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From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Possession: a deeply affecting story of a singular family.
When children’s book author Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of a museum, she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends. But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house—and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. The Wellwoods’ personal struggles and hidden desires unravel against a breathtaking backdrop of the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, as the Edwardian period dissolves into World War I and Europe’s golden era comes to an end.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Byatt's overstuffed latest wanders from Victorian 1895 through the end of WWI, alighting on subjects as diverse as puppetry, socialism, women's suffrage and the Boer War, and suffers from an unaccountably large cast. The narrative centers on two deeply troubled families of the British artistic intelligentsia: the Fludds and the Wellwoods. Olive Wellwood, the matriarch, is an author of children's books, and their darkness hints at hidden family miseries. The Fludds' secrets are never completely exposed, but the suicidal fits of the father, a celebrated potter, and the disengaged sadness of the mother and children add up to a chilling family history. Byatt's interest in these artists lies with the pain their work indirectly causes their loved ones and the darkness their creations conceal and reveal. The other strongest thread in the story is sex; though the characters' social consciences tend toward the progressive, each of the characters' liaisons are damaging, turning high-minded talk into sinister predation. The novel's moments of magic and humanity, malignant as they may be, are too often interrupted by information dumps that show off Byatt's extensive research. Buried somewhere in here is a fine novel. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Nearly 20 years later, still mashing up genres, switching historical periods, and unfolding tales with supple and convincing omniscience, the author has continued to challenge and entertain her readers. She has ventured into fairy tales, suggesting that "they form, or until recently formed, the narrative grammar of our minds." She has excoriated grown-up readers of the Harry Potter books, claiming that J. K. Rowling's series "speaks to an adult generation that hasn't known, and doesn't care about, mystery." And she has questioned the practice of including real-life people in fiction, arguing that that using an actual person "as the single original in fiction" inhibits creativity by failing to leave room for "the necessary insertion of inventions."
By her own admission, Byatt peoples her books with composites. Types, she says, tend to recur. Olive Wellwood, the preening, selfish, and blinkered, if basically good-hearted, children's writer at the center of her latest novel, is one part D. H. Lawrence, one part E. Nesbit, two parts Alison Uttley, a dash of Rebecca West, and, of course, a great deal of the author's imagination, all steeped in the pot of her moralizing. Writers and other artists who steal too directly from other people for inspiration fare badly in The Children's Book, another brainy crowd-pleaser -- a vast Edwardian-era panorama so spellbinding it invaded my dreams, but also frustrated me, in the end, as characters' fates bent to Byatt's ethical agendas.
Our story begins in 1895 as Olive visits the (new) Victoria and Albert Museum, seeking ideas for a story. She charms the curator, Prosper Cain, while her eldest son (and favorite child), Tom, and Prosper's boy, Julian, spy on and then confront a lad who's sketching the museum's treasures. Having fled a miserable job working the kilns in a pottery, Philip Warren hasn't eaten a proper meal in weeks but spends his days drawing and his nights sleeping amid the artifacts stored in the museum's cold basement. Surveying his drawings, all are amazed by the level of his craft. As Philip devours tea and sandwiches, it is agreed that he must be whisked away to Todefright, the Wellwoods' rambling farmhouse estate, until they can decide what to do with him. Soon the Wellwoods throw a party, and one of the guests offers Philip his dream job. The boy becomes an apprentice to the brilliant but monstrous potter Benedict Fludd, a man given to intermittent "werewolf-changes" and "religious fits."
Life for the Wellwoods is darker and more complicated than it initially seems. With the help of her wellborn husband, Humphrey, Olive has escaped a life of terrible poverty and grief and constructed a new one that enables her to spend her time creating fantasy worlds. But it's Olive's writing income that supports their landed lifestyle, at least once Humphrey resigns from his banking job to turn his attentions to political activism (and womanizing) full-time. And unbeknownst to the Wellwood kids, not all are biological children of both Olive and Humphrey; some are the offspring only of one or the other, although all were born during the marriage. The brood dislikes Violet -- Olive's spinster sister and their round-the-clock babysitter -- even as several of the children begin to suspect that she may actually be their mother. This possibility particularly consumes Dorothy, a bright, matter-of-fact girl who yearns to be a doctor and doesn't get on with Olive. Stern and diligent, a perfect foil to Olive's whimsy, Dorothy emerges, like Jo in Little Women, as the tomboy heroine and moral center of the book, and her eventual quest to know the truth about her parentage is tremendously affecting.
