her research paid off and the result was this beautifully written book. I enjoyed the vivid descriptions, the writing, the family dynamics, and the well thought out plot.
Beautifully written, well thought out, and gripping.
Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Viking | Viking and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖
May 28, 2024
Tracy Chevalier transports us to Venice, specifically the island of Murano. It’s 1486, the height of the Italian Renaissance and the novel introduces us to Orsola Rosso at the age of nine, her family are glassmakers whose greatest rivals are the Barovier’s who are at the forefront of new glass designs. In 1494 disaster strikes the Rosso’s when Lorenzo, the patriarch, is killed in a work room incident and the business faces ruin.
With advice from Maria, the Barovier matriarch, a change of direction is needed, that of glass beads. Beads that Orsola can make and what’s more, they’re currently in demand and so she learns the art.The novel follows Orsola, her family and glassmaking through time. Will the Rosso family, especially the volatile brother Marco, ever give Orsola the credit she deserves?
Venice, Murano, glassmaking and the skill of Tracy Chevalier, I think we’re onto a winner. The author captures the unique atmosphere of Venice and although I’ve been to Murano and indeed own some of its glass, I’ve never thought much about its history which the author makes really interesting as it’s personalised via Orsola and the Rosso family. What happens to glass making mirrors the ups and downs of Venice itself and are witnesses to its changes through time. I enjoy the focus on beads which women such as Orsola have an important role to play.
The most creative aspect of the novel is how the author magically plays with time and gets me to buy into it. The idea of skipping stones, time and those in and on Murano aging differently to terra firma is wonderful and the historical context is excellent. As ever Tracy Chevalier extensively researches and I love the inclusion of real characters such as Giacomo Casanova and Josephine Bonaparte.
Orsola is an interesting and complex character, she is definitely an intriguing personality and I admire her resilience as she endures various losses. I don’t think she resonates as much with me as Violet Speedwell in the novel A Single Thread but her portrayal is none the less excellent. The novel is full of vibrant characters who bring colour to the pages.
The novel is without doubt beautifully written with close attention to historical detail bringing this glass making saga across time alive. There’s some wonderful symbolism scattered throughout, especially of dolphins which I love and that is used so well in the final twist of the storytelling. It’s original, different and transporting which is par for the course with this gifted writer.
What I didn’t like is the regular interspersing of Italian words and phrases. I know some Italian and it is easy to work out the words I don’t know but still, it doesn’t seem necessary to me!
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to HarperCollins, HarperFiction, The Borough Press for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
With advice from Maria, the Barovier matriarch, a change of direction is needed, that of glass beads. Beads that Orsola can make and what’s more, they’re currently in demand and so she learns the art.The novel follows Orsola, her family and glassmaking through time. Will the Rosso family, especially the volatile brother Marco, ever give Orsola the credit she deserves?
Venice, Murano, glassmaking and the skill of Tracy Chevalier, I think we’re onto a winner. The author captures the unique atmosphere of Venice and although I’ve been to Murano and indeed own some of its glass, I’ve never thought much about its history which the author makes really interesting as it’s personalised via Orsola and the Rosso family. What happens to glass making mirrors the ups and downs of Venice itself and are witnesses to its changes through time. I enjoy the focus on beads which women such as Orsola have an important role to play.
The most creative aspect of the novel is how the author magically plays with time and gets me to buy into it. The idea of skipping stones, time and those in and on Murano aging differently to terra firma is wonderful and the historical context is excellent. As ever Tracy Chevalier extensively researches and I love the inclusion of real characters such as Giacomo Casanova and Josephine Bonaparte.
Orsola is an interesting and complex character, she is definitely an intriguing personality and I admire her resilience as she endures various losses. I don’t think she resonates as much with me as Violet Speedwell in the novel A Single Thread but her portrayal is none the less excellent. The novel is full of vibrant characters who bring colour to the pages.
The novel is without doubt beautifully written with close attention to historical detail bringing this glass making saga across time alive. There’s some wonderful symbolism scattered throughout, especially of dolphins which I love and that is used so well in the final twist of the storytelling. It’s original, different and transporting which is par for the course with this gifted writer.
What I didn’t like is the regular interspersing of Italian words and phrases. I know some Italian and it is easy to work out the words I don’t know but still, it doesn’t seem necessary to me!
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to HarperCollins, HarperFiction, The Borough Press for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
August 19, 2024
'...beads brought colour and beauty...There was a pricelessness to these tiny, hard things. They endured, and retained the history of their owners, and their makers'.
It's the 15th Century, Murano, the 'glass island', across the lagoon from Venice is the world's epicentre for fine glass making - a molten tradition that flows through the generations for families who inhabit the place. Orsola Rosso is the young daughter of such a family. With two older brothers who are apprenticed to their maestro father, she has only a fleeting interest in glass making - besides, it is only men's work. However, a tragic accident throws her family into chaos and potential ruin. Desperate to help save her family's business, their legacy, she finds a solution in making glass beads, 'Beads fill the spaces between things. They don't get in the way. They are inconsquential, and women can make them because of that'. Centuries pass, the world changes, Murano changes, Italy is eventually unified as a country, yet Orsola remains true to her craft and loyal to her family, 'The world is running faster, even in Venice. Except for glass and its makers...'.
'The Glassmaker' is such a wonderfully immersive history of Murano glass and its people. Spanning centuries but also, with a dash of magical realism, only a lifetime, the story underscores how things change yet remain the same- such is the circle of life. I have not read anything from Tracy Chevalier before but I was captivated by her evocation of Venice and Murano throughout the centuries. Historical fiction lovers will enjoy this.
'...the beauty of translucence - the clarity and mystery at the same time'.
It's the 15th Century, Murano, the 'glass island', across the lagoon from Venice is the world's epicentre for fine glass making - a molten tradition that flows through the generations for families who inhabit the place. Orsola Rosso is the young daughter of such a family. With two older brothers who are apprenticed to their maestro father, she has only a fleeting interest in glass making - besides, it is only men's work. However, a tragic accident throws her family into chaos and potential ruin. Desperate to help save her family's business, their legacy, she finds a solution in making glass beads, 'Beads fill the spaces between things. They don't get in the way. They are inconsquential, and women can make them because of that'. Centuries pass, the world changes, Murano changes, Italy is eventually unified as a country, yet Orsola remains true to her craft and loyal to her family, 'The world is running faster, even in Venice. Except for glass and its makers...'.
'The Glassmaker' is such a wonderfully immersive history of Murano glass and its people. Spanning centuries but also, with a dash of magical realism, only a lifetime, the story underscores how things change yet remain the same- such is the circle of life. I have not read anything from Tracy Chevalier before but I was captivated by her evocation of Venice and Murano throughout the centuries. Historical fiction lovers will enjoy this.
'...the beauty of translucence - the clarity and mystery at the same time'.
May 9, 2024
I’m struggling to know how to review this book, on the one hand I absolutely loved it, it’s classic Chevalier, this time with her beautiful crafted descriptions of glassmaking, the Island of Murano and Venice. Her characters are well developed and the storyline draws you in and pulls you along. On the other hand the play with the timeline just didn’t work for me and the ending felt rushed and confusing.
