Burning Bright

published	2007 by Dutton Adult
first published	2008
binding	Hardcover
isbn	052594978X (isbn13: 9780525949787)
description	Tracy Chevalier captivated readers when Dutton published The Girl with a Pearl Earring in December 1999. Since then, she has written two New Yo...more [close] Tracy Chevalier captivated readers when Dutton published The Girl with a Pearl Earring in December 1999. Since then, she has written two New York Times bestsellers, Falling Angels and The Lady and the Unicorn. Now, three years after the publication of her last book, Chevalier is at the top of her form in the breathtaking novel Burning Bright.
date added	10-24-06 edit book

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Shan rated it:

03/18/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in February, 2008

I have long enjoyed Tracy Chevalier's historical novels, particularly "Girl With a Pearl Earring," which imagines the daily home life and creative process of 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, as viewed from the vantage point of a teenage, Protestant maid. This more recent book,"Burning Bright," is set in 18th century Lambeth, a suburb of London, and imagines the public life and creative mind of painter and poet William Blake, seen through the eyes of two adolescen...more I have long enjoyed Tracy Chevalier's historical novels, particularly "Girl With a Pearl Earring," which imagines the daily home life and creative process of 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, as viewed from the vantage point of a teenage, Protestant maid. This more recent book,"Burning Bright," is set in 18th century Lambeth, a suburb of London, and imagines the public life and creative mind of painter and poet William Blake, seen through the eyes of two adolescents. While both books are entertaining and show good evidence of the author's grasp of the context in which each of these artists found himself, the former novel stands out above "Burning Bright" in terms of its character development and the richness of the setting.

While Chevalier's symbolism tends to be heavy-handed in both books, she does have a gift for evoking the sense of place and time in which her novels are located, and she offers fairly well-rounded (though not dynamic) characters whose relationships are complicated and unpredictable. She has a knack for revealing something about the now-famous artists in her novels by surrounding them with rich characters and interesting locations. Vermeer's growing family includes a roiling gaggle of children, a spoiled and demanding wife, and a business-woman for a mother-in-law; these people, not to mention Vermeer's men friends, help the reader to gain a sense of Vermeer by looking at those with whom he surrounds himself in his most private moments. We see Blake by coming to know his rather taciturn wife, Catherine; the two young people who follow him even to his mother's funeral across town; the neighbors who are suspicious of him for being so insular and odd; and Lambeth's pro-monarchy association, whose members try to bully Blake into supporting their cause; these characters help the author depict the political and social side of Blake's life, giving us less insight into his private world. In any case, Chevalier's Vermeer and Blake both benefit from the swirl of life going on all around them.

What makes "Burning Bright" less compelling a read than the novel about Vermeer is the distance she keeps from Blake. In her earlier novel, she brings her heroine, Griet, the Protestant maid, directly into the Vermeer household, where we can see him in action as an artist and as a husband and father; we do not get this view of Blake. Instead, Blake is spied on by an Jem and Maggie, who imagine him to be strange and curious and who come to know him during the course of the novel as strange, creative, and caring. While Chevalier attempts to narrate Blake's creative process, the reader never gets enough continuity from the various scenes that show him, in one moment, having conversations with his dead brother, Robert, and, in another moment, etching a copper plate for eventual use in the printing press. While we get a sense of what makes Vermeer tick, we never gain that knowledge about Blake. This could be less Chevalier's failing than it is the reality that Blake was truly enigmatic and odd, set apart in his ways from the mainstream of British art and writing even as he wrote and drew, etched and painted his way into history (and anthologies and museums!).

If I am to be bluntly honest, I must admit that it is, perhaps, my own knowledge of Blake, more than it is Chevalier's writing, that makes me view the novel as weak. Having written more than enough of my own about Blake and his work, I probably know too much to enjoy Chevalier's development of Blake's character and creative process. In my mind, he is not quite the same man that she depicts on the novel's pages. I suppose I'll have to write my own novel in order to understand the Blake I think I know!...less

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Burning Bright

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