Byatt handles her large and complex cast with ease as The Children's Book conjures up the Edwardian period, presenting its freedoms, strictures, and foibles in astonishing detail. This was a time, Byatt has said, when women were gaining freedoms, work conditions were improving, sex was discussed freely, and children still ran wild in woods and fields, their imaginations steeped in "literature and fairy stories and Peter Pan." But it was also an era that saw the rise of the smug do-gooder, of bohemians and Marxists and Fabian Society members whose efforts on behalf of the downtrodden were infused with a fundamental cluelessness and self-satisfaction. As one of the more striking examples of the type, The Children's Book depicts novelist and passionate women's rights advocate Herbert Methley, who beds and impregnates a host of women while seeking inspiration for his fiction (Mr. Woodhouse and the Wild Girl and other stories about lusty young females).
The book of the title consists of Olive's own magical stories -- private ones written for each of her children -- which form an enchanted, occasionally tedious, counterpart to the engaging central narrative. Byatt cautions against reading The Children's Book as an extension of her scathing takedown of Rowling; the book, she says, was not written in reaction to Harry Potter but explores the idea of fairy tales as "an alternative to 'realism,' something necessary to human beings." Yet Olive, if not exactly the kind of "childish adult" the author has decried, is stunted as a woman and a writer. She has a tendency when difficulties arise to lock herself away and live in her fantastical worlds. And increasingly, pressed for ideas, short on time, and needing to sell fiction to make ends meet, she plunders the notebooks that constitute her secret children's book. In particular, she gravitates toward Tom's tale; as her favorite child, he has always served as a kind of muse, and her emotional connection to his character is stronger than to the others. But Tom is a private lad, and a troubled one, and his mother's blithe use of a story that is so fundamentally personal is for him the ultimate betrayal.
While all of these events are skillfully orchestrated and entirely plausible, the culminating tragedy to which they eventually point feels imposed -- almost Calvinist in its predestined tenor -- rather than organic. Tom becomes, in effect, a casualty of Byatt's tyrannical omniscience. We can believe that he might do the terrible thing he does, but we haven't been granted enough access to his deepest feelings and motivations for his actions to resonate. Olive, meanwhile, is cast into such grief she may never recover -- or will this too be a casualty she just brushes off? It is clear that the author doesn't have much patience for Olive's anguish. "There would be no more stories, she thought, dramatically, uncertain whether this too was a story, or a full stop." As World War I flares up toward the end of the novel, the trend continues: those who are virtuous or talented tend to survive, while corrupt and dull characters generally die off.
Yet if Tom's and Olive's fates seem like punishments borne of didacticism, Benedict Fludd's demise rings true. Like Olive, but in a much more grotesque fashion, the potter uses his family to fuel his art. The gloom that permeates his household is palpable, and the listlessness of his wife and daughters -- "pallid silk moths," he calls them, disgustedly -- in the face of his rages, haunting. What befalls him is not merely a relief to just about everyone, but an inevitability.
A few years ago, in a passionate defense of George Eliot, Byatt responded to critics who accused the Middlemarch author of "writing from a god's eye view, as though she were omniscient." "I came to see that this is nonsense," she said. "If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work -- as a novelist." Byatt does her work as novelist wonderfully in much of The Children's Book, deploying omniscience to fashion a cohesive, evocative narrative strategy; yet at times her formidable intellect works to undermine the complexity of her creations with heavy-handed characterizations and sermonizing -- the kind readers might expect to find in the simpler moral confines of Hogwarts. --Maud Newton
Maud Newton's writing has appeared in numerous publications. Her blog is at maudnewton.com.
Author biography courtesy of Random House, Inc.
The questions for discussion and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group's discussion of The Children's Book, A. S. Byatt's dazzling, epic story of family, art, class, and betrayal.
1. Why is this novel called The Children's Book? Discuss the many possible meanings this title suggests.
2. How are fairy tales important to the novel—both to the story and to the characters themselves? Byatt has said in interviews that fairy tales and the children's books of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as E. Nesbit's magical stories and The Wind in the Willows, inspired her to write the novel; do you see echoes of any of your favorite children's stories here?
3. We follow a huge cast of characters for nearly three decades over the course of the novel; whom did you care about most at the end? Many of the characters are not who they seem; how did your feelings about these characters change as the story developed?
4. What secrets are the many families in the novel—the Todefright Wellwoods, the Basil Wellwoods, the Cains, the Fludds, and even Elsie and Philip—hiding from each other and from outsiders? Which of the characters' betrayals did you find most shocking?
5. How does class constrain the characters in the novel? Olive and Elsie both marry outside their class—are they similar in any other ways? Which is the greater divide for them and the other characters in the novel: class or sex? How does Philip's absorption into the Wellwood circle differ from his sister's?