The book centres on Orsola Rosso and her family who are Murano glassmakers, it spans 6 centuries, covering significant periods in world history and how they affect the family, the history of glassmaking and Murano itself. For me this is where it felt problematic, because as the timeline shifted, the age of the characters did not. If I hadn’t been so invested in Orsola Rosso and entranced by Chevalier’s beautiful writing I probably wouldn’t have finished the book. This is going to be a marmite book I think!
The book centres on Orsola Rosso and her family who are Murano glassmakers, it spans 6 centuries, covering significant periods in world history and how they affect the family, the history of glassmaking and Murano itself. For me this is where it felt problematic, because as the timeline shifted, the age of the characters did not. If I hadn’t been so invested in Orsola Rosso and entranced by Chevalier’s beautiful writing I probably wouldn’t have finished the book. This is going to be a marmite book I think!
July 13, 2024
The author really should have just written a straight up historical fiction. She is very good at that.
The skipping-stones-time-jumps just didn’t work for me. For those who have not read this, the concept is based on the premise that at the start of each chapter, there is a time jump where the family you get to know, jumps 80 or 100 years ahead and you can experience how they navigate life, work and everything else in this new time zone.
Great concept, right? Welllllll not so fast.
The problem for me is that the Murano family do not seem to realise they are in a different century with each jump. This felt like a lazy way of shoehorning some interesting events rather than spending time developing the characters.
The skipping-stones-time-jumps just didn’t work for me. For those who have not read this, the concept is based on the premise that at the start of each chapter, there is a time jump where the family you get to know, jumps 80 or 100 years ahead and you can experience how they navigate life, work and everything else in this new time zone.
Great concept, right? Welllllll not so fast.
The problem for me is that the Murano family do not seem to realise they are in a different century with each jump. This felt like a lazy way of shoehorning some interesting events rather than spending time developing the characters.
September 14, 2024
Several years ago, my cousin recommended books and authors to me, including Anita Shreve, Ann Patchett, and Tracy Chevalier. She specifically asked me to read The Virgin Blue by Chevalier, which I vividly remember reading as one of the first books in my new home. I quickly followed that read with The Lady and the Unicorn, and I had a new favorite author. Now that I’m circling back to this home, it feels like the best kind of kismet to circle back to Chevalier with her new release The Glassmaker. This exceptional book is one of my favorites this year, and I could not have loved it more.
The Glassmaker skips through centuries of time set on the island of Murano, near Venice, focusing on one family, one glassmaker, especially, Orsola. Beginning in the late 1400s when Venice is the epicenter of trade, Orsolo Rosso is the eldest daughter in a glassmaking family. Because she is a woman, she is not “eligible” to make glass; however, when times get hard, she has to contribute to keep the family afloat. Time travels through the plague up through the present day. Venice time is said to move differently, more slowly, and I absolutely treasured being able to follow this same family through time. I’m not sure I’ve read another book structured this way, and it worked seamlessly.
Chevalier clearly did her research when it comes to glassmaking, and I was absorbed in the detail of how the work evolved over time and the daily lives of the makers. There are some larger-than-life real life characters who visit the story, too, such as Casanova. The Glassmaker held me rapt. Perfectly-written, absorbing, and immersive; it reminded me why Tracy Chevalier has been on my favorite author list for almost twenty years. Highly, highly recommend. Hist fic fans, this is the cream of the crop.
I received a gifted copy.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
The Glassmaker skips through centuries of time set on the island of Murano, near Venice, focusing on one family, one glassmaker, especially, Orsola. Beginning in the late 1400s when Venice is the epicenter of trade, Orsolo Rosso is the eldest daughter in a glassmaking family. Because she is a woman, she is not “eligible” to make glass; however, when times get hard, she has to contribute to keep the family afloat. Time travels through the plague up through the present day. Venice time is said to move differently, more slowly, and I absolutely treasured being able to follow this same family through time. I’m not sure I’ve read another book structured this way, and it worked seamlessly.
Chevalier clearly did her research when it comes to glassmaking, and I was absorbed in the detail of how the work evolved over time and the daily lives of the makers. There are some larger-than-life real life characters who visit the story, too, such as Casanova. The Glassmaker held me rapt. Perfectly-written, absorbing, and immersive; it reminded me why Tracy Chevalier has been on my favorite author list for almost twenty years. Highly, highly recommend. Hist fic fans, this is the cream of the crop.
I received a gifted copy.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
October 13, 2024
death is a reminder that you never recover from losing someone; you just learn to accommodate the hole it makes in you.
I didn't expect it that much of a touching and emotional story! I feel heartbroken and labeled it as made me cry. A very fascinating piece of work by Girl with a Pearl Earring author. Tracy Chevalier's newest novel was a beautiful art that I didn't read like that in this genre for a very long time!
There had been the hurt, and then the memory of the hurt, and finally the memory of the memory, which was where she had been stuck for many years,
The story is set –start– in one of Venice's islands in 1486, Orsola Rosso is nine years old and lives on Murano, on this magical place time passes differently. The City of Water runs by its own clock, frozen in time – The boats may have engines now, but time still seems to run at a different speed from the outside world.
Rosso family, a glassmaker family, I lived with them, cried, laughed, got angry, and cursed like them, as kept company them, especially the narrator Orsola throughout life, a long and magical one!
‘Men are unreliable. It’s best not to get too attached.’
Many thanks to HarperCollins UK for giving me a chance via NetGalley to read this mesmerizing book, I have given my honest review.
She’d heard some say God had sent the virus to force people to change their ways, that this was a giant reset button for humanity. If that was the case, Orsola doubted people would indeed change.
I didn't expect it that much of a touching and emotional story! I feel heartbroken and labeled it as made me cry. A very fascinating piece of work by Girl with a Pearl Earring author. Tracy Chevalier's newest novel was a beautiful art that I didn't read like that in this genre for a very long time!
There had been the hurt, and then the memory of the hurt, and finally the memory of the memory, which was where she had been stuck for many years,
The story is set –start– in one of Venice's islands in 1486, Orsola Rosso is nine years old and lives on Murano, on this magical place time passes differently. The City of Water runs by its own clock, frozen in time – The boats may have engines now, but time still seems to run at a different speed from the outside world.
Rosso family, a glassmaker family, I lived with them, cried, laughed, got angry, and cursed like them, as kept company them, especially the narrator Orsola throughout life, a long and magical one!
‘Men are unreliable. It’s best not to get too attached.’
Many thanks to HarperCollins UK for giving me a chance via NetGalley to read this mesmerizing book, I have given my honest review.
She’d heard some say God had sent the virus to force people to change their ways, that this was a giant reset button for humanity. If that was the case, Orsola doubted people would indeed change.
August 30, 2024
Tracy Chevalier's prose is undoubtedly some of the most beautiful I've read. She has a light touch but can transport you to anywhere in the world. This time we go to the home of glassmaking - Murano.
Our heroine is Orsola Rosso whose family are glassmakers on the famous island and the story follows her life but in a somewhat unconventional way. As Orsola and her kin age slowly in Murano the rest of the world take leaps and bounds. Hence what we get is a beautiful mix of the story of a woman's life along with the history of glassmaking, trade and outside influences (war, plague, Covid, tourism, global warming) all mixed in.
