Product Description
This book examines and explains the obsession with history in the contemporary British novel. It frames these "historical" novels as expressions of narrative desire, highlighting the reciprocal relationship between a desire to disclose and to rid ourselves of anxieties elicited by the past. Scrutinizing representative novels from Byatt, McEwan and Rushdie, contemporary fiction is revealed as capable of advocating a viable ethical stance and as a form of authentic commentary. Our anxieties often exist in response to what might be perceived as the oppression or eradication of values, whether this is through the modern repudiation of Victorian principles (Byatt), the Western rethinking of Enlightenment narratives in light of the Holocaust (McEwan), or pluralism threatened by religious fundamentalism (Rushdie). Each of these novelists differentially employs postmodern artifice, sometimes as a way to reject the notion of historical construction, sometimes to advocate for it, but always to bring us closer to what the author believes are significant values and truths, rather than relativism. The representative qualities of these novels serve to highlight themes, concerns, and anxieties present in many of the works of each author and by extension those of their contemporaries. ... Read more

Product Description
The magnificent title story of this collection of fairy tales for adults describes the strange and uncanny relationship between its extravagantly intelligent heroine--a world renowned scholar of the art of story-telling--and the marvelous being that lives in a mysterious bottle, found in a dusty shop in an Istanbul bazaar. As A.S. Byatt renders this relationship with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable.

The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt's remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all us to inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor.

"A dreamy treat.... It is not merely strange, it is wondrous."
--Boston Globe

"Alternatingly erudite and earthy, direct and playful.... If Scheherazade ever needs a break, Byatt can step in, indefinitely."
--Chicago Tribune

"Byatt's writing is crystalline and splendidly imaginative.... These [are] perfectly formed tales."
--Washington Post Book WorldAmazon.com Review
"Once upon a time," A.S. Byatt's title fairy storybegins, "when men and women hurtled through the air on metalwings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea,learning the speech of whales and the songs of the dolphins ... therewas a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy. Herbusiness was storytelling..." But this is no backward looking,quaint fairy time. The time is the present, and the protagonist is asensible scholar who is given the not-at-all sensible gift of agenie. How will Gillian, an expert in fairy stories and well versed inall that can go wrong with wishes, use hers?

DistinguishedBritish author and Booker Prize-winner A.S. Byatt creates fairy talesfor adults, each a blend of the magical and the modern, and readers ofAngels &Insects and Possession will recognizethe role of Victorian fairy tales in her fiction. This handsome little book includesreproductions of woodcuts that evoke our childhood wonder for dragonsand princesses, glass coffins and netherworldly things. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

LOVED the first 4 stories, but not the title story
I'm torn in writing this review.I adored first four of the five fairy stories in A. S. Byatt's "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye": limpid lambent language and the twisting satisfaction of fairy plotlines, so familiar, yet surprising.True almost all of the four had elements which I could critique, like loose ends and jumpy plots (like in Dragons' Breath), or sometimes characters apparently there just as foils (like the woodsman in "The Glass Coffin" or the little thing in Gode's Story), but the language was so divine, I couldn't possibly complain.The colours alone in "The Eldest Princess" were treat enough.

"There were a series of stormy sunsets tinged with seagreen and seaweed green.Later, there were as well as the sunsets, dawns, where the sky was mackerel puckered and underwater dappled with lime green and bottle green and other greens too, malachite and jade... But of course apple and grass and fern looked very different against this new light and something very odd and dimming happened to lemons and oranges, and something more savage and hectic to poppies and pomegranates and ripe chilies."

But the last story, "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" stumped me.It was fully more than half the book (the other stories being story-length, and this one more of a novella), and set in the real contemporary world, yet with fantastical elements, which appeared not to change the way people acted or thought or were.

The main character is an English "narratologist" in her 50's, someone we are repeatedly told in the beginning is a being of a second order, thus we are not to like or respect her to some degree.But then the POV shifts to her (and sometimes briefly to other characters just to tell the reader what they're thinking - sloppy).She ends up being a fascinating erudite warm thoughtful person, so I'm not sure what the point was in the initial undercutting of her character.

