Burning Bright
by Tracy Chevalier
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Book Reviews of Burning Bright
Book Review: Opposites attract, and other truths from Blake's poetry
Summary: 4 Stars
I was happy to get my hands on "Burning Bright", the second novel by Tracy Chevalier after "The Girl with a Pearl Earring", that I had a chance to read. I sank into it fast and was not disappointed.
This time Chevalier decided to present the brilliant poet William Blake as a central figure, and his poems are used as canvas to weave the story of two families.
At the beginning of the novel, the Kellaways move to London from the village in Dorsetshire, hoping to start a new life after the deadly accident of their son Tommy. Thomas Kellaway is a chairmaker, who was recruited to work for the famous circus owned by Philip Astley. Thomas's teenage son, Jem, helps his father, and wife Anne and daughter Maisie add to the household finances making buttons. They are an honest, hard-working, happy family... But the life in London would change them forever.
The other family are the Butterfields, whose nosy daughter Maggie is the same age as Maisie , and quickly befriends Jem, showing him the Lambeth neighborhood, where they live, and venturing farther into London. Dick Butterfield, Maggie's father, is busy finding deals and looking for business, not always completely legal. He wants to train his son Charlie, in his own "trade", but is not very successful. The picture is completed by his wife, Bet, who is a laundress, but becomes fascinated by the Kellaways' buttonry.
Mr. Blake is the Kellaways' new neighbor and as they settle down, the children become more and more fascinated by his unusual way of life, attracted to his way of speaking with them like with his equals, and puzzled by his art.
The end of the 18th century is the eventful time - the Londoners are stirred by the French Revolution, and the mood affects all the inhabitants of Lambeth in different ways - William Blake openly supports the Revolution, while Philip Astley is an avid monarchist. The common people are only moved when their daily life is concerned...But it begins to be so.
The times are reflected in Blake's poetry, cited throughout the book, very universal and ahead of its time, yet giving a great view of London of Blake's era of Enlightenment.
I enjoyed the frame of "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience", which the Kellaways and Butterfields are portrayed in, and the hypotheses about Blake's ideas for his poems. The philosophy behind them appears simple to us now, but it was new then, and this idea the author manages to convey very well. I would say I liked "Burning Bright" more than "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (an unpopular view, I know), maybe because I was attracted by words and the mysterious life of William Blake, only slightly known to me, more than I wanted to learn about Vermeer (whose paintings I knew by heart before).
Chevalier's research for this book was thorough and she gives a nice bibliography at the end, which can be a good beginning for those who, like me, decide to get to know Blake and his poetry better after reading the novel.
Book Review: Bright-ish
Summary: 3 Stars
I only review books I like, so it can be immediately concluded that at least in part I found Tracy Chevalier's Burning Bright an enjoyable and worthwhile read. But I have to add that I expected much more.
What Burning Bright has is a story. The Kellaways up and move after a family tragedy. They depart their native Piddle Valley in Dorset and set off for London. The year is 1792 and England is all a-murmur about dangerous times across the Channel in France. Kellaway the father is a furniture-maker, specialising in chairs. But in London he finds more lucrative work as a mere carpenter making scenery for a circus. The rest of the family busy themselves on various tasks, with mother Anne and daughter Maisie specialising in hand-made Dorset buttons, while brother Jem helps his father, occasionally. Next door to their Lambeth home live a couple called Blake, who have a printing business. There is also a Butterfield family nearby who have a street-wise daughter called Maggie. The Blakes repeatedly surprise Maisie Kellaway, while Maggie Butterfield befriends her. The Astleys run the circus that employs the dad, by the way.
There are parallels with Tracy Chevalier's Girl With A Pearl Earring in that she sets fictional characters, ordinary people with no public history of their own alongside significant historical figures. The Mr Blake next door is William Blake, poet, visionary and artist, but perhaps not in that order. Blake's poem, Tyger, tyger burning bright, figures repeatedly in the narrative and other works, via their London setting, mirror the lives of the characters. Again like Girl With A Pearl Earring we travel through the storms of a girl's youthful discovery of being a woman. In this book, however, there are two such tigers who burn bright, and this time the elements combine to form a more sinister, certainly more earthy and evidently more troubled conclusions. In addition, Burning Bright's relationship with Blake is of a quite different character from the earlier book's portrayal of Vermeer. In the latter, there is a cool detachment that pervades the text; life is seen through a lens and this perspective gives the experience coherence, apparently faithfully capturing the painter's style in both substance and impression. In Burning Bright, William Blake steps in and out of the plot, occasionally shares his vision, often through his wife's words, but then this is never really communicated. In her acknowledgments, Tracy Chevalier suggests that there may be too much written about this man and too much attributed to him. I felt that this opinion came across in her writing.