I'm making it sound complicated. It's not.
We start with Orsola as a girl in 1486 and follow a normal timeline until 1494. A new chapter begins (and Chevalier uses the clever metaphor of time as a stone being skimmed across water to denote a skip forward in world time) in 1574 but Orsola has only aged a year or two.
I loved this idea of the rest of the world rushing ahead but Venice and it's islands being subject to its own rules of time. It gives Orsola a much greater range of experiences and gives us a chance to see the effect of the passage if time on a small community. Very, very clever and very effective. Bravo.
Then there's the prose - so lush. I could almost feel the glass between my fingers and the colours in front of my eyes. Everything is treated delicately but Chevalier never fails to get her point across.
There are serious issues raised in this book but they too are sensitively dealt with.
I loved everything about this book. Just beautiful. Very highly recommended. I'd love to see someone bring it to life on the screen but they'd no doubt not do justice to Chevalier's words.
Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
Our heroine is Orsola Rosso whose family are glassmakers on the famous island and the story follows her life but in a somewhat unconventional way. As Orsola and her kin age slowly in Murano the rest of the world take leaps and bounds. Hence what we get is a beautiful mix of the story of a woman's life along with the history of glassmaking, trade and outside influences (war, plague, Covid, tourism, global warming) all mixed in.
I'm making it sound complicated. It's not.
We start with Orsola as a girl in 1486 and follow a normal timeline until 1494. A new chapter begins (and Chevalier uses the clever metaphor of time as a stone being skimmed across water to denote a skip forward in world time) in 1574 but Orsola has only aged a year or two.
I loved this idea of the rest of the world rushing ahead but Venice and it's islands being subject to its own rules of time. It gives Orsola a much greater range of experiences and gives us a chance to see the effect of the passage if time on a small community. Very, very clever and very effective. Bravo.
Then there's the prose - so lush. I could almost feel the glass between my fingers and the colours in front of my eyes. Everything is treated delicately but Chevalier never fails to get her point across.
There are serious issues raised in this book but they too are sensitively dealt with.
I loved everything about this book. Just beautiful. Very highly recommended. I'd love to see someone bring it to life on the screen but they'd no doubt not do justice to Chevalier's words.
Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
May 22, 2024
Tracy Chevalier was one of the authors who impelled me to read historical fiction and I have read all her novels. The Glassmaker is set on the island of Murano and follows the Rosso family of glassmakers, skipping across time from 1486 to the present. It is an unusual and inventive way of storytelling and takes some suspension of belief but, as always, Chevalier’s storytelling is impelling.
Orsola Rosso was a rare female working in glass, albeit to make beads–what her glassmaker brother sneeringly calls escrementi di topo–mouse turds. The family has made art glass for generations, gorgeous drinking glasses and pitchers and plates. The family’s fortunes rise and fall as politics and taste changes, forcing them to change their products, but in hard times, the beads kept the family fed.
From making art glass pieces to the mass production of the beads favored by natives abroad, and later used for fashion, the entire process and history of glassmaking is central to the book.
To keep the secrets of glassmaking, Murano glassmakers protected their secrets by outlawing leaving the island for ‘terrafirma’. When European countries developed their own glassmaking the competition impacted the Murano glassworkers. Napoleon’s conquests in Italy meant he could gift Venice to Austria, who modernized the city by filling in canals and building roads. Trading in Africa and the New World drove a demand for glass beads for trade; manufacturing became about quantity not quality. And later tourism brought demands for cheap knockoffs from China.
The plague in 1574 brought losses and suffering to the Rossos. Then, in 2019, Covid afflicts the population, reminding us that there is nothing new under the sun.
Orsolo is friends with an enslaved African gondolier who works for the Austrian who buys her work to sell abroad. “Slavery runs the world,” he reminds her, “Commerce turns because of human sweat, much of it unpaid.”
Always prone to floods, with climate change flooding in Venice becomes worse.
The author compares her storytelling to a stone skipping across the water; she skips across time, keeping the same characters, showing how Orsolo and the Rossos adapt.
Thanks to the publisher for a galley through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Orsola Rosso was a rare female working in glass, albeit to make beads–what her glassmaker brother sneeringly calls escrementi di topo–mouse turds. The family has made art glass for generations, gorgeous drinking glasses and pitchers and plates. The family’s fortunes rise and fall as politics and taste changes, forcing them to change their products, but in hard times, the beads kept the family fed.
From making art glass pieces to the mass production of the beads favored by natives abroad, and later used for fashion, the entire process and history of glassmaking is central to the book.
To keep the secrets of glassmaking, Murano glassmakers protected their secrets by outlawing leaving the island for ‘terrafirma’. When European countries developed their own glassmaking the competition impacted the Murano glassworkers. Napoleon’s conquests in Italy meant he could gift Venice to Austria, who modernized the city by filling in canals and building roads. Trading in Africa and the New World drove a demand for glass beads for trade; manufacturing became about quantity not quality. And later tourism brought demands for cheap knockoffs from China.
The plague in 1574 brought losses and suffering to the Rossos. Then, in 2019, Covid afflicts the population, reminding us that there is nothing new under the sun.
Orsolo is friends with an enslaved African gondolier who works for the Austrian who buys her work to sell abroad. “Slavery runs the world,” he reminds her, “Commerce turns because of human sweat, much of it unpaid.”
Always prone to floods, with climate change flooding in Venice becomes worse.
The author compares her storytelling to a stone skipping across the water; she skips across time, keeping the same characters, showing how Orsolo and the Rossos adapt.
Thanks to the publisher for a galley through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
July 15, 2024
If you decide to skip The Glassmaker, you will miss absolutely nothing. Maybe you’ll miss out on feeling a bit disappointed because The Glassmaker fails to deliver.
It tries to do too much, and while the attempts are ok, they remain attempts throughout the book. I think its greatest fault is the magic which seems to have made the author lose focus and meander all over the place, with no clear destination.
There are many, many characters in this book, and I can’t tell you the name of half of them. A few are decently fleshed out – not superbly, decently. Others are just silhouettes, with a trait (or two) to help the distinction. As a story about a glassmaking family through the centuries, this makes the point of the narrative elusive, not to use a harsher word – nonexistent.
For more than 13 hours, I failed to care about anyone and anything. I was marginally interested where the story was going which is the only reason why I persevered. That and the fact that I picked up the audio book. If it wasn’t for the listening, I’d have probably DNFed it.
It tries to do too much, and while the attempts are ok, they remain attempts throughout the book. I think its greatest fault is the magic which seems to have made the author lose focus and meander all over the place, with no clear destination.
There are many, many characters in this book, and I can’t tell you the name of half of them. A few are decently fleshed out – not superbly, decently. Others are just silhouettes, with a trait (or two) to help the distinction. As a story about a glassmaking family through the centuries, this makes the point of the narrative elusive, not to use a harsher word – nonexistent.
For more than 13 hours, I failed to care about anyone and anything. I was marginally interested where the story was going which is the only reason why I persevered. That and the fact that I picked up the audio book. If it wasn’t for the listening, I’d have probably DNFed it.
