Burntcoat: An Unusual Novel

The unusual novel, Burntcoat, by Sarah Hall, inspired an unusual discussion! Some of us had difficulty reading the book. One member said, “I gave up halfway through. I just couldn’t keep up the momentum to finish.”

Someone said, “At the very beginning, I was about ready to abandon it after about 25%. Then I realized that as (the book) goes on, more is revealed that begins to tie it together. So, for me, the little bit of suspense that was involved with the question ‘how is this going to tie together next(?)’ was enough to keep me going. For me, it was kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. OK, where is the next piece? It was hard, but then, I’m not a big fan of stream-of-consciousness writing, either. Am I glad I read it? I’m glad I struggled through it. It was very different. Would I put it on my-favorite-books-I-have-ever-read list? No. Some of the things I had questions about that I would have liked to know more about, never got addressed. For example, what did (Edith’s) art actually look like?"

Someone commented, “There were details about studying in Japan but no details about what she actually did with (what she learned). Does anybody know what those things actually looked like when she was done?” To this, I said, “It was left to the imagination, probably purposely.”

Someone said, “I didn’t get any of the art (parts).”

”One comment was, “It started out with the stroke. That didn’t attract my imagination."

Other comments included, “Hall can turn a phrase. (The book) had a rich vocabulary. I found myself looking up words more than usual. It might have been partly because of the British orientation.”

About the physicality, someone suggested that it might have been to remind the reader that this was the body (of Halit), as well as his mind and soul. I used the word, “visceral” more than once in comments about the physical details described in the book.

I said, “There were parts that were well-written. The parts about the mother and her treatment and how Edith coped with her mother were my favorite parts.”

One reader noted that reviewers said, “Dazzling and completely satisfying” and “A brilliant novel about love, art, and the fragility of life.”

About the pandemic in the book, someone said the pieces didn’t fit together and go anywhere.

“This was the worst pandemic,” someone opined, “way worse than the pandemic we’re in, though it wasn’t real.” Since the book was published in 2021, someone wondered whether the author was writing about an imaginary pandemic while the actual pandemic was happening. Someone else who wasn’t able to attend the meeting also mentioned this in an email. She wasn’t sure whether the pandemic in the novel was a coincidence or whether it was purposely adapted from the real one. At the discussion, there was a suggestion that maybe the author added the pandemic parts during the editing to make the book better, and maybe even longer.

Some of the questions at the end of the book are thought-provoking. The idea about who will tell your story after you are gone was the theme of a question and had been the theme of a song in the musical, Hamilton.

We made a list of stories we found in the book: Edith’s mother’s story, Edith as a child, Edith’s experience of her dad leaving them, the cottage on the moor, a first boyfriend, the Japanese studying (woodwork), Ali’s backstory, Halit’s backstory, Edith’s brother who visited, the on and off friendship of Carolina who helped Edith’s career as an artist, and the topic of grief that meandered through the stories and perhaps was the main topic of the book. Someone suggested motherhood was also a main theme of Burntcoat, with protagonist Edith saying that she brought her art into existence but did not have a motherhood relationship with it.

The discussion was slightly more disorganized than usual, but, as usual, brought out a good discussion’s worth of ideas about the book!