snwcreative

I am thrifty with my absolutes. However, I must make an exception and celebrate this debut novel by proclaiming this as the most visually stunning, sublime prose I have encountered in any book this year. Every sentence is an ineffable bliss to read. I urge you to experience it the way I did, without too much information beforehand. Be dazzled and bedazzled by this symphony of the senses; the words transcend the story. Rockets will fire from all your synapses. Dinner may burn. The story's premise, which takes place in 1751, is solid but does not break new ground in literature, although the element of fireworks and their meticulous craft adds a fresh and novel spark. Agnes Trussel, 17, and in dire straits for a woman of her time, runs off from her rural Sussex countryside and farmer family to escape to London. There she is employed by the brooding, enigmatic pyrotechnist, J. Blacklock, and becomes his apprentice. She is a quick study of powders, pigments, and combustibles; she learns to load pastilles, gerbes, Bengal lights, and numerous other explosive projectiles. Agnes is an anachronism, which fuels the narrative and makes her a potent protagonist. The story sizzles and bursts with a seamy cast of characters--dandies; scullery maids; creepy men with rotten teeth; prostitutes; merchants of every class; a mute; and other baroque personalities. And although the author illuminates this era vividly, it isn't satire or burlesque. It isn't a bodice-ripper. And there is not a lot of irony, either. Yet it is not melodrama, or bawdily theatrical. It is a well-plotted arc that builds to its conclusion without a lot of fireworks--just the genuine kind. What elevated me while keeping me rooted to the pages were the flawless, contoured passages. Every sentence is like a Vermeer, or a painting from the most atmospheric of landscape artists, or a shimmering photograph. Facts and physical descriptions become high art and nuanced, dimensional photography. Nature, light, and color are brilliantly defined and lyrically expressed. Borodale is a master of metaphor, alliteration, and allusion. She is a visual virtuoso of words, and her depth of field is sharp and resplendent, perforated with poetical texture. She has striking control over scenic aperture and placement, as if she had used a Swiss lens to frame it, and a blade to sharpen it. I am astonished that this is the author's first novel. She is an uncannily nimble, hypnotizing writer. I cannot prevent my ardent display of accolades. Anything I say is an understatement to the sculptured sensuality and bursting ebullience of this prose.

2022-10-29 03:26