September 27, 2024
I’ve read several of Tracy Chevalier’s previous books: her most well-known novel, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, but also The Last Runaway, A Single Thread, At the Edge of the Orchard and New Boy. What those books demonstrated is her ability to create stories that draw you in and to capture the essence of a period, whether that’s 17th century Delft, 1930s Winchester or 19th Century Ohio.
In The Glassmaker she attempts to do more than that with a story that encompasses centuries but focuses on a set of characters (chiefly the Rosso family but also a few others in their ‘bubble’) who age at a slower rate than the world around them. The author likens this to skipping a stone over water meaning that we see the history of Murano glassmaking and of Venice evolve through the centuries whilst remaining with the same small cast of characters. The book thus takes the reader from the 15th century to almost the present day. I confess I struggled with the concept as we got further away from the fifteenth century and modern technology became more of a feature. The last section set in a flooded Venice in 2019 felt like a bit of an add-on in order to introduce the impact of climate change.
The book’s main character, Orsola Rosso, daughter of a family who have been involved in glassmaking for centuries, faces the obstacle experienced by pretty much all women at the time: her gender prevents her pursuing her ambitions and restricts her independence. It even removes her freedom to choose with whom she should spend her life, the interests of the family coming before her own desires. The prospect of a life filled with household chores fills her with dismay.
However, encouraged by a woman who has defied convention, Orsola begins to learn the craft of glass beadmaking, work that doesn’t require a furnace like the other objects produced in the family’s factory. Her brother Marco considers beads an inferior product although as time goes on Orsola’s work proves its value to the family when tastes change and Murano no longer has a monopoly on glassmaking.
The 16th century sees the arrival of the plague in Venice and this, for me, was the most gripping section of the book. The inhabitants of Murano pray that the stretch of water that divides them from the city will protect them, but it is not to be. The Rosso family experience loss, separation and the rigors of quarantine on an island that is not self-sufficient. Some members of the family are never quite the same afterwards, physically or psychologically.
I loved learning about the process of glassmaking which the author has clearly researched in exhaustive detail. Although Murano is easily accessible today, for its inhabitants in earlier times it was very separate from Venice, not just geographically but culturally. When Orsola makes her first visit to Venice she feels very much an outsider, confused by the layout of the city and its busy streets and waterways. And the notion of visiting the mainland – terrafirma – fills her with terror despite her curiosity.
Even if the structure didn’t completely work for me, The Glassmaker is an intriguing story of a family, of a city and a craft over the centuries and entwined within it is a bittersweet romance.
In The Glassmaker she attempts to do more than that with a story that encompasses centuries but focuses on a set of characters (chiefly the Rosso family but also a few others in their ‘bubble’) who age at a slower rate than the world around them. The author likens this to skipping a stone over water meaning that we see the history of Murano glassmaking and of Venice evolve through the centuries whilst remaining with the same small cast of characters. The book thus takes the reader from the 15th century to almost the present day. I confess I struggled with the concept as we got further away from the fifteenth century and modern technology became more of a feature. The last section set in a flooded Venice in 2019 felt like a bit of an add-on in order to introduce the impact of climate change.
The book’s main character, Orsola Rosso, daughter of a family who have been involved in glassmaking for centuries, faces the obstacle experienced by pretty much all women at the time: her gender prevents her pursuing her ambitions and restricts her independence. It even removes her freedom to choose with whom she should spend her life, the interests of the family coming before her own desires. The prospect of a life filled with household chores fills her with dismay.
However, encouraged by a woman who has defied convention, Orsola begins to learn the craft of glass beadmaking, work that doesn’t require a furnace like the other objects produced in the family’s factory. Her brother Marco considers beads an inferior product although as time goes on Orsola’s work proves its value to the family when tastes change and Murano no longer has a monopoly on glassmaking.
The 16th century sees the arrival of the plague in Venice and this, for me, was the most gripping section of the book. The inhabitants of Murano pray that the stretch of water that divides them from the city will protect them, but it is not to be. The Rosso family experience loss, separation and the rigors of quarantine on an island that is not self-sufficient. Some members of the family are never quite the same afterwards, physically or psychologically.
I loved learning about the process of glassmaking which the author has clearly researched in exhaustive detail. Although Murano is easily accessible today, for its inhabitants in earlier times it was very separate from Venice, not just geographically but culturally. When Orsola makes her first visit to Venice she feels very much an outsider, confused by the layout of the city and its busy streets and waterways. And the notion of visiting the mainland – terrafirma – fills her with terror despite her curiosity.
Even if the structure didn’t completely work for me, The Glassmaker is an intriguing story of a family, of a city and a craft over the centuries and entwined within it is a bittersweet romance.
July 8, 2024
3.5 rounded up. Interesting “time travel” idea that was surprisingly seamless.
September 8, 2024
Tracy Chevalier is a wonderful writer, and has written an extraordinary magical story which totally blew me away. A brilliant idea, skilfully executed. A story which spans from 1486 to the current day, but the family and close friends in the story age very very slowly. Like a stone skipping across a pond, we follow the family across the years. Absolutely genius.
Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a Murano glassblowing family. When her father dies, his children all have to step up, and Orsola starts making glass beads in secret to help the family – as women didn’t really work at that time. We follow Orsola and her brothers, and their children and grandchildren – and all of their friends – down the years, From the great plague to current day Covid, the glassmakers of Murano have to survive them all.
Absolute genius. A fascinating book, with believable characters and full of historical facts and famous figures. I couldn’t put it down.
Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a Murano glassblowing family. When her father dies, his children all have to step up, and Orsola starts making glass beads in secret to help the family – as women didn’t really work at that time. We follow Orsola and her brothers, and their children and grandchildren – and all of their friends – down the years, From the great plague to current day Covid, the glassmakers of Murano have to survive them all.
Absolute genius. A fascinating book, with believable characters and full of historical facts and famous figures. I couldn’t put it down.
June 24, 2024
I’ve read and enjoyed most of Tracy Chevalier’s novels but this one didn’t capture me and carry me along in the way most of the others did. The novel spanned five hundred years but the central characters aged at a very slow rate so the protagonist was a child at the outset in the 15th century and in her sixties in 2022. I have no problem with this kind of magical realism but it seemed like the main focus of the book was the history of glass making and the changes in life on Murano and in Venice. By not changing the characters in a dynastic way the novel lacked the opportunity for new experiences especially as the characters themselves never acknowledged their special ability to age at such a slow rate. Because of that it felt stilted and restricted.
September 30, 2024
There's something about Venice that makes time feel... different. Fluid, perhaps, like the canals that wind through the city. Or maybe it's more like glass – seemingly solid, yet ever-changing in subtle ways. Tracy Chevalier captures this ethereal quality in her latest novel, "The Glassmaker," a sweeping saga that spans centuries yet feels as intimate as a whispered secret.
A Family's Legacy Etched in Glass
At its heart, "The Glassmaker" is the story of the Rosso family, Murano glassmakers whose fortunes rise and fall like the tides of the Venetian lagoon. But it's so much more than that. Chevalier has crafted a love letter to Venice itself, to the art of glassmaking, and to the resilience of women who find ways to create and persevere against all odds.
