Burning Bright is a story about the middle ground between opposites: city/country, boy/girl, experienced/innocent. Unlike Chevalier other works this novel did not as clearly develop the primary historical character (William Blake) or the link between the action of the story the creation of his work (Songs of Experience, Songs of Innocence). The story was unfocused. There were too many characters and too many subplots. Chevalier's other works are far superior.

romanzo+circo+falegname+londra

era da un po' di tempo che mi tornavano alla mente brandelli della trama di questo romanzo.
la famiglia povera che abbandona la campagna del dorset approdando a londra in cerca di fortuna, il padre che trova un impiego come falegname in un circo, la mamma che ricama o intreccia vimini, la figlia minore che scopre il mondo degli adulti, la politica e l'amicizia segnando così il suo addio alla spensieratezza e alla fanciullezza in un clima di grandi cambiamenti sociali e politici.
però non riuscivo proprio a ricordare di quale libro si trattasse, niente, neanche un indizio.
così oggi ho inserito un po' di parole chiave su google (romanzo+circo+falegname+londra) e come d'incanto è uscito il titolo di questo libro, che per assurdo non ricordavo assolutamente di aver letto: se qualcuno mi avesse chiesto a bruciapelo se avessi letto l'innocenza, l'ultimo romanzo della chevalier senza fare un minimo accenno alla trama, sicuramente avrei detto di no, che non l'avevo letto!
cosa vuol dire questo, che non mi è piaciuto?
o al contrario che in fondo mi ha colpita abbastanza perché a distanza di tempo sono riemersi parecchi elementi della storia, pur non riuscendo a ricollegarli al titolo e all'autrice?
ai posteri l'ardua sentenza :-)

This is the third Chavalier book I have read the other two being The Virgin Blue and Girl with a Pearl Earring. As with the other two I found this an enjoyable and easy read. As well as having a story line Chavalier does a heck of a lot of research on the period and actual historic facts. Burning Bright is set in London in the late 1700's and follows a family's move there from the county of Dorset, from country to city is a dramatic change for all the family members and Chavalier manages to capture their experiences by describing the sights and smells of 18th century London. A thoroughly good read which made me want to next read a non-fiction book on William Blake who is one of the characters in Burning Bright.

I love Tracy Chevalier, but this wasn't my favourite one of her books. Still a nice read, it had me welling up and I was gripped at times, but the characters didn't suck me in as much as usual, the ending disappointed me a little bit, and didn't feel quite finished.

I'm not sure what to say about this book... I can hardly begin to think about how to summarize it. If I was in a classroom I could say that it's about "opposites" and the teacher would applaud me and we'd all be assigned an essay on the topic of, "The Role of Opposites in 'Burning Bright'".

I like historical fiction, but this is the second book I've read by Chevalier and I haven't been too thrilled by either of them. A book called "Burning Bright" should have some spark to it, yet both the plot and characters seemed faded and washed out, lacking definition (and certainly not "burning") . Even action-packed events like fires and mob rallies come across as subdued and lacking energy. The book kept me reading because I was intrigued by the concept of Astley's circus and how it integrated with the working-class London neighbourhood, but I wasn't particularly interested in the quirky Mr. Blake and he's supposedly the raison d'être for the novel.

Maybe I would have benefited from knowing more about Blake before reading "Burning Bright", but on the other hand, the book doesn't entice me to find out more. It's frustrating because I know Chevalier is a popular author, yet after reading two of her books I have no desire to seek out any of her other titles. The book gets five stars from me for the author's detailed depictions of life in mid-18th century London, but then it's minus 2 stars for a plotline that failed to engage me and characters who didn't seem realistic (even though at least one of them was based on a real person).

I nearly put this novel down several times, but am so glad I stayed the course. This was a gritty tale of one rural family’s adjustment to 18th century coal-smogged London as well as a tender coming of age tale with the finest character development of any book I’ve read this year. Chevalier revealed just enough about the enigmatic neighbor, William Blake to hold the reader as fascinated as the young people who sought his presence during a politically and socially tumultuous time.
When it comes to Tracey Chevalier’s books, Girl With a Pearl Earring is on another level, and Remarkable Creatures is an incredibly original work, but if I had to pick characters I loved the most it’d be Maggie and Jem from Burning Bright.

Nothing really signifant happens in the whole book, but it's lovely, and taught me more about William Blake.

An interesting effort to capture the life of a very unique English poet and artist at the crucial time (1792-93) of the French Revolution and in the very specific locale of Lambeth - a section of the sprawling metropolis of London. Although I found it to be not as successful as the other works of Chevalier's I've read, it has many redeeming qualities.

First of all, as always, is Chevalier's broad sympathy with the working people. Thomas Kellaway's family moves to London at the offhand invitation of Philip Astley, a circus promoter. With his wife Anne and children Jem and Maisie, Kellaway works as a chair manufacturer - just one example of the cottage industry economic activities so prevalent at the time. The attention to detail contained therein is truly amazing - for instance, he uses elm for the seats, yew for the spindles and legs and ash for the hoop and arms. His wife practices button making - intricate sewing of predetermined patterns: cartwheels, honeycombs, crosswheels, basket weaves, old Dorsets, spangles, yarnells, outsiders, mires and many others.

Their lives are uprooted as they move from Piddletrenthide , a village near Dorchester in Devonshire and are lodged in a rooming house run by the mean spirited and cruel Miss Pelham. William Blake and his wife Catherine are their near neighbors. Anne Kellaway has trouble staying away from the window in their apartment, so new and varied are the sights of the bustling metropolis. Their son Jem comes to fancy Maggie Butterfield, whose family is composed of her father Dick - a real rogue who hangs around pubs all day listening and working and schemes to enrich himself through semi-shady deals, her mother Bet whose 5 a.m. to late in the evening job as a laundress has turned her hands into those of a woman much older than she is and her brother Charlie, a lazy sneak whose maliciousness is matched only by his cowardice. Maggie's desperate struggles to find some sort of personal happiness give the novel most of its emotional rhythms.