But all that is minor compared to what the plot does.Long sequences of lectures are recounted, old fairy stories and legends and classics told and retold, visions of death and fate appear (that suddenly disappear halfway through), and countless baffling and abrupt references to narratives and authors from obscure and ancient lore (this felt like a lot like name dropping and jargon).Not that these outtakes weren't interesting, but I didn't understand their function in the plot, and their insertion was very jerky.

There was also an ongoing obsession with ageing (as per women) and female roles in history and folklore that is explored that I couldn't help but imagine was self-referential and mental masturbation only because it was not integrated into the story in any satisfactory fashion.Again, topics I personally find interesting (and that align with my politics), but why here?Or why so clumsily?

This next is perhaps my own bias, but the Muslim references were negative and/or exotified.There was a scene with a hyper fundo Islamic Pakistani man, his bejeweled and sari'ed wife and daughters (with soft laughs and soft hands and tinkling bangles).Also three hijabi women in an audience who just sat there staring defiantly into space.

The djinn plotline was romantic and lovely, but not original other than the way the scenes are described (sexy and beautiful) - her language in this story, when not academic or referential, is yet outstanding.

The whole thing felt like she threw together lectures and research on folklore and narrative and literature, combined that with diary entries and some (romantic) (colonial) thinking about djinns, and stuck it into this book.On its own, maybe it would have survived a bit better (though seriously flawed), but compared to the other luminous fairy stories in the collection, it doesn't do.

I give the book 3 stars: 1 star for the last story and 4.5 for the first four.

Great stories by a great storyteller
This is a very short short story collection. The title story is a gem.Loved the voice of experience that speaks to all of us women of a certain age. Love is the answer to the partricular questions posed by this enchanting story.I know I am not the only one who would like to partake of the heroine's particular blend of luck and knowledge.

A.S. Byatt, weaver of magical tales
A.S. Byatt, latter day Sheherazade; Byatt holds the spell to the last page of the story.

This book contains one of the finest novellas in English
If I could give this book 10 stars for the novella "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye", I certainly would. I think it is one of the three finest short stories in the English language along with Isak Dineson's "Babette's Feast" and Paul Bowles'"Delicate Prey".

Two thirds of the book are devoted to this novella. There are 4 short stories that make up the other third of the book. These stories: The Glass Coffin, Gode's Story, Tale of the Eldest Princess, and Dragon's Breath, are very well constructed adult fairy tales and well worth reading.

However "The Dijinn in the Nightingale's Eye" is exceptional. In this story, Gillian, a middleaged scholar is in Istanbul for a conference of experts on myths, legends, and fairy tales. Her husband has divorced her after their two daughters had grown and left home. From here the story starts to spin story within story in rich overlays of meaning and metaphor. Gillian is an expert in wishes since she is an expert in fairy tales. The wisdom of her three wishes drives the tale. We are treated to an interpretation of one of Chaucer's tales as well as a re-telling of Gilgamesh.

I am certain that rich feminist interpretations are possible, considering the images of the role of women that change throughout the book. The characters go to St. Sophia (named after the feminine aspect of the Holy Spirit) where they put their finger into a hole in a marble column that remains forever moist.

The writing was very erotic for a fairy tale. The Djinn appears nude in Gillian's hotel room, he is 20 times larger than a human, as are his genitals. Byatt then tales us of the overpowering smell of masculinity coming from this handsome giant creature.

The Djinn tells tales of his 1000 year existence in the courts of Arab kings. His tales of love reveal that his heart is as mature as the heart of Gillian, making them a wonderful match for the adventures they undergo.

I was thoroughly entertained with the wisdom of each of Gillian's three wishes and her ability to string out these three wishes as she gained more knowledge of the Djinn. It is her final wish that reveals the ultimate power in the Universe, at least from my perspective. Maybe this is why I was so captivated by Byatt's wonderful novella.