Orsola Rosso: A Character for the Ages
Our protagonist, Orsola Rosso, is a marvel. We first meet her as a young girl in 1486, secretly learning the art of glassmaking – a craft forbidden to women. Chevalier's genius lies in how she allows us to follow Orsola through the centuries, aging her only eight years over the course of nearly 500 years of Venetian history. It's a daring narrative choice that could have fallen flat, but instead feels... right. Almost magical, but grounded in the very real magic of Murano glass.
A City Transformed, A Craft Endures
As we journey with Orsola and her descendants, we witness Venice's transformation:
The height of Renaissance glory
Devastating plagues
The fall of the Venetian Republic
Occupation by foreign powers
The rise of mass tourism
Through it all, the Rosso women adapt, innovate, and find ways to keep their craft alive. Chevalier's research shines through in the intricate details of glassmaking techniques, Venetian politics, and the changing face of the city itself.
The Prose: Luminous as Venetian Glass
Chevalier's writing is, quite simply, beautiful. She has a gift for sensory description that brings 15th-century Murano to life just as vividly as 20th-century Venice. Consider this passage:
"The furnace was a hungry mouth that must be fed for eleven months of the year. Now it was cold, and the studio dead, as if its blood had stopped circulating."
You can almost feel the oppressive silence, the wrongness of a glassmaking studio gone quiet.
Themes That Resonate
While "The Glassmaker" is undoubtedly historical fiction, its themes feel incredibly relevant to modern readers:
The struggle for women to be recognized in male-dominated fields
The tension between tradition and innovation
The impact of global events on local communities
The power of art to sustain us through difficult times
A Critique: Pacing and Character Development
If there's a weakness to "The Glassmaker," it lies in the occasional pacing issues. The novel's ambitious scope sometimes means that certain historical periods feel rushed, while others linger. Some readers might find themselves wishing for more time with certain secondary characters who flit in and out of the narrative.
That said, Orsola herself remains a constant, grounding presence. Chevalier does an admirable job of showing how her protagonist evolves over the centuries while maintaining her core essence.
Venice: A Character in Its Own Right
It's impossible to discuss "The Glassmaker" without acknowledging the starring role played by Venice itself. Chevalier's love for the city is evident on every page. She captures its contradictions beautifully – the grandeur and the decay, the beauty and the stench, the timelessness and the constant change.
A Word on "Time alla Veneziana"
One of the novel's most intriguing concepts is what Chevalier dubs "time alla Veneziana" – a uniquely Venetian way of experiencing the passage of time. It's a device that allows her to compress centuries into a single narrative, and it works surprisingly well. There's a dreamlike quality to these leaps through history that feels... well, Venetian.
Final Thoughts: A Novel to Savor
"The Glassmaker" is not a book to be rushed through. Like a fine Venetian meal, it's meant to be savored, each layer of flavor and texture appreciated. Chevalier has created a work that is both expansive in scope and intimate in detail. It's a novel that will linger in your mind long after you've turned the final page, like the afterimage of sunlight on water.
A Family's Legacy Etched in Glass
At its heart, "The Glassmaker" is the story of the Rosso family, Murano glassmakers whose fortunes rise and fall like the tides of the Venetian lagoon. But it's so much more than that. Chevalier has crafted a love letter to Venice itself, to the art of glassmaking, and to the resilience of women who find ways to create and persevere against all odds.
Orsola Rosso: A Character for the Ages
Our protagonist, Orsola Rosso, is a marvel. We first meet her as a young girl in 1486, secretly learning the art of glassmaking – a craft forbidden to women. Chevalier's genius lies in how she allows us to follow Orsola through the centuries, aging her only eight years over the course of nearly 500 years of Venetian history. It's a daring narrative choice that could have fallen flat, but instead feels... right. Almost magical, but grounded in the very real magic of Murano glass.
A City Transformed, A Craft Endures
As we journey with Orsola and her descendants, we witness Venice's transformation:
The height of Renaissance glory
Devastating plagues
The fall of the Venetian Republic
Occupation by foreign powers
The rise of mass tourism
Through it all, the Rosso women adapt, innovate, and find ways to keep their craft alive. Chevalier's research shines through in the intricate details of glassmaking techniques, Venetian politics, and the changing face of the city itself.
The Prose: Luminous as Venetian Glass
Chevalier's writing is, quite simply, beautiful. She has a gift for sensory description that brings 15th-century Murano to life just as vividly as 20th-century Venice. Consider this passage:
"The furnace was a hungry mouth that must be fed for eleven months of the year. Now it was cold, and the studio dead, as if its blood had stopped circulating."
You can almost feel the oppressive silence, the wrongness of a glassmaking studio gone quiet.
Themes That Resonate
While "The Glassmaker" is undoubtedly historical fiction, its themes feel incredibly relevant to modern readers:
The struggle for women to be recognized in male-dominated fields
The tension between tradition and innovation
The impact of global events on local communities
The power of art to sustain us through difficult times
A Critique: Pacing and Character Development
If there's a weakness to "The Glassmaker," it lies in the occasional pacing issues. The novel's ambitious scope sometimes means that certain historical periods feel rushed, while others linger. Some readers might find themselves wishing for more time with certain secondary characters who flit in and out of the narrative.
That said, Orsola herself remains a constant, grounding presence. Chevalier does an admirable job of showing how her protagonist evolves over the centuries while maintaining her core essence.
Venice: A Character in Its Own Right
It's impossible to discuss "The Glassmaker" without acknowledging the starring role played by Venice itself. Chevalier's love for the city is evident on every page. She captures its contradictions beautifully – the grandeur and the decay, the beauty and the stench, the timelessness and the constant change.
A Word on "Time alla Veneziana"
One of the novel's most intriguing concepts is what Chevalier dubs "time alla Veneziana" – a uniquely Venetian way of experiencing the passage of time. It's a device that allows her to compress centuries into a single narrative, and it works surprisingly well. There's a dreamlike quality to these leaps through history that feels... well, Venetian.
Final Thoughts: A Novel to Savor
"The Glassmaker" is not a book to be rushed through. Like a fine Venetian meal, it's meant to be savored, each layer of flavor and texture appreciated. Chevalier has created a work that is both expansive in scope and intimate in detail. It's a novel that will linger in your mind long after you've turned the final page, like the afterimage of sunlight on water.
August 7, 2024
Reading Tracy Chevalier’s latest historical novel was pure pleasure. It is set in Venice and on the nearby island of Maurano, beginning in 1486 and moving forward. The story follows a family of glassmakers based on Maurano.
The author’s impeccable on-site research, her signature strong female characters, and the tricky thing she does with time kept me happy on every page. If you are looking for another fine summer read or book club read, look no further.
The author’s impeccable on-site research, her signature strong female characters, and the tricky thing she does with time kept me happy on every page. If you are looking for another fine summer read or book club read, look no further.
