Tracy Chadlier

     Finding the Story in the Painting

Tracy Chevalier has vivid imagination. Her writing is a lucid blend of history and creativity. She is an American living in England, churning out stories that have caught the attention of the literary world. Her latest autumn release last year is ‘The Last Runaway’, a period piece on American pre – civil war. ‘Girl with the Pearl Earring’ earlier had catapulted her onto the global writing arena.  She is clever to dwell upon icons in the past(so much so that  literary archaeological  study too has minimal material to really bring them to life) that have been elusive.  She makes full use of the lacuna, and impregnates her characters and plot with her fictionalized versions. It’s  a treat to listen to her on her TED talk ( http://www.ted.com/talks/tracy_chevalier).  Her winging imagination gleefully  constructs a dramatic  story around Jean-Siméon Chardin's early masterpiece,  Boy Building a House of Cards.   She lived with Johannes Vermeer’s painting ‘Girl with a pearl Earring’ for sixteen years, and finally weaved a story around the enigmatic look of the girl in the painting. The unknown maid from 17^th century delft becomes his muse and through her the reader gets into the studio of Vermeer, the machinations of his work and thought process, a sole private world. The book sold 4 million copies, got translated into many languages and was adapted into a film. Tracy succeeded in taping into the mainstream consciousness with a dramatized story, based on the life of a reclusive genius artist. 

The book ‘Burning Bright, is similar writing, based on the mystic, revolutionary poet, William Blake. Tracy depicts the seamy side of England in the 1750s. Blake’s seminal work, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience forms a backbone for the changing city and lives of Jem Kellaway, Maisie Kellaway, and Maggie Butterfield in their pre-teens. The title Burning Bright is again a tribute to his poem ‘Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright’. Quotes from ‘London’ in the story lend significance to real time London - the slums of St. Giles, murder, molestation,  unwanted pregnancies, and a funeral cortege through the streets of the city. The book is full of action and drama portraying circus feats, fires, showdowns, difficult neighbours, swindlers, and patronizing owners. William Blake is a gracious presence in the neighbourhood where the children live, and it is through interactions with them that the reader is led through the story of printing and engraving. Though Blake is a sure presence through the entire book yet he remains a shadow. The effects of a revolution gone sour across the country in France, and Blake’s so called treason is hinted upon in the book yet  his ideas of inspirations for his poems,  mysticism, and he as a genius visionary does not really fructify in the book and the attempt remains weak and illusionary.

The Last Runaway, the latest book is steeped in the spirit of freedom. A desire for freedom by the victim and those who help him achieve freedom. It is the story of slavery and the resistance movement interwoven with the abolitionists, English Quakers, cultural contexts of North and South America and the English. Art of quilting by women is explored through different communities, patching, embroidering paths of healing, empowerment and freedom. Honor Bright is an emigrant to America in 1850, caught in the throes of the slave movement. The story moves from Ohio to Oberlin, prominent on the map of the Underground Railroad. The profiles of women like Judith Haymaker and Belle Mill, and Abigail are colourful and multifaceted. Defiant women who help salvage the spirit of slaves by helping them escape through their clandestine network of safe houses, food depots and rail lines. In contrast Donovan is a stereotypical character, who is a slave catcher, a rogue, and ducks being redeemed. Honor Bright with her strong Quaker principles, champions’ equality, inner light and silent meditation. She decides to undertake the freedom of slaves at the cost of personal safety. But her condescending righteousness and English superiority over the locals makes her fall short of a rounded character.

Art remains Tracy’s inspiration to weave stories around. If there are paintings which triggered her earlier; later mystic poets, medieval tapestries and quilt- making seems to have impressed upon her to continue her journey of storytelling. She candidly admits that she suffers from art fatigue whenever she visits art galleries, and to relive herself of the guilt she beelines to an art piece which beckons her. Her mind then goes into an overdrive to concoct a story around the piece of art in no time!