I read the novella twice over the last 5 years and it remains unforgettable for me. I can not recommend it more strongly.

a lovely book
These five stories are told with the shimmering grace and ephemeral colors A.S. Byatt readers have come to expect.And as such, these five realistic fairy tales for adults will surely not disappoint.But these tales are, in some way, something more.Written in different times and for different reasons, they nonetheless "hang together" almost as one whole fairy tale about love, dream, story-telling and the many different ways we have of being free.Free to live our own lives, comfortable with themselves, their worlds, and their selves.Free to know we are, indeed, quite special after all.

I highly recommend this book.
... Read more

Product Description
Whether she is writing about George Eliot or Sylvia Plath; Victorian spiritual malaise or Toni Morrison; mythic strands in the novels of Iris Murdoch and Saul Bellow; politics behind the popularity of Barbara Pym or the ambitions that underlie her own fiction, Byatt manages to be challenging, entertaining, and unflinchingly committed to the alliance of literature and life. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Over-wrought first effort
It has been a long time since I read a novel I disliked as heartily as this one, which is a shame, because I loved her other novels. Some of the writing is marvelous, but these long Jamesian introspections are excruciating. Find it hard to sympathize with the protagonist, and she continues to make bad decisions at the end.

A.S. Byatt's first novel
This is a great read for any fan of British novelist and critic A.S. Byatt. It's her first novel, written as an undergraduate (and reworked a few yrs later when she was a young mother.) She was obviously passionate, perceptive, brainy, busy, and full of life.The protagonist Anna notices, thinks about, and feels things -- intensely. The autobiographical story is interesting, and less deeply upholstered thanByatt's subsequent novels. The narrator'simmediacy is compelling, and the young woman's struggles to define herself within (and separate from) her intellectually consuming andpowerful family are well drawn. Lots of 'characters,' the Byatt ear for speech and eye for the telling detail. Memorable escapades and love affairs, too It's intense and brimming with energy and life. ... Read more

Product Description
A packed, provocative anthology on a subject close to us all.

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all. . . . Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.
Luis Bunuel, Memoirs

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

This intriguing anthology introduces us to arguments and experiences, evocative moments and hard scientific debate on the subject of memory, the thread that holds our lives and our history together. With an introduction by A.S. Byatt, the book is arranged in themed sections, and includes specially commissioned essays by writers with expertise in different fields from Memory and Evolution by Patrick Bateson to Memory and Forgetting by the biographer Richard Holmes, and an account of the chemistry of the brain, by Steven Rose. The fascinating extracts move through the ages of Plato and Aristotle to Montaigne and Shakespeare, Voltaire and Hume, Wordsworth and Proust, Freud and Virginia Woolf, Jorge Luis Borges, W.G. Sebald and Haruki Murakami. Stimulating and provocative and often profoundly moving, Memory is a book to treasure — and remember. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

The other side of genius
These are letters of a level-headed and perfectly normal woman, if one can call well-educated and witty the norm, who has a life with a husband and three children, as well as working relationships with a number of publishers.Nothing extraordinary there.

In her letters to her daughters Fitzgerald writes about a mother's love and money worries ("...but, yes!You look pale - I do wish you didn't have to work in the vac:- I'm so sick of being poor!), the little daily annoyances ("Freddie scorns me.While I'm fiddling about trying to find my keys he stands on his hind legs and puts his paws on the keyhole in case I don't know where that it."), her thoughts on literature ("...though I would never dare saying it in public, the value of studying literature only really appears as you go on living, and find how it really is like life - that it all works..");

her letters to her friends, the humdrum of daily life (...but I think we middle class ladies are really driving ourselves mad by doing all the things that were formerly done by a 'staff' and keeping up our cultural interests as well..."), housekeeping in general ("...plenty of cupboards, which I am inclined to think are the great secret of home life.) and, very occasionally, her physical ailments ("...rather I feel sorry for my heart which has made such an effort for so long...");

her letters to her editors, her book reviews ("...1. forgiving hostile reviews, 2. not feeling morally superior because you've forgiven them."), other writers ("I don't think he (S Rushdie) ought to go into hiding, though.My local Patel grocery on the corner tells me that it is not a dignified act.") and writing success ("I don't see how a life of Dickens written by someone who has no sense of humour whatever can be a success, but I daresay it will be...") and her letter to other writers, her views on books ("...the writer's favourite books is scarcely ever the same as the public's.")