August 23, 2024
This book begins in 1486 on the island of Murano, famous for its glassmaking, off the coast of Venice. Orsola Rosso is born into a family of glassmakers. The structure is unusual. It covers 1486 to 2020, but the characters remain the same throughout. The conceit is that time passes in a different manner on Murano. Protagonist Orsola is a child in 1486, and age sixty-five in 2020. Orsola is a well-developed character. Though women are not involved in blowing glass, she teaches herself to make glass beads, and gradually, over time, becomes an important contributor to the business. It is an homage to glassmaking in terms of describing the methods and techniques, as well as the changes from family craft to industry over the centuries.
The structure is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, it keeps the reader from having to get to know a series of family members and introducing a wide range of characters. On the negative side, it occasionally causes logical discrepancies and requires suspension of disbelief. I think it works as an overall approach, except for the most recent time-period. It skips ahead too many years from WWI to present-day, where technology has leaped ahead, leaving a huge gap to be covered in a few sentences. Other than that, I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot about glassmaking in the process.
The structure is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, it keeps the reader from having to get to know a series of family members and introducing a wide range of characters. On the negative side, it occasionally causes logical discrepancies and requires suspension of disbelief. I think it works as an overall approach, except for the most recent time-period. It skips ahead too many years from WWI to present-day, where technology has leaped ahead, leaving a huge gap to be covered in a few sentences. Other than that, I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot about glassmaking in the process.
May 3, 2024
I have always been fascinated by the world of crafts displayed in Tracy Chevalier's novels. Always a different craft, always masterfully woven in the storyline fitting perfectly the plot. This novel is no exception! Even though the time setting is a bit different as it spreads over centuries, with the same characters who grow older but only by a few years instead of centuries. It may seem strange but it worked perfectly: the psychological development of the characters exactly fit the new time period they live in. This enables the reader to follow a (as any) family of glassmakers along with the marking social, political events which affected their craft over the years. No need to create a new set of characters. Very impressive! As for the characters themselves, they are so finely depicted, you can see , hear them. What I also really enjoyed and seems to be characteristic for the author, is the description of the settings, here Venice. Venice is vividly painted along with its own (social, political, architectural)development through the centuries. This was fascinating! I highly recommend this novel!
I received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.
I received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.
July 2, 2024
A combination of historical fiction with a smidgen of magical realism tossed in, The Glassmaker begins in 1486 on the island of Murano and concludes in the present day. And yes, the main protagonist, Orsola Rosso and those immediately around her aged well and are alive in the present day, thanks to the slow flow of time similar to the movement of molten glass. (This is not a spoiler - it’s in the book blurb.) Orsola is a strong female character in a family of traditional glassblowers. Unfortunately, young girls or women are not usually part of the business and Orsola has to make her own contributions in the art of glassmaking without the knowledge of her oldest brother, the maestro. The historical setting, trade, and culture across the centuries were interesting but I think because the book crosses so many years, it was challenging to get the full picture of any given timeframe, except the first few years. Overall, I enjoyed the read and most of the characters set against the backdrop of one of most interesting countries in the world. So a 3.5 rating rounded up to 4. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
June 29, 2024
I really wanted to love this book. While the basic story was good, the time thing didn't click for me instead was distracting, wondering why it was part of the book. I have read many time type books that flow well, and this seemed to have no real purpose, at least for me, I didn't get it, and it was more distracting than help with the story.
June 29, 2024
A CREATIVE TIMELINE SKIPPING THROUGH CENTURIES
SUMMARY
THE GLASSMAKER tells the story of Orsolo Rosso, the eldest daughter in a family of male glassblowers on the island of Murano off the Venetian coast. When her father dies suddenly, Orsolo secretly starts making glass beads to support her family. The story follows Orsolo and her family through centuries of triumph, transformation, love, and loss.
REVIEW
Tracy Chevalier, the author, creatively accelerates the THE GLASSMAKER timeline through the centuries while the characters age at a much slower pace. The story begins in 1486 during the Renaissance, and Orsolo is only nine years old. By Chapter Two, 80 years have passed, but Orsolo is only eighteen. This acceleration of time allows us to see Orsolo and her family spanning the years from the Renaissance to 2019, with Orsolo being only 65 years old. It was fascinating to witness the family adapt and transform through the ages.
I found the tale mesmerizing and difficult to put down. It was a captivating portrait of a woman with strength and perseverance. Chevalier's writing is masterful.
While Orsolo is the central character, her mother and brothers play key roles, as does the glass dealer in Venice and a caring woman from a competing family in Murano who helped Orsolo get her start in bead-making. Each character is unique and pivotal to Orsolo’s life.
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher Penguin Group Viking
Published June 18, 2024
Review www.bluestockingreviews.com
SUMMARY
THE GLASSMAKER tells the story of Orsolo Rosso, the eldest daughter in a family of male glassblowers on the island of Murano off the Venetian coast. When her father dies suddenly, Orsolo secretly starts making glass beads to support her family. The story follows Orsolo and her family through centuries of triumph, transformation, love, and loss.
REVIEW
Tracy Chevalier, the author, creatively accelerates the THE GLASSMAKER timeline through the centuries while the characters age at a much slower pace. The story begins in 1486 during the Renaissance, and Orsolo is only nine years old. By Chapter Two, 80 years have passed, but Orsolo is only eighteen. This acceleration of time allows us to see Orsolo and her family spanning the years from the Renaissance to 2019, with Orsolo being only 65 years old. It was fascinating to witness the family adapt and transform through the ages.
I found the tale mesmerizing and difficult to put down. It was a captivating portrait of a woman with strength and perseverance. Chevalier's writing is masterful.
While Orsolo is the central character, her mother and brothers play key roles, as does the glass dealer in Venice and a caring woman from a competing family in Murano who helped Orsolo get her start in bead-making. Each character is unique and pivotal to Orsolo’s life.
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher Penguin Group Viking
Published June 18, 2024
Review www.bluestockingreviews.com
September 26, 2024
I’m not sure how to review this but I will try. On one hand I absolutely loved this. The writing and prose were enchanting and the characters were incredibly well developed. The level of detail into the lives of glassmakers was amazing! The plot follows the Rosso family, a family of glassmakers in Venice 1486. It’s a character based plot, spanning generations and how they live throughout time. The story sucks you into the family’s life through the high and lows of Venice history.
This is where things get confusing, the timeline?? I liked it, but I didn’t? We start the story in 1486 but ends in present day with the same family. Now obviously that’s not physically possible but I do understand the point was to show the characters and how they adapt to an ever changing world. However the characters stay the same and the POV is the same main character throughout (obviously not realistic in any way) and I felt it took me out of the story a little. The traditional way to do this type of story would be to change POV’s down the family line but, with such a large timeline the character development would be impossible to keep up.
That being said it did work strangely well (after a small period of me being very confused). I think this goes to show how incredible writing can really hold a story together, if this was a badly written book the whole thing would fall apart but, it somehow didn’t. I’m still on the fence about the timeline, part of me loved it and part of me hated it.
Overall it was an enchanting, gripping historical fiction with a mind blowing amount of detail. If you can get past the timeline then it’s an incredible read! Full of family, hardship and love. Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a free Audio eARC in exchange for an honest review
This is where things get confusing, the timeline?? I liked it, but I didn’t? We start the story in 1486 but ends in present day with the same family. Now obviously that’s not physically possible but I do understand the point was to show the characters and how they adapt to an ever changing world. However the characters stay the same and the POV is the same main character throughout (obviously not realistic in any way) and I felt it took me out of the story a little. The traditional way to do this type of story would be to change POV’s down the family line but, with such a large timeline the character development would be impossible to keep up.
