Burning Bright: A Novel

This book is a fictional story that represent family and political life in London during a political crisis and William Blake's body of work which quietly addresses the disparate life of Londoners. It contains an engaging story of two families which occasionally (albeit memorably) cross paths with Blake and his wife.

I was hooked from the first page of Burning Bright, and it kept my attention to the last page. I found all the personages—and they represent a wide range of character and personality, vividly presented, from the kindness of Blake to the cynical callousness of some I shall not name. Also, the story is structured on a powerful theme. But it was the last of Chevalier’s books for me to get to—I have read all the others—because of the unperceptive negative reviews I read, calling it mediocre or dull, beginning with the New York Times, and including some of the ones here at Amazon. I don’t know what is the matter with all those readers. I consider that Burning Bright is just as good as Girl with a Pearl Earring, and it has things in common with that book: a setting in a past period and with an important creative person as an important character: the poet and artist William Blake in this case. Blake is especially known for his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. They are a part of this book. What is more, innocence and experience, represented in the lives of Chevalier’s characters and what happens to some of them, form the overarching theme of Burning Bright. Events as presented tend to occur in the same order as Blake’s books: first innocence then experience. Blake considered these to be contraries, though sometimes combined in the same life. Some will find this book not as fast-moving as they might prefer, but it contains varied action and a few surprises; it is well worth reading to the end.

Even though I love Tracy Chevalier I put off reading her latest novel "Burning Bright" because it was set in a much more recent time than her two better books, "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "Lady and The Unicorn" and because it was supposedly about a poet. Generally speaking, unless I'm the one writing it I'm not a huge fan of poetry and I had no huge desire to read about the life of a poet because I was sure it would glorified in some way. I should have known better than to think Ms. Chevalier would glorify anyone-it's not her style. This isn't really a book about William Blake, but about two children. One is Jem Kellaway, whose whole family moves to London at the beginning of the book from the English countryside on the invitation of Philip Astley, a man who runs a traveling circus that is based in London; because Jem's father is a carpenter (he makes chairs.) The other is Maggie Butterfield the child of a local con man and laundress. Though the children are opposites they become friends, and bond with Jem's odd, revolutionary-minded next dory neighbor, William Blake, who writes "Songs." The book is kind of about London's bad parts, and the circus, and nothing at the same time. And William Blake is really a very small character in the book. Really this novel has no plot, like all of Ms, Chevalier's works it is more of a story than anything. It is in the third person, which isn't very good, because in my opinion she writes better in first than in third, and has a revolving narrator. Still I would say it is more comparable to "Falling Angels" than her other books-and not one of her finer works. Maybe it's that the main characters are so young-maybe it's that she writes better when her books are more centered on a piece of artwork like the Unicorn tapestries or the Girl with a pearl earring painting. Maybe she just writes better when he story is set further back in time. I don't know what it is because there is nothing obviously wrong with this book-in fact it has sort of a comporting feeling to it like being in the sun on a perfectly hot summer day that makes you drowsy. But still there is something amazingly special about "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Lady and The Unicorn" and this book is missing that. Still the friendship between Jem and Maggie is very well and sweetly done, what plot there is is well laid out and developed, and the circus angle of the book is interesting. It just somehow feels like the book was written by another author, and having had such high expectations for it, it is impossible to rate it highly now. 3 stars.

In 1792 London William Blake gets new neighbors and is soon embroiled in their lives as Maggie, Maisie and Jem take on the big city, the circus and the serious business of growing up. There is more emphasis on the teens than on Blake in this novel. As she did in The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Chevalier evokes a specific time and place: from the filthy air and streets of Lambeth to the golden fields and muddy villages of Dorsetshire to the demons escaping Blake's mind as he etches his copper plates. It is a hard-scrabble existence for most, for whom life is cheap; it is a privilege for a few, for whom women are cheaper.

I loved it. The historical detail makes this well worth reading. Maggie Butterfield is one of those characters who stay in your mind forever. Street-smart and brassy, she knows the underside of London. She's one of those poor kids who manages to wiggle into the front of the crowd and grab for herself a free seat from where she is able to take it all in and learn from it. Maggie and the Kellaway family are the main characters in this, another of Tracy Chevalier's grand books, highly-detailed adventure. Blake is relegated to a secondary role, one that offers few clues to how he bacame the person he was, someone ahead of his time, a thinker, a man caught up in the events on the Continent.

I got this for my book club but did enjoy reading it. It is well written and an intruguing story. Chevalier is a great story teller. I think my favorite of Chevalier's is still The Girl With the Pearl Earring and so did several other members of out book club.

A beautifully written tale of the meeting of city and country. Well developed characters interwoven in tumult of late 18th century England. I loved every minute of this book.

I didn’t enjoy this novel nearly as much as Girl with the Pearl Earring. The two children, Maggie and Jem, were interesting; the street-smart Maggie is a great character and provides a nice contrast to the maturing Jem. And their families’ situations gave some insight into life in England at the time of the French Revolution. However, I didn’t feel I learned anything about William Blake, who was a minor character in the book, tangential to the children. The plot doesn’t really go anywhere much, and I found the ending disappointing. It left lots of loose ends. Maybe that is realistic, but it is not satisfying.