The tulip, a much coveted and fleetingly beautiful commodity in Holland during the Dutch Golden Age comes to symbolise the greedy, lustful and out of control parts of the relationship between Sophia and her lover Jan and how money, greed and lust can drive people over the edge and into depravity.

However there are many surprising twists and turns in this novel, with a very clever final denouement that can’t be anticipated. The couple pose for a vanity portrait, engaging the help of a handsome young artist (Jan). As far as books like this one go it isn't bad, but I can't say I was overly awed by it. The encounters between a lonely young wife (Sophia) who is reluctantly betrothed to wealthy much older man (Cornelis) are believable and written in a rich, compelling and riveting way. Tulip Fever is a kind of soap opera like historical novel, set in Amsterdam, when the city was the center of art and culture and beauty in Europe. Although this is not done in a cliched way. Sputtering into UK cinemas, likely by contractual obligation, after a host of delays, reshoots and last-minute edits, Tulip Fever has dispensed of Weinstein’s disgraced name in its producer credits, but is covered in his grubby fingerprints – so hacked to pieces that it ends up a misshapen curio, only occasionally hinting at what might have been.If you enjoyed that other iconic historical novel set in this part of the world Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier, then I think you will also enjoy this book.Īlthough this takes the long-suffering and stifled lust of a Girl with a Pearl Earring and instead turns up about ten notches for dramatic effect. His handsome yet cripplingly dull Tulip Fever is every bit a throwback to that age of Chocolat and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, awards-primed adaptations of Richard & Judy Book Club-esque bestsellers that tumbled out of memory as quickly as they were rejected by Oscar voters.īut its jaunty tone and cobblestone aesthetics aren’t the only things lifted from an entirely different era, as Tulip Fever was filmed in 2014, just four years ago in literal terms but a veritable lifetime ago in terms of Harvey Weinstein.

Often featuring Judi Dench and a litany of classically-trained British thespians, all were more or less indebted to Shakespeare in Love, Weinstein’s 1998 period romcom that improbably swept the Oscars and briefly became a pop culture phenomenon. Around the turn of the Millennium, Harvey Weinstein produced a number of stately historical dramas as whimsical as they were blandly forgettable.

Tulip fever book review