6. From the opening scene, pottery—the craft of it, its history, the contrast between fine art and factory-made pieces—is a recurring presence throughout the novel. Does Olive do the right thing in apprenticing Philip to Benedict Fludd? How does Byatt use the metaphor of clay to enrich the story?
7. AGerman puppeteer is a surprise guest at the Wellwoods' Midsummer party at the beginning of the novel. What role do puppets play in the novel, and what do they represent? How does the relationship between the German and British characters change as the novel unfolds?
8. What is the significance of the Tree House? What does it mean to Tom—and to his siblings?
9. Motherhood is a crucial part of the novel, and of Olive's stories; Olive herself is something of a "Mother Goose," as in her story "The Shrubbery" on pages 105–114. But is Olive a good mother? What about Violet, and the other mothers in the story?
10. How does the notion of lineage—of knowing who one's real parents are—affect the children in the novel? Does knowing "the truth" ultimately make much difference to the adults the children grow into—or do the people who actually raise them, and the way they are raised, make more of an impact?
11. A number of the adult characters are artists in one way or another; many of them—through their art or their actions—cause damage to the other people in their lives. Discuss how the artists in the novel both create and destroy.
12. Discuss the Fludd family. Why do you think Byatt chose not to divulge the specifics of Benedict's acts? What do you think he did?
13. In an essay she wrote for the London Times, Byatt wrote, "There is a strong case to be made that the Edwardians enjoyed school stories, magical tales, and tales of children alone in landscapes—woodland camps, secret expeditions—because they were themselves reluctant to grow up." How do the adults in the novel reflect this idea? What distinction do the characters make between childhood and adulthood? What distinction is Byatt making through the novel?
14. Several characters embrace the notion of free love, or of sex outside marriage. What is the result? Is it good for any of them? How do these attitudes resemble, or not, those of the 1960s in the United States?
15. How is Dorothy—who doesn't share her mother's love of stories, who is the serious daughter, and who becomes a doctor—different from her siblings? How does Humphry's revelation, and his betrayal, change her?
16. Several characters undergo transformations. Is Charles/Karl's the most obvious, or the least?
17. Olive writes stories for each of her seven children, which are bound into their own private books. As the novel unfolds, the story written for her oldest and most beloved son, Tom—"Tom Underground"—becomes more and more important. Why does he cling so tightly to this fairy tale? What does the metaphor of shadow signify? Why does he see the play his mother writes as a betrayal?
18. On page 562, Dorothy tells Tom that he's responsible for Philip's success. Is this accurate? Why or why not?
19. What is the significance of the stone with a hole that Tom picks up on page 586?
20. Why does Hedda try to destroy the Gloucester Candlestick? Is it a coincidence that she chose this item? How does the suffragette movement affect her and the other women in the story?
21. Reread Julian's poetry. How does it reflect upon the novel itself?
22. The Children's Book is a historical panorama that encompasses many political and social movements of the early twentieth century. Were you familiar with the figures and movements Byatt discusses: the Fabian Society, British socialists, women's rights, etc.? What is your understanding of their purpose in the novel?
23. The acknowledgments give a glimpse of the research that went into the novel; what subjects did you most enjoy learning about? How does Byatt's erudition enrich her storytelling?
24. The Great War seems to take nearly all of the characters by surprise; were you surprised by the scope of the damage it inflicted? Which character is most changed by the war? Did it change the way you saw the characters' sexual and personal secrets—and how they themselves saw their own lives?
25. Reread page 675, the last page of the novel. Is it a happy ending? What emotions are conjured by this reunion, which takes place in a far different setting than that which opens the novel—and around a bowl of soup?
1. Why is this novel called The Children's Book? Discuss the many possible meanings this title suggests.
2. How are fairy tales important to the novel—both to the story and to the characters themselves? Byatt has said in interviews that fairy tales and the children's books of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as E. Nesbit's magical stories and The Wind in the Willows, inspired her to write the novel; do you see echoes of any of your favorite children's stories here?
3. We follow a huge cast of characters for nearly three decades over the course of the novel; whom did you care about most at the end? Many of the characters are not who they seem; how did your feelings about these characters change as the story developed?
4. What secrets are the many families in the novel—the Todefright Wellwoods, the Basil Wellwoods, the Cains, the Fludds, and even Elsie and Philip—hiding from each other and from outsiders? Which of the characters' betrayals did you find most shocking?
5. How does class constrain the characters in the novel? Olive and Elsie both marry outside their class—are they similar in any other ways? Which is the greater divide for them and the other characters in the novel: class or sex? How does Philip's absorption into the Wellwood circle differ from his sister's?
