AFTER reading Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist for 13 hours without break I can safely say that this debut is a beautiful thing — it is a reader’s book in the old-fashioned sense — gripping, but not with cheap thrills and fanciful or cryptically obscured scenarios; and with an absorbing narrative and characters that are so three-dimensional that they would fit as perfectly in 17th century Amsterdam as 21st century anywhere else.

The plot too is carefully crafted — with just enough linked threads to connect the why and the how but also leaving enough loose threads to let the reader complete the story.

In 1686 Amsterdam, just before the advent of bitter winter, 18-year-old Nella Brandt enters the household of her new husband, Johannes Brandt, a thriving merchant with the Dutch East India Company (or the VOC in local parlance). Here, in the persistent absence of her husband, she realises that the real power of the house lies with Marin, Johannes’ sister — a sharp-tongued Calvinist spinster whose expertise stretches from trade maps to sugar prices. Meals in the Brandt household are “one herring dinners,” owing to Marin’s insistence to not show greed or splurge on their wealth. The prick of Marin’s austerity is softened by the two servants in the house — Cornelia the cook and Otto the manservant. The story unveils the Brandt household as one of outsiders, outlaws even, and the house itself as a cold shadowy home to secrets, to which Nella is refused access.

Otto’s tabooed African roots stun her when she first meets him as does Johannes’ silent but unceasing refusal to share Nella’s bed, crushing her dreams of “chubby babies laughing” very early on. Her only refuge in the loneliness of her new life is the equally puzzling wedding gift from her husband — a miniature of the house she now calls home. To populate the house, Nella orders miniature objects from a local miniaturist that she finds in the directory but to her surprise the miniaturist begins sending her unsolicited miniatures of the people in Nella’s life; miniatures that tell their secrets and, to Nella’s shock, possibly predict their stories.

There are a lot of unexpected turns in the story, making it a real page-turner — Burton even manages to save one last surprise for the last few pages. Nothing is given up too soon or too quickly; everything is a gradual process of discovery and the reader is allowed to soak in the experiences. From Nella’s uncertainty in her new home in the beginning and her reactions at being treated patronisingly to her feelings of dejection and bitterness caused by Johannes’ indifference and gradual warming to Otto and Cornelia, and eventually Johannes and Marin, all work with perfect timing. Along with Nella, we discover the back stories to every character until we know them fully, like friends. Burton painstakingly sketches them with foibles and quirks so that they all form a very special place in Nella’s heart, as well as with the reader.

While usually I don’t reserve much importance for ‘themes’ in works of fiction, The Miniaturist deserves some thought in that regard, simply because it doesn’t pitch its theme like a theme. It does not force its narrative to follow a preconceived artifice, and neither does it need a theme to be forced out of it at the behest of the reader. It organically presents some unifying aspects, and as the narrative progresses and mysteries are unravelled, the ‘theme’ is highlighted as though shyly making its appearance here and there until the reader finally recognises it.

The bulwarks of this book are its female characters, all of whom develop and reveal their individual strengths as the novel progresses. There is a stark boundary drawn between home life in 17th century Amsterdam and the outside world, especially the Eastern Islands and the VOC stronghold, where “women are as unwelcome as they are unexpected.” The dichotomy between the domain of the women in the house and of the men outside the house is highlighted, especially as the novel’s narration stays focussed within the Brandt household. It only ventures out with Nella’s excursions to various parts of the city — providing an exclusively female perspective. We hardly see the VOC stronghold other than in Nella’s perception — where it is perverse in its strange indifference and closed doors.

Nella herself has a wonderful transformation towards the end of the novel, when things are completely coming apart at the seams — reminiscent of the indelibly rousing moment when Scarlett O’ Hara swears to never go hungry again. Much like Scarlett who sheds her dainty femininity to become a powerful woman, Nella too takes up charge in the house, with Cornelia as her loyal lieutenant. The transformation doesn’t happen with half as much drama as Scarlett’s but very quietly, and what we previously only glimpsed in Nella (some quick back talk to Marin’s contempt, or being headstrong enough to march alone into the VOC) now fully makes its presence known.

The Brandt household in itself isn’t much of a man’s house as Johannes is hardly there, and even when he is, he relinquishes most of the control to his sister — a frowned upon case in Amsterdam. The real surprise in this novel, however, is Marin — who starts off much like an egotistical surly sister-in-law whose aim is nothing more or less than to make sure the new bride is absolutely miserable. Through Nella’s eyes we see Marin becoming a real person — someone who is responsible for managing the household and keeping up appearances in a very gossipy and prying city, worried to the point of nervous anxiety about her brother’s casual attitude towards his work and his wife, and of course with a barrel full of secrets that she just can’t handle on her own.

There have been some criticisms about Marin’s character in other reviews — mostly that she is an impossibility in her time. How I understand Marin is that much like Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and even Scarlett for most part, there are always people who make sense, no matter what their era is. This is what makes strong characters — that they aren’t completely bound by their time and place; the age that they are a part of definitely informs their construction but they are much more than just that.

There is a wonderful moment in the novel where Nella and Marin argue about what is a “proper woman.” Nella contends that it is someone who has a husband and children and runs her own house, while Marin thinks much more simply — that a proper woman is simply a person trying to gain some control of her own life. Marin’s complete refusal to marry, and despite wanting terribly to be a part of Amsterdam society, and her determination to live her life according to her own terms, is evocative of a very modern feminist sensibility which catapults this novel from the stupefying genre of historical feminist fiction and into the much more vibrant genre of feminist fiction.

Burton constructs her entire novel like she does her characters — bringing something ordinary, routine even, into the realm of the extraordinary. There is no pomp and fanfare in this transformation but a quiet confidence in being unconquerable.

The Miniaturist

(NOVEL)

By Jessie Burton

Picador, UK

ISBN 978-1447250890

400pp.