Burning Bright

Tracy Chevalier

HarperCollins

Otago Daily Times, September 29th 2007

In Burning Bright, Tracy Chevalier continues in the style of her earlier works, providing an oblique glimpse of famous artists through the eyes of incidental characters.

The setting this time is not the Delft of Girl with a Pearl Earring but London at the close of the 18th century, surroundings which threaten to overwhelm Jem Kellaway when his father moves their family from the village of Piddletrenthide to the country’s capital. Befriended by Maggie Butterworth, the streetwise daughter of the local equivalent of Arthur Daley, he soon becomes acquainted with his new home and its inhabitants, including his neighbour, the poet and engraver William Blake.

The youngsters are fascinated firstly by Blake’s notoriety (with the French Revolution in full swing, he dares to wear the bonnet rouge in public), and then by his work. He offers them glimpses of an adult world they have yet to experience, while their innocence in turn inspires his own work. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the Kellaways are dependent on the whims of entrepreneur Philip Astley, who employs Jem’s father and around whose circus the entire neighbourhood revolves. With London as much a character as any human, Chevalier’s novel places the great poet in a tangible place and time, and tells a good story into the bargain.