6. From the opening scene, pottery—the craft of it, its history, the contrast between fine art and factory-made pieces—is a recurring presence throughout the novel. Does Olive do the right thing in apprenticing Philip to Benedict Fludd? How does Byatt use the metaphor of clay to enrich the story?
7. A German puppeteer is a surprise guest at the Wellwoods' Midsummer party at the beginning of the novel. What role do puppets play in the novel, and what do they represent? How does the relationship between the German and British characters change as the novel unfolds?
8. What is the significance of the Tree House? What does it mean to Tom—and to his siblings?
9. Motherhood is a crucial part of the novel, and of Olive's stories; Olive herself is something of a "Mother Goose," as in her story "The Shrubbery" on pages 105–114. But is Olive a good mother? What about Violet, and the other mothers in the story?
10. How does the notion of lineage—of knowing who one's real parents are—affect the children in the novel? Does knowing "the truth" ultimately make much difference to the adults the children grow into—or do the people who actually raise them, and the way they are raised, make more of an impact?
11. A number of the adult characters are artists in one way or another; many of them—through their art or their actions—cause damage to the other people in their lives. Discuss how the artists in the novel both create and destroy.
12. Discuss the Fludd family. Why do you think Byatt chose not to divulge the specifics of Benedict's acts? What do you think he did?
13. In an essay she wrote for the London Times, Byatt wrote, "There is a strong case to be made that the Edwardians enjoyed school stories, magical tales, and tales of children alone in landscapes—woodland camps, secret expeditions—because they were themselves reluctant to grow up." How do the adults in the novel reflect this idea? What distinction do the characters make between childhood and adulthood? What distinction is Byatt making through the novel?
14. Several characters embrace the notion of free love, or of sex outside marriage. What is the result? Is it good for any of them? How do these attitudes resemble, or not, those of the 1960s in the United States?
15. How is Dorothy—who doesn't share her mother's love of stories, who is the serious daughter, and who becomes a doctor—different from her siblings? How does Humphry's revelation, and his betrayal, change her?
16. Several characters undergo transformations. Is Charles/Karl's the most obvious, or the least?
17. Olive writes stories for each of her seven children, which are bound into their own private books. As the novel unfolds, the story written for her oldest and most beloved son, Tom—"Tom Underground"—becomes more and more important. Why does he cling so tightly to this fairy tale? What does the metaphor of shadow signify? Why does he see the play his mother writes as a betrayal?
18. On page 562, Dorothy tells Tom that he's responsible for Philip's success. Is this accurate? Why or why not?
19. What is the significance of the stone with a hole that Tom picks up on page 586?
20. Why does Hedda try to destroy the Gloucester Candlestick? Is it a coincidence that she chose this item? How does the suffragette movement affect her and the other women in the story?
21. Reread Julian's poetry. How does it reflect upon the novel itself?
22. The Children's Book is a historical panorama that encompasses many political and social movements of the early twentieth century. Were you familiar with the figures and movements Byatt discusses: the Fabian Society, British socialists, women's rights, etc.? What is your understanding of their purpose in the novel?
23. The acknowledgments give a glimpse of the research that went into the novel; what subjects did you most enjoy learning about? How does Byatt's erudition enrich her storytelling?
24. The Great War seems to take nearly all of the characters by surprise; were you surprised by the scope of the damage it inflicted? Which character is most changed by the war? Did it change the way you saw the characters' sexual and personal secrets—and how they themselves saw their own lives?
25. Reread page 675, the last page of the novel. Is it a happy ending? What emotions are conjured by this reunion, which takes place in a far different setting than that which opens the novel—and around a bowl of soup?