My favourite letter is one Fitzgerald wrote to her friend Francis King which sums up her various roles in life:"I rather wish I didn't have to be Miss Fitzgerald as it seems to discount my husband, of whom I was very fond, not to speak of 3 children and 2 and a half grandchildren, but I suppose that's an occupational hazard of writing short, powdery novels."

We recognize the same wit in her letters as in her books.But the sharp intellect and penetrating mind we find in THE BLUE FLOWER, THE BOOK SHOP, and in all her books, Fitzgerald had altogether sheathed in her daily life and hidden so well from those around her so that we read her letters and think there's nothing extraordinary there.

Or is there?

The wonderful woman herself
Penelope Fitzgerald's letters give a glimpse into an increasingly rare type of person. Witty, truly learned, earnest, as well as gentle and fiesty by turns. As with her novels, biographies and essays, Fitzgerald's letters handle the hopes and dissapointments of life with an amusing, light touch that nevertheless conveys the pathos and gravity of the small and everyday human experience.

Just as lovely as I thought they would be.
That Fitzgerald is a little known genius still astonishes me. Her novels are one and all among the finest written in English. They are lyric, wise, and perfectly wrought, and if they are at times tragic, it is because they reflect the world as it is, and not as it ought to be. And their beauty makes up for their truth.

And now the letters. It's true that there aren't many--the ones between Fitzgerald and her husband, for example, went down when her houseboat sank (the adventure on which her book, Offshore is based). But what we have exemplify her at her best. Wry, tender, honest--sometimes curmudgeonly, other times hilarious--they show us the raw talent that percolated until the author was 60 years old.

Buy them, read them, and compare them to the best of the genre: The Collected Letters of Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Merton, Virginia Woolf, and Katherine Mansfield--just to name a few.

You can most of the British media reviews of this book by going to PenelopeFitzgerald.com
... Read more

Product Description

A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession: A Romance attracted international acclaim in 1990, winning both the Booker Prize and the Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. In her long and eminent career, Byatt has steadily published both fiction and non-fiction, the latest of which has not, until now, been given full critical consideration.

Product Description
A.S. Byatt has become known world-wide for her award-winning novel Possession (1990). This thrilling story of romance and literary detection, spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has prompted a widespread reappraisal of Byatt's entire oeuvre throughout Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, where she is often read in translation. Richard Todd's assessment of Byatt's literary identity treats the entire range of her writing from her earliest novels and essays to the present. ... Read more

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Melusine the Serpent Goddess in Myth and Literature examines how women were once worshipped as the life force, but later suppressed with the introduction of monotheism and a changing attitude regarding the sexes. It connects the literary conception of the Melusine story to myths and legends of the snake or dragon goddess, from ancient to contemporary times. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

(3.5) Fascinating book about the myth of Melusine
This book presents itself as a scholarly look at the figure of Melusine, best-known as the mysterious heroine of a medieval French fairy tale, but with ties to major goddesses of the ancient world.The author focuses mainly on Melusine's story as presented in A.S. Byatt's novel _Possession_, but also ties in earlier versions of the tale and other modern novelizations.

Alban's thesis is that Melusine is a survival of the ancient Great Goddess.This book is at its best when comparing Melusine to various ancient goddesses.For example, Alban's comparison of Melusine and Medusa, both snake-ladies whom one could not gaze upon with impunity, is fascinating.Also mentioned is Melusine's similarity to Echidna, who like Melusine was a bearer of strange reptilian children.Alban also studies the figures of Eve, Lilith, Persephone, and many others.It's jaw-dropping, at least to a reader like me who is obsessed with the Melusine story, how many parallels there really are between her tale and the older myths.