That being said it did work strangely well (after a small period of me being very confused). I think this goes to show how incredible writing can really hold a story together, if this was a badly written book the whole thing would fall apart but, it somehow didn’t. I’m still on the fence about the timeline, part of me loved it and part of me hated it.
Overall it was an enchanting, gripping historical fiction with a mind blowing amount of detail. If you can get past the timeline then it’s an incredible read! Full of family, hardship and love. Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a free Audio eARC in exchange for an honest review
August 23, 2024
The Glassmaker - Chevalier
5 stars
“That sudden passage of time: What does it matter, one century or another, as long as Orsola is accompanied by those she loves and those she needs and even those she hates?”
This book is unique. It is an historical family saga, but without the constantly changing cast of characters through the ages. It is not a time travel fantasy, but it begins in 1486 and ends in the 21st century. It is not the dreaded split timeline novel, but threads of time do split in the progress of the story until they are finally fused at the end. Orsola Russo and her loved ones are not immortal. They live in Murano and Venice. Time passes differently there than it does on Terra Firma, elsewhere on the planet.
“If you skim a flat stone skillfully across water, it will touch down many times, in long or short intervals as it lands. With that image in mind, now replace water with time.”
With that explanation, Chevalier sets the Russo family story in motion through the ages. At the beginning of the book, I was skeptical. Lightman played with a similar idea of regional time variations in Einstein’s Dreams, but I couldn’t see how it would work in a full-length novel.
It did work. Before the book ended, I was totally comfortable with the idea that the Russo family would continue with their daily concerns of housekeeping and glassmaking at their own pace while accommodating the outside world only when necessary. I liked the comparisons that could happen with the compression of centuries.
Orsola Russo is Chevalier’s primary female/feminist, protagonist in this novel. Murano glass work is, of course, a totally male industry. The book begins and ends with the competitive tension between Orsola and the head of the family, her brother, Marco. Orsola carves a small independence for herself with hand crafted glass beads. As years and centuries pass, this becomes an entree for female artisans in business. I enjoyed the way Orsola was always there, crafting beads, while Chevalier shifted the social and political setting.
I learned a bit about glassmaking from reading this book. Chevalier had clearly done her research. She captured the hierarchy of the workshop and the labor of learning an exacting craft. The Russo glassmakers struggled constantly to balance the desire to create art with the practical necessity to make a living and run a household.
“People who make things also have an ambiguous relationship with time. Painters, writers, wood-carvers, knitters, weavers and, yes, glassmakers: creators often enter an absorbed state that psychologists call flow, in which hours pass without their noticing.
Readers, too.”
As a reader, I was definitely in the flow.
5 stars
“That sudden passage of time: What does it matter, one century or another, as long as Orsola is accompanied by those she loves and those she needs and even those she hates?”
This book is unique. It is an historical family saga, but without the constantly changing cast of characters through the ages. It is not a time travel fantasy, but it begins in 1486 and ends in the 21st century. It is not the dreaded split timeline novel, but threads of time do split in the progress of the story until they are finally fused at the end. Orsola Russo and her loved ones are not immortal. They live in Murano and Venice. Time passes differently there than it does on Terra Firma, elsewhere on the planet.
“If you skim a flat stone skillfully across water, it will touch down many times, in long or short intervals as it lands. With that image in mind, now replace water with time.”
With that explanation, Chevalier sets the Russo family story in motion through the ages. At the beginning of the book, I was skeptical. Lightman played with a similar idea of regional time variations in Einstein’s Dreams, but I couldn’t see how it would work in a full-length novel.
It did work. Before the book ended, I was totally comfortable with the idea that the Russo family would continue with their daily concerns of housekeeping and glassmaking at their own pace while accommodating the outside world only when necessary. I liked the comparisons that could happen with the compression of centuries.
Orsola Russo is Chevalier’s primary female/feminist, protagonist in this novel. Murano glass work is, of course, a totally male industry. The book begins and ends with the competitive tension between Orsola and the head of the family, her brother, Marco. Orsola carves a small independence for herself with hand crafted glass beads. As years and centuries pass, this becomes an entree for female artisans in business. I enjoyed the way Orsola was always there, crafting beads, while Chevalier shifted the social and political setting.
I learned a bit about glassmaking from reading this book. Chevalier had clearly done her research. She captured the hierarchy of the workshop and the labor of learning an exacting craft. The Russo glassmakers struggled constantly to balance the desire to create art with the practical necessity to make a living and run a household.
“People who make things also have an ambiguous relationship with time. Painters, writers, wood-carvers, knitters, weavers and, yes, glassmakers: creators often enter an absorbed state that psychologists call flow, in which hours pass without their noticing.
Readers, too.”
As a reader, I was definitely in the flow.
July 11, 2024
I was invited to read/review this book by the publisher [PENGUIN GROUP Viking/Viking] and I thank them, NetGalley and Tracy Chevalier for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
July 19, 2024
(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley).
This book started off ok and I became interested in the storyline set in medieval Venice. As the book progressed though and it became clear that the characters would live on and age slowly (without any explanation why) the story became more contrived as the centuries progressed and the world changed around the cast. I lost interest in the story which felt like a contrived way of telling the story of glassmaking in Venice, with the characters as mere props.
This book started off ok and I became interested in the storyline set in medieval Venice. As the book progressed though and it became clear that the characters would live on and age slowly (without any explanation why) the story became more contrived as the centuries progressed and the world changed around the cast. I lost interest in the story which felt like a contrived way of telling the story of glassmaking in Venice, with the characters as mere props.
August 26, 2024
Tracy Chevalier is hit-and-miss for me, but I think she's at her best when writing straightforward historical fiction that is immersed in the details of craftmaking, whether that's Vermeer's use of the camera obscura to paint light in seventeenth-century Delft or women embroidering kneelers for a cathedral in inter-war Britain. All my favourite Chevalier novels fall into this category: Girl With A Pearl Earring, The Lady and the Unicorn, The Virgin Blue, A Single Thread. And The Glassmaker could absolutely have been another Chevalier classic, but it's outrun a bit by its own ambition. It starts very well. Orsola is part of a glassmaking family on Murano in the late fifteenth century. After her father's death, she learns to make beads to supplement the family income, and negotiates business with her difficult brother, as well as meeting an ambitious, handsome Venetian fisherman. But Chevalier doesn't want to write a plain historical novel this time. The Glassmaker skips forward through the centuries, preserving its central cast intact - so Orsola can reflect on being quarantined for the plague in sixteenth-century Murano while she observes the Covid-19 lockdown, or see an ancient blue wedding cup in a glass museum made around the time she was born.
