Author: Tracy Chevalier
ISBN: 978-0-452-28907-9
Published: First Plume Printing
Date: 2008
Book quote:
“My songs and pictures do not become memories – they are always there to be looked at. And they are not illusions, but physical manifestations of worlds that do exist.”
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Burning Bright is a pleasant, enjoyable read. It’s a good story that follows the fortunes of the Kellaway family from Dorsetshire: chairmakers come to Lambeth in 1792 London at the invitation of flamboyant Philip Astley, the great circus owner. The friendship and interactions of the son Jem, and Maggie, the London girl who lives nearby, form the emotional backbone of the plot.
Unfortunately, their reason for existence is their peculiar friendship with William Blake. “Unfortunately”, not because Blake is an unsuitable subject for a historical novel, and certainly not because the novel is underresearched. Quite the opposite.
For me, this book falls between several seats. The primary impression it gives is that the author is fascinated by Blake and his works. The main motivation behind the novel seems to be to paint scenes from his life, and to bring our understanding closer to the nuances and feelings, the sights and sounds, of his London. It feels like a Blake student writing a heavily-disguised essay on Blake's life and works, while being ceaselessly interrupted by the very lively characters that have almost inconveniently sprung into life to illustrate it.
The long walks that take up a great deal of space within the novel are typical of this. A good example is Jem and Maggie following the funeral procession for Blake’s mother, all the way from Lambeth, through Soho, Smithfields and on to Bunhill Fields. The section takes up 20 pages of the total 308, and its purpose is almost entirely to describe different areas of London – by extension, areas that Blake wrote about directly or indirectly. Now, there is a wealth of first-hand descriptive material on London life from this period, as well as almost endless commentaries in the social, political and literary contexts. Were I studying Blake, I would rather refer to these than to a historical novel, and were I simply reading a novel, I would prefer it not to meander about into places it has no need to. Again, if one knows the references the book alludes to, the narrative merely appears strained – and if one doesn’t then the references are simply lost.
Fair enough, the central theme of the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are linked throughout the novel with Jem and Maggie’s struggles to reconcile themselves to the ‘grey’ areas between black and white, good or bad. Likewise, the topics the Blake works deal with are fundamental to the process of growing up, both for individuals and for countries, and as such are appropriate for a central core to a book featuring adolescents and the French Revolution. The plot is woven carefully, the details painstakingly accurate. But the overall impression is of someone dancing round the central maypole of the themes, not really looking where they’re going because they’ve got their nose stuck into a reference book.
That not only Jem and Maggie, but even the peripheral characters are in Technicolor 3D and empathy (or antipathy) for them is created seemingly effortlessly, despite the obsession with the literary subject, bears witness to Chevalier’s prodigious talent as a writer. The briefest mention of any personae who step through the book is believable, the lightest touch brushing in a coachman, a passing button salesman.
Compared to this virtuoso technique in creation of unseen worlds, the sticky-tape-and-superglue attitude to combining the Blakes with the Kellaways and Butterfields appears even clunkier than it is. I was wondering whether the infamous Blake couplings in the garden would crop up, and sure enough there they were, right at the forefront to grab the reader’s attention. Although in a sense this could be used perfectly to illustrate differences (fitting in within the Innocence and Experience theme) between this and other sexual encounters, it is abandoned with only the lightest of references, which anyone unfamiliar with Blake’s philosophy will probably not pick up on.
On the whole, I’d say if you’re not overly familiar with Blake and want a good read, I’d recommend the book. It slips by pleasingly and is a delight to the imagination. If you’re an avid Blake fan you’ll probably enjoy it, too, as you’ll pick up on all the little pieces and not mind the children running through it making a noise. It’s only if you like your historical novels to be woven into place with some security of perspective that you might run into a bit of trouble.
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