Brilliance

Despite his enormous success with inventions like the light bulb and phonograph, by the late 1800's Thomas Edison's constant desire to discover has left him broke. Thankfully, banker J.P. Morgan sees potential in Edison and offers him huge sums of money to create a company that will light up America. But before their vision can become a reality, Edison will wind up caught in a battle of currents with George Westinghouse, leading him to weigh power against morality in one of American history's greatest stories.

“The inventor poured himself a glass of milk and listened for the twentieth century.”

I read the first sentence of Brilliance over and over again. It's a perfect example of the subtle, incredibly beautiful writing that fills show more the pages of McCarten's novel. In someone else's hands the battle of the currents could have been dull or overcomplicated, but McCarten does more than rewrite Edison's biography, he gives him a voice. Readers are given a glimpse into Edison's thoughts as he weighs supporting the creation of the electric chair in hopes of crushing his competition and the eventual fallout resulting from its use.

McCarten honors the work of Edison in bringing him to life in a novel both well researched and infused with originality; Brilliance is exactly what fans of historical fiction love to read.

Blog: www.rivercityreading.com show less

This is apparently a reworking of a novel McCarten wrote in 2003 about Edison and its this may explain the problem that I have with the book, as the narrative is just so sparse - someone in my book group described this as 'hors d'oeuvres rather than the meal' – that I found it difficult to engage with the book. Having had a long discussion at book group, it seems that for most of us McCarten left too much out – I would’ve like more about contemporary responses to the electrification of the cities and towns, rather than a brief aside about the concerns regarding liquid electricity and electrocution as a method of execution. Also, and as McCarten is also a dramatist this may not be surprising, the book read like a prose screenplay show more rather than a novel, as it doesn’t describe a character’s internal process.

Having said this, McCarten is a great writer, there are some great descriptive passages in the book, as in this description of a demonstration of electricity that Edison prepared for the Columbus Day Parade,

Marching in box formation and at cortege pace, two hundred uniformed men came up Fifth Avenue like an invasion force. This would have been disturbing enough, had not the head of each man been on fire.

But not quite on fire. The flame was contained by glass – imprisoned in a flask, an upside-down pear, affixed to the top of each man’s derby. Golden-headed, ablaze, each marcher a human lighthouse, this moving mixture of flesh, blood and torch drew gasps as the public realized that the fire-bearers were in no particular pain.

However these brief passages were not enough for me, while I’ve developed an interest in learning more about Edison, Morgan and Tesla, I’m afraid that I can’t get excited about this book. show less

Ein Teil von T.A.Edisons Geschichte (Licht, elektrischer Stuhl, J.P. Morgan). Technisch schön montiert, aber etwas oberflächlich.