So in Burning Bright we have another adolescent growing up saga focusing on Maisie the Dorset lass and Maggie the Londoner. Characters from the circus spice up the action and Astley junior, the circus-owner's son, plants various seeds of interest. At the book's end, I had lived lives and shared stories, but I hadn't quite been taken to where they had been.
Book Review: London Portrait
Summary: 3 Stars
London at the time of the French revolution takes center stage in this beautifully written novel featuring location and themes over plot. When craftsman Thomas Kellaway moves his wife Anne and teen-aged children Jem and Masie from the Piddle Valley in Dorset to London in March of 1792, they are all but overwhelmed by the contrasting grandeur and ugliness of the big city. Thomas hopes he can better support the family making chairs for the circus and Anne hopes distance will heal her tortured mind after the accidental death of their son Tommy.
Tracy Chevalier has drawn a deep and richly detailed portrait of London, especially the Borough of Lambeth where the noisy, dirty and boisterous lifestyle of the poor that differs so greatly from the quieter world of Dorset is accentuated when the circus comes to town.
Contrasts flow through the Kellaway's lives as surely as the Thames flows through London, and here the author draws upon William Blake's focus on "contraries," or pairs of opposites, for the novel's theme. London, in "Burning Bright" becomes an alchemist's athanor wherein the Kellaways will undergo their transformations beneath the piercing gaze of Blake, the adept who applies his "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience" within the novel as Holy Scripture.
Blake serves as a catalyst within the story line, yet he is a one-dimensional character who primarily speaks in philosophic riddles and quotes from his favorite poems. While Jem, Masie and their new, streetwise friend, Maggie, view the home of William and Kate Blake as calm sanctuary within a world where the trials of childhood are greatly magnified by the dangerous environment, the reader will come away having learned more about the Borough of Lambeth and than the famous poet and print maker.
Like her adult characters in "Burning Bright," Chevalier appears unwilling to step past Blake's fame, notoriety and fiery persona and confront the poet head on. Doing so would have brought closure to the novel for readers and characters alike. We have a well-crafted slice-of-life portrait of a rural family's brief sojourn into the big city. What we don't have is an overt look at what it finally meant to them.
Book Review: Acceptable, Not Wonderful
Summary: 3 Stars
Set in London during the French Revolution, this novel chronicles the burgeoning friendship of two near-adolescents. Jem Kellaway, son of a country chair-maker, and confirmed London urchin Maggie Butterfield strike up a close friendship, bordering on first romance. The two are united in a fascination with their unique and libertine neighbor, poet and artist William Blake. Blake shares some of his poetry and engravings with the children, which keeps them hungering for more. As the children navigate the streets of London, they discover that the revolution growing on the other side of the Channel will affect their lives in ways they never imagined. Chevalier does a fairly good job recreating the London of the 1790s. That said, the addition of William Blake as neighbor to the main characters is the only thing that makes this book anything out of the ordinary. I was never convinced that Blake contributed to the story in any meaningful way. Each time he appeared it seemed like a drive-by William Blake sighting. This was my first Chevalier book, and I think it must be one of her weaker works. I've heard wonderful things about her books, so I'll be reading some of the others, hoping for something better.Book Review: A Historical Fiction Gem!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you love historical fiction like me, you have most likely read a Tracey Chevalier novel. Ms. Chevalier has this crazy ability to tell an amazing tale and also throw in a real historical figure in the mix. Her stories are not often particulary about a historical figure but they are in the forground of the story.. a complimenting character, so to speak. If you have seen the movie GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING you know what I am talking about.
Burning Bright follows the Kelleway family from a country village to London in the 1700's. The father is a carpenter who gains work with a Philip Astley's circus.The circus charaters are very intriguing but the main story is about a the son, Jem, and his new found friendship with a local girl, Maggie. In true Chevalier style, the Kelleway's neighbor is radical poet William Blake. Again, Philp Astley and William Blake are somewhat minor characters, letting Jem and Maggie take center stage, making them all the more mysterious.
Burning Bright was easy to read and completly enchanting. A ten in my book!