# AS Byatt Appreciation Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 30, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042 "2010-08-30T20:47:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042/1 "2010-08-30T20:47:27Z")
I just finished _The Whistling Woman._ I am consistently amazed by the hugeness of this woman’s imagination, the musical poetry she can create out of putting words together on a page, and her knowledge and originality of thought in _so_ _many_ fields. For my money, it’s hard to imagine her doing better than _The Children’s Book_. Tom’s story is gutwrenching. I also love the children’s stories within it. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042/2 "2010-08-30T21:29:17Z")
I love her to death, but I really didn’t like _The Children’s Book_. I thought it was just too cluttered with characters and storylines that didn’t go anywhere. If it had been edited down substantially, it would have been fantastic. _Possession_ is one of my five all-time favorite novels – her talent (as a novelist and as someone mimicking two very different Romantic poests) is mind-blowing. Not just in that book, but in general, she is one of the best writers when it comes to crafting characters who are emotionally reserved on the outside but roiling with life within – the way she gets at that tension is incredibly insightful. I once copied one of my favorite passages from _The Game_ that illustrates this – > [@](#): > > She wrote: ‘It was kind of you, Father, to write as you did of my nightmares and fears. As you will have guessed, I have regretted intermittently what I told you of this. It was a moment of weakness’… > > She paused again… Father Rowell had expressed only a limited understanding, and what he had said was not entirely untroubled. She should have said nothing: she had lost dignity, exposed herself, forfeited, perhaps, some of his respect. > > …[much later] > > Cassandra regarded her letter with slight distaste. It was a distaste already familiar… It seemed to her that she was capable of only two kinds of approach to men: a constrained dignity, and an overwrought and vague appeal for help of some kind. And her undignified outbursts produced, invariably, from those to whom she exposed herself, a defensive professional reaction. I am not a woman, she thought sharply, her intelligence restored by renewed sense of her own isolation, to be comforted in that tone of voice. It’s frightening how much I identified with that. Too bad the book ends so sadly for that character. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042/3 "2010-08-30T23:54:27Z")
I stopped reading Byatt after _The Biographer’s Tale_ - it just seemed too big and too un-put-together. She hits her peak, I think, with short stories and novellas - works like “The Djinn In The Nightingale’s Eye” and “Christ In The House Of Martha And Mary” are on my short list of The Greatest Things I Have Ever Read. That said, _Possession_ is my “stranded on a desert island and you only have one book” book. I am just blown away by her ability to write - authentically - in _11_ different voices. It’s a stimulating detective story and a completely believeable love story, and an intellectual puzzle as well. Byatt also creates authentic male characters, and I think that’s a rare talent in any female author. (Equally rare for a male author to craft women that ring true.) _A Lamia In The Cevannes_ is a very masculine story; Byatt portrays a man in a way that is honest and neither caricature nor condescension. I also love her use of color in writing. I could go on about all the ways she is a great writer, but this level of gushing is only appropriate for the Master. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042/4 "2010-08-31T02:25:37Z")
Possession makes my all time favorites list. It took a lot to get into, but wow. Unfortunately, I read it, and discovered her, in my ninth month of pregnancy. And although I own her other books, I’ve never managed to dedicate the time to get into her other books. The baby is now eleven - maybe I’ll give it another shot. But the past eleven years have been filled with less demanding literature. ---
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042/5 "2010-08-31T19:34:14Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > I love her to death, but I really didn’t like _The Children’s Book_. I thought it was just too cluttered with characters and storylines that didn’t go anywhere. If it had been edited down substantially, it would have been fantastic. See, I think you _could_ say that about a lot of her books, but that would be a mistake, because the depth of explanation and background is what makes Byatt Byatt. I dunno, I don’t think it would have been the same without the sprawling mass of characters. Slowly discovering which children have which parents, and realising that Olive doesn’t really love some of them, is fascinating. Like I said earlier, Tom’s story is gutwrenching, and the discovery of the Fludd father’s secret collection of vases (not sure who by?) is horrifying. I could maybe take or leave some of the bits in Germany. I did love _Possession_, although the male poet’s long poems weren’t my favourite part. I really like the way she uses letters in her writing. In The Whistling Woman, for example, you’ve got Brenda Pincher’s letters, Gander’s (whilst he’s slowly going nuts) and Quarrell’s. I also agree with **Slow Moving Vehicle** about her ability to write from the perspective of male characters. And I always like her descriptions of food. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2023, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042/6 "2023-11-20T04:21:32Z")
> **[AS Byatt: Author, critic and poet dies aged 87](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67448696)** > > The writer had a long and successful career and won the Booker Prize for her 1990 novel Possession. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2023, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-byatt-appreciation-thread/552042/7 "2023-11-20T12:39:30Z")
Yeah, I saw that. Possession is one of my favorite books. I read several of her others, but they did not quite grab me as much.