I don't think this was an inherently bad idea, and it leads to some unexpectedly poignant moments - an enslaved gondolier from Ghana who was taken from his village in the early modern period finally returning to trace his heritage in the present day, for example, condensing traumatic centuries of history into a single life. But it is continuously frustrating that the passing of time doesn't change the central characters one bit, and yet we aren't meant to see them as totally out of kilter with their surroundings. They're not a family of vampires who can't keep up with social mores - but there's no hint that the new versions of themselves might have been shaped by the very different worlds in which they live. The novel pays closer attention to how gondoliers' uniforms change over time than how mindsets do. The time-hopping also unfortunately gives Chevalier the opportunity to info-dump a lot of her research (cf. Remarkable Creatures and Burning Bright) when her novels are always much stronger when she resists this temptation. The Glassmaker starts feeling too long (it's 400+ pages) and didactic, hopping forward just to pick up cameos from people like Casanova. This is a shame, because I found the first half, in particular, genuinely absorbing.
I think Chevalier could have gone one of two ways with this one. Either write a novel set in just one time period (I'd have plumped for either the late medieval opening or the sixteenth-century plague material) or write something more literary that embraces the weirdness of this conceit. The first would have played to her strengths; but the second could have been something really special. So The Glassmaker is good, but also a little frustrating.
I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.
I don't think this was an inherently bad idea, and it leads to some unexpectedly poignant moments - an enslaved gondolier from Ghana who was taken from his village in the early modern period finally returning to trace his heritage in the present day, for example, condensing traumatic centuries of history into a single life. But it is continuously frustrating that the passing of time doesn't change the central characters one bit, and yet we aren't meant to see them as totally out of kilter with their surroundings. They're not a family of vampires who can't keep up with social mores - but there's no hint that the new versions of themselves might have been shaped by the very different worlds in which they live. The novel pays closer attention to how gondoliers' uniforms change over time than how mindsets do. The time-hopping also unfortunately gives Chevalier the opportunity to info-dump a lot of her research (cf. Remarkable Creatures and Burning Bright) when her novels are always much stronger when she resists this temptation. The Glassmaker starts feeling too long (it's 400+ pages) and didactic, hopping forward just to pick up cameos from people like Casanova. This is a shame, because I found the first half, in particular, genuinely absorbing.
I think Chevalier could have gone one of two ways with this one. Either write a novel set in just one time period (I'd have plumped for either the late medieval opening or the sixteenth-century plague material) or write something more literary that embraces the weirdness of this conceit. The first would have played to her strengths; but the second could have been something really special. So The Glassmaker is good, but also a little frustrating.
I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.
July 2, 2024
This was a wonderful read. I enjoyed learning about a family of glassmakers in Murano, Italy during the 15th century. Their triumphs and tribulations over many decades was insurmountable at times, but they always found a different and innovative way to change their art. Orsola Rosso was my favorite protagonist in the story. She was a strong woman who believed in herself and her ability to create anything she set her mind to. A woman of that century who took chances and didn't allow herself to be subjected to criticism in a male dominated world.
February 28, 2024
Thank you to Viking and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on June 18th, 2024.
Writing: 3.5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4.5/5
A chronicle of glass making in Murano (still known as the center of glass!) as told through the life of Orsola Rosso — the eldest daughter of a glass blowing family. Orsola wants to work with glass herself, but it’s 1486 and the Renaissance hasn’t quite reached the stage of promoting social changes for women. The story uses the (very) unusual contrivance of allowing Orsola and those in her immediate orbit to age slowly while time for the world at large gallops by. While the “action” starts in 1486 and ends in the present day, Orsola only ages from nine to her late sixties. While this device is explained (poetically) in the prolog, I didn’t really get it so I’m hoping that I can help you avoid bafflement by stating it here with less skill but more clarity :-)
Orsola’s life embodies the personal (love, marriage, and children in a large extended family rife with personalities), the political (Venice shifting from commercial center to Austrian occupied territory to part of a United Italy to tourist center) , and the business (Guild control to competitive pressures to tourist-driven). She and her family go through the Plague (and later Covid!), two world wars, and the changing mores of an evolving Europe as the Renaissance gave way to the Age of Enlightenment followed by whatever our current age is destined to be called. I learned a lot about Italian history — details that I had learned in the past now integrated and brought to life in this story of artisans buffeted by the constantly shifting trends over time. The history became so much more real to me told through the lens of this particular family.
I give this a four star rating because for my taste there was a little more description than I like, though that same description may fascinate others.
Writing: 3.5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4.5/5
A chronicle of glass making in Murano (still known as the center of glass!) as told through the life of Orsola Rosso — the eldest daughter of a glass blowing family. Orsola wants to work with glass herself, but it’s 1486 and the Renaissance hasn’t quite reached the stage of promoting social changes for women. The story uses the (very) unusual contrivance of allowing Orsola and those in her immediate orbit to age slowly while time for the world at large gallops by. While the “action” starts in 1486 and ends in the present day, Orsola only ages from nine to her late sixties. While this device is explained (poetically) in the prolog, I didn’t really get it so I’m hoping that I can help you avoid bafflement by stating it here with less skill but more clarity :-)
Orsola’s life embodies the personal (love, marriage, and children in a large extended family rife with personalities), the political (Venice shifting from commercial center to Austrian occupied territory to part of a United Italy to tourist center) , and the business (Guild control to competitive pressures to tourist-driven). She and her family go through the Plague (and later Covid!), two world wars, and the changing mores of an evolving Europe as the Renaissance gave way to the Age of Enlightenment followed by whatever our current age is destined to be called. I learned a lot about Italian history — details that I had learned in the past now integrated and brought to life in this story of artisans buffeted by the constantly shifting trends over time. The history became so much more real to me told through the lens of this particular family.
I give this a four star rating because for my taste there was a little more description than I like, though that same description may fascinate others.
June 27, 2024
The timeline aspect is weird. On one hand, I think the author is saying that Orsola Rosso is every woman, she could be from any time and place with struggles and a life rich with family and traditions, engaging in an age old practice of glassmaking. On the other hand, we are talking about a Rosso which through and through hold themselves apart from other people, the way glassmaking is in their very blood, argued until the very end. So not every woman.
And I really feel like there should have been more marked growth in the beliefs of the family as we advance to current day, but they all seem so stuck in the past, forcing traditions and family/gender roles that don’t actually fully serve anyone.
I love historical fiction, but I found the banality of much of this family’s existence to be repetitive and unserving of my relationship to the characters, time and place. Orsola is punished in every type of way. She loses the love of her life, her work and efforts are belittled and tossed aside, even though they literally save the family many times over, and she doesn’t seem to ever get what she wants, which just seems painful for the purpose of being painful. I liked her well enough and a couple other characters, but by and large it felt like I could not get fully invested. It is not hard to make me laugh or cry and I didn’t do either.
And I really feel like there should have been more marked growth in the beliefs of the family as we advance to current day, but they all seem so stuck in the past, forcing traditions and family/gender roles that don’t actually fully serve anyone.
I love historical fiction, but I found the banality of much of this family’s existence to be repetitive and unserving of my relationship to the characters, time and place. Orsola is punished in every type of way. She loses the love of her life, her work and efforts are belittled and tossed aside, even though they literally save the family many times over, and she doesn’t seem to ever get what she wants, which just seems painful for the purpose of being painful. I liked her well enough and a couple other characters, but by and large it felt like I could not get fully invested. It is not hard to make me laugh or cry and I didn’t do either.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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