John Astley, the son of the circus proprietor, is a true rake, whose seduction of virtually every young girl he comes across creates much untold misery among several of the novel's major and minor characters. As well, there is the poor Rosie Wightman, whose misadventure with some candles led to her running away to London while her parents are confined to the local workhouse. Although only in her teens, she has been raped, robbed, beaten and, unbeknownst to her, infected with venereal disease. She is always hungry and ends the novel pregnant.

Chevalier's research is truly awe inspiring. One senses the varied nature of different London districts as Maisie, Jem and Maggie follow the Blakes to a funeral through St. James's Park, where they wear beautiful clothes; then through St. Giles, where everyone wears rags; and finally through Smithfield, a cow market, where the smells of vinegar, starch, lye, tallow and wood are mixed with the blood of slaughtered animals. Lost, they find themselves within hearing distance of the wails of the inmates of Bedlam. Even the aggressive tactics of the whores one encounters everywhere change as one moves from district to district.

To these sights one should add Chevalier's ear for the sounds of the time, especially those of the bawdy songs sung in pubs and the more tuneful, though far from musically correct renditions of popular songs by a hurdy gurdy player. Finally, the smells of the place are very evocative: when Thomas procures some never-before-tasted oranges, the smell of the peels at their feet is mixed with those of horse dung, torch smoke and human sweat while they attend Astley's circus.

Such richness of detail would be enough to make the work highly credible, but Chevalier goes further and incorporates a serious political subplot of the opposing concepts of loyalty to the King vs republican revolution. The demagoguery of the King's supporters is truly frightening in its intransigent and uncompromising nature, while Blake's calm, reticent refusal to submit to their violence is truly heroic. He is shown to strongly admire Thomas Paine. The assistance he receives from his young friends at the point of his confrontation with the anti-French zealots is one of the high points of the narrative.

As to Blake's conception of the world as a synthesis between opposites - of male and female, of the east side and west side of the Thames and most importantly, of innocence and experience, Chevalier makes a valiant attempt to incorporate it into the developing minds of Jem and Maggie, but this attempt sadly falls somewhat short. Like that of Vermeer in Girl with the Pearl Earring, the characterization of Blake quite muted and opaque - only certain outward signs of the supposedly major movements occurring internally are granted, and the reader is left with more of a fleeting image than a forceful character.

Still, a major, significant work. I felt that in employing a third person narration Chevalier weakened what has been her forte in the three other novels of hers I've read - a strongly intimate empathy with her first person narrator(s). With such a wealth of picturesque detail, a truly inspiring political theme and very attractive working class persona as her protagonists, to have used first person to draw the reader even more closely to the emotional center of her characters would have made this novel truly great, not just truly good, as it is now.

Unfortunately I didn't think this was one of Chevalier's best novels for a few reasons. Usually information about the historical context is woven seamlessly into the plot in a way that goes unnoticed, but in this book it felt like an information dump at times. One of the things I love the most about Chevalier's writing is her characterisation and her use of themes. However, all of the characters felt flat and uninteresting. So much so that I often confused them with each other.

I was excited about the inclusion of William Blake in the story but even that didn't lift the plot as much as I hoped. The subtlety of themes and imagery is fantastic in some of Chevalier's other books but I felt like the "innocence versus experience" theme inspired by Blake's famous work was very on the nose and forced at times.

I am disappointed as I had high hopes for this book and wouldn't recommend this one as a starting point for reading Chevalier's novels.

3.5 stars

When Masie and Jem’s (both teenagers) family moves from the country to London in 1792, they are fairly unprepared for big city life. They end up living next door to a man, Philip Astley (and his son), who run a circus, and another neighbour is poet and printer (publisher), William Blake. A fast friend (especially to Jem) comes in outgoing neighbour, Maggie. This is during the time of the Revolution in France, which does have an effect on the people in London.

This was another slow moving book, but overall it was good. It took a bit to learn the characters, especially with Maggie and Maisie – I think I had to sometimes stop and think for a minute every time one or the other was newly introduced into a scene. The story is mostly from Jem and Maggie’s points of view. Apparently Philip Astley was also a real person and created the first circus.

Now this is more like the Blake I love!

What Tracy Chevalier did for 17th Century Delft in Girl with the Pearl Earring and 15th Century Brussels in The Lady and the Unicorn, she has done for Georgian London; especially a row of houses in Lambeth known as Hercules Buildings.

William Blake, poet, engraver, genius, madman, lived at number 13 Hercules Buildings during the 1790s. In Chevelier’s story a family of chairmakers from Dorsetshire, the Kellaways, move to number 12 after a family tragedy and a flippant comment from the infamous (and actually existed) circus owner, Philip Astley.

Thirteen-year-old Jem Kellaway and his new street urchin friend, Maggie befriend and are entranced by Mr and Mrs Blake, the former of whom reads to them, shows them copies of his books and how his printing press works and write “London” and “Tyger”. But as the French Revolution turns to bloodshed and fears of the same wash over London any supporters, the Blakes included, are not to be trusted.

Throw into the mix Philip Astley’s circus, his rather promiscuous son and a ton of illegitimate babies and really you’ve got a pretty good read.

Unlike a lot of writers of historical fiction, Tracy Chevalier never allows her stories to be real, even for a minute, and in return she always gives the most wonderfully accurate historical detail. Yes, like Girl with a Pearl Earring this is pure fantasy, but isn’t all history merely a matter of opinion :)

This was an easy read but didn’t really give a feel for the place and time or much detail on Blake.