The downfall of this book is its unquestioning embrace of the "prehistoric matriarchy" theory.No one really knows whether people in ancient times were peaceful, feminist, "gylanic" tribes worshipping a single Great Mother.The theory has not been disproven; however, it is far from proven.No one really knows.But I think this book would have come across as more scholarly if it had presented the matriarchy ideas as theory and not as fact. ... Read more

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As writers of English from Australia to India to Sri Lanka command our attention, Salman Rushdie can state confidently that English fiction was moribund until the Empire wrote back, and few, even among the British, demur. A. S. Byatt does, and her case is persuasive. In a series of essays on the complicated relations between reading, writing, and remembering, the gifted novelist and critic sorts the modish from the merely interesting and the truly good to arrive at a new view of British writing in our time. Whether writing about the renaissance of the historical novel, discussing her own translation of historical fact into fiction, or exploring the recent European revival of interest in myth, folklore, and fairytale, Byatt's abiding concern here is with the interplay of fiction and history. Her essays amount to an eloquent and often moving meditation on the commitment to historical narrative and storytelling that she shares with many of her British and European contemporaries. With copious illustration and abundant insights into writers from Elizabeth Bowen and Henry Green to Anthony Burgess, William Golding, Muriel Spark, Penelope Fitzgerald, Julian Barnes, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, and Pat Barker, On Histories and Stories is an oblique defense of the art Byatt practices and a map of the complex affiliations of British and European narrative since 1945. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

very insightful!
I thoroughly enjoyed this next to latest book by A.S. Byatt. I have loved many of her books. This one provided an American reader (moi) with insight into contemporary British writers that I didn't have before. It illuminated her shift (and others) away from the blockbuster Victorian novel toward the tale-the greatest story ever told, her last section, is not the topic you might suspect. If you're a Byatt lover, I would definitely check out this book. It's not long. An evening or two. And she's such good company. I even prefer this book to her earlier critical studies. This book is not a critical study but the fallout from a series of lectures. Check it out! ... Read more

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Published in association with the magazine "Modern Painters", this book gathers together a diverse collection of essays from a large number of well-known authors and artists in the 20th and 21st centuries.Amazon.com Review
From the pages of the British art magazine Modern Painter comes Writers on Artists, an immensely readable collection of works written on a wide selection of artists. Included visual artists range from legends like Matisse and Brancusi to contemporary firebrands like Damien Hirst and filmmaker Harmony Korine. The writers are other artists, art critics, fiction writers, and poets, all deeply moved by and invested in the artwork they've written about. Author Nick Hornby of High Fidelity fame finds inspiration in Richard Bellingham's tragic but unsentimental photographic portraits of his alcoholic father and overweight mother. In dramatic contrast, op artist Bridget Riley traces the artistic development of Piet Mondrian while praising his vivid use of color. Not surprisingly, each writer approaches art and writing very differently. British poet laureate Andrew Motion writes a poem about the work of hyperrealist American sculptor Duane Hanson, while art lover and musician David Bowie records an interview and spends a day with bad-girl British sensation Tracey Emin. Each section includes brief bios on both artist and writer. With topnotch artwork and great writers, this book is a joy for any art aficionado. --J.P. Cohen ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

EDIFICATION AND ENTERTAINMENT
Puzzled by modern art?Bored by art criticism?Then "Writers On Artists" is the book for you. Thisunique collection of modern art works accompanied by essays by contemporary writers is a colorful feast for the eyes in every way.

Just as each writer may take a distinctly different view of modern art, every contributor is sincere in bringing modern art to the many who find it remote or incomprehensible.

With 350 full-color reproductions as well as portraits of the artists and writers this stimulating and challenging volume provokes discussion just as it provides entertainment.Reading Will Self's take on outre Damien Hirst makes art fun.

Author Howard Jacobson takes on Andy Warhol, and Germain Greer extols the virtues of Portugese artist Paula Rego. Noted British author Julian Barnes finds challenges and implicit questions in the paintings of Edgar Degas.

And so it goes in "Writers On Artists," a fantastic journey through the works of artists guided by the writers' pens.

- Gail Cooke

Your coffee table is naked without it!!
This is a brilliant insight into the wonderful world of art by thea number of great writers. From the excellently edited magazine, Modern Painters, this book takes "the best bits," displayed beautifully with exquisite pictures. a MUST for anyone this Christmas.

Top-drawer volume........
These essays DO present a fresh perspective to art and artists--much of the pedantry and obfuscation so common in dialogues on art is absent here. As well,Mr. Burnett's editing, crisp and elegant, contributes greatly to a fine volume. Highly recommended.......... a must.

For everyone interested in contemporary art
I really enjoyed learning more about art and artists from these writers.They approach the artists from a neutral place, they ask fresh questions - often revealing a lot about themselves in the process and they obviously want to learn about the art rather than judge it. Excellent reading. ... Read more

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Product Description
The Grimm brothers' fairy tales have long fascinated readers with their violence and frank sexuality. Three of Britain's most important novelists, Iris Murdoch, Margaret Drabble, and A. S. Byatt, have shared this fascination. Their fiction explores the darker themes of fairy tales-bestiality, cannibalism, and incest-and finds within them reasons to be optimistic about our fractured modern world. ... Read more

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Through his surreal, often grotesque humour, Bulgakov creates in this book - a new translation of one of the most popular satires on the Russian Revolution and on Soviet society - an ingenious new twist to the 'Frankenstein' parable. Having been scalded by boiling water earlier that day, and with little chance to survive the severe winter night, a stray dog is left for dead on the streets.Lamenting his fate, he is ill prepared for the chance arrival of a wealthy professor who befriends him and takes him home.However, it seems the professor's motives are not entirely altruistic - an expert in medical experimentation, he sees his new charge as the potential subject for a bizarre operation, and implants glands from a dead criminal in the dog.The resulting half-man, half-beast is, as to be expected, a monstrosity, yet one that fits in remarkably well with Soviet society... ... Read more

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Over recent years, the increasing scope of A. S. Byatt's work as a writer has fostered a corresponding breadth of academic interest. Spanning almost the entire body of her work and enlisting an international array of contributors, the volume characterizes the richly complex intersections between fiction and critical thought that inform Byatt's storytelling. As the first substantive collection of Byatt criticism to date, this book presents an important contribution to broader debates on the contemporary novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sheer Genius
For the serious scholar of Byatt's work, this is a gem of a find.Noble's editorial achievements continue to mount.At once makes Byatt accessible and erudite. A groundbreaking work, breathtaking in breadth and inspiring in depth.Kudos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Visionary Gleam into the Lives of Two Major Romantic Poets
I really like this book as a means to place the brilliant romantic poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge into perspective based upon their lives and times. Clearly, they struggled like others of the period, most notably Keats, to survive while creating their immortal works. The poetry of this glorious window while the landscape outside the big cities of England was still pure is so scintillating and inspiring even as industrialization gained traction there. Wordsworth hated London and adored walking through his beloved Lake District with his sister, Dorothy. What intrigues me most is the way they perceive their Arcadian reality. Wordsworth was pantheistic and inspired by what he saw in the landscape. Coleridge stumbled onto opium through DeQuincy to soothe various medical ailments and his visions assume the surreal shape of luminous, opium dreams, at times. Clearly, Wordsworth was the more gifted poet. They both labored under a romantic imagination seeking aesthetic beauty or the harmony between man and nature within a cultural lens in which Edmund Burke in "On the Sublime and Beautiful" seeks to give attributes to the "sublime": 1) obscurity 2) power 3) privations 4) vastness 5) infinity 6) succession 7) uniformity. They were also like others of their heyday concerned with the "picturesque" and were influenced by painters of the period, notably Turner. He informed the poets of the period who were fascinated by the techniques of Turner's brush strokes to capture transformational light in the landscape. They tried to confront their experience honestly if not idealistically and to "see what it was that they saw." They looked at life at the threshold of perception and consciousness with the tension between subject and object to shed glorious light in their poetic imaginations expressed so well in Wordsworth's "Immortality Ode": "The sunshine is a glorious birth | But yet I know, where'er I go | That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. | Whither is fled the visionary gleam | Where is it now, the glory and the dream?" Wordsworth once wrote of Milton: "Thou hadst a voice that soundeth like the sea." What a sublime, timeless legacy these dear, struggling, country gentlemen left us as Byatt has made so luminously clear in her wonderful book. ... Read more