I was extremely disappointed with this book. It evoked a sense of frustration and confusion. The author introduces a few characters and I honestly don't think there was a main character. For a minute I thought Olive might be the heroine of the story but her story went nowhere. I don't mind the fact that there were so many characters, but I do mind that each character wasn't developed. I didn't fall in love or care deeply about any of them, since the author didn't talk in depth about any of them. She introduced them to me, gave me a glance into their lives, but I didn't feel any connection with any of them, well except for one character who is Tom but he was short lived. The ending was sad, yes, I didn't feel sad or hurt or sympathy or any feeling of loss, I didn't know any of the characters to care so much about what happened to any of them , and I was very very happy that the book was over and done with.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The Eerie Coterie's first nominated "Dark Pages" selection is one of the best books of 2009. As our fall Conversation Group choice you are in for one breathtaking ride. The Children's Book is a Victorian novel encompassed by the Wellwoods and the Fludds, two families of unending mystery. Olive Wellwood is a children's book writer and creates a different story for each of her own children. A.S. Byatt is one of those rare writers who can tackle themes buffered by fairy tales, supernatural elements, mythology and magic and give you a tale so beautifully entwined with real life moments that it always comes out believable. The Eerie Coterie is proud to have THE CHILDREN'S BOOK by A.S. Byatt be our Fall 2009 featured title. The book jacket alone is worth it for you to pick up.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I wanted to read Byatt's new novel about the childhood of the WWI generation, looking forward to her beautiful description and use of multiple voices. "The Children's Book" did not disappoint. Beautiful prose, complete with fairy tales and poems "written" by her characters. A sad novel, too, because there is a sense of the inevitable in the characters but very well-worth the time spent reading.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.nbNYC
Posted February 13, 2010
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I am about halfway through the book and am thoroughly enjoying the experience. The language is beautiful and the characters engaging. It's one of those books that you can read slowly over time; not a page-turner, but a book that you look forward to going back to every time you put it down for awhile. At first, I had trouble keeping all the characters straight and had to go back into the book to remind myself who everyone was, but now there is more of a focus on three of four characters so it's a bit easier to manage. So far, so good. I recommend the book.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Avid_ReaderPA
Posted January 9, 2010
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt is well written, delightful, informative and fun. At times, A.S. Byatt is a bit pedantic in her need to unfurl the history of Great Britain at the turn of the 19th to 20th Centuries. However, she successfully weaves all the elements of the times into her tale, including: art, politics, theater, music, literature, philosophy, economics and sociology. The book is the story of the Wellwood family and their friends. Olivia Wellwood writes children's tales using her own children for inspiration, as well as encorporating the tales that they invent with her, in their individual books, into her published books and towards the end of the book - her play. The reader watches the children grow as the times change. Lives of light, joy, sensuality, frivolity, fecklessness, darken as the times change and World War 1 approaches, and, in the cases of the individual children, as the realities of adulthood replace the magical childhood that their mother had created for them. The Arts and Crafts movement delightfully whirls around the family, their friends and acquaintances. There are emotional and political dramas; actions have repercussions at times many years later and even at least one suggested repercussion that will occur beyond the scope of the book. There is a lot going on and it is all artfully done, it is never overwhelming. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The Children's Book is a collection of fantasies--not just Olive Wellwood's evolving children's stories and Stern's marionette shows, but the fantasies lived out by the adults in the decades leading up to the first World War. The exposé of these fantasies is at the heart of the novel. Olive and Humphrey believe in the fantasy of free love: that it causes no jealousy between spouses, nor that it damages any of the seven children in their household, born from various liaisons yet raised to believe they are true siblings. Love, sad to say, does not conquer all, and some in the novel who give it too freely pay a heavy price. Another fantasy: that freedom allows children to grow up happy and full of potential; but freedom taken too far borders upon neglect, and not all children are by nature independent. Another set of fantasies: that art can change the course of world events, and that genius is always to be indulged for its own sake. The list goes on and on. Like the characters' fantasy lives, Olive Wellwood's stories are delightfully magical on the surface yet dark and dangerous underneath.
The novel's style and structure are inseparable, both building on the possibilities and threats in the space between fantasy and reality, between the Victorian age and the new post-world war period. Some readers have complained about excessive details in the first part of the novel; others complain about the brevity of the last. I feel this is intentional on Byatt's part, a verbal realization of the changing cultural and political milieu. The late Victorian period was still addicted to rigid social morés and manners, embellishment of one's person and one's home, etc.--and, as such, it gave birth to a myriad of reactionary movements, most of them equally pompous in their moral (or amoral) certitude. On the other hand, the rapid and extensive devastation of the war, a political killing machine gone amuck, left people back home stunned and empty--as reflected in Byatt's quickfire, almost callous list of the young men, fantasy-world Fludds and Cains and Wellwoods, cut down by a reality beyond their once-imagined control. Like Stern's marionettes, the novel's human characters live in a fantasy world, unaware of the strings that manipulate their actions.
Yes, the book is massive and complex, and it takes some concentration to keep track of the various characters and their relations to one another. It's the kind of book that, when you finish it, you need to think about it for awhile, and then you know that you will need to read it again to fully appreciate its genius.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.PrairieSpy
Posted November 30, 2009
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A web of relationships among several families involved in the arts, science and social movements during England's and Germany's Belle Époche. Children's stories, the Victoria and Albert Museum, craft pottery, puppet theater-Byatt covers an exhaustive range of topics and historical figures from that time. But, to me, she does it flawlessly as always. Her command of subject and her writing is a treasure.
Those who have trouble with lots of characters in novels would do well to make a list. The children, particularly, all come and go through the years. It's not just one person's story, but Phillip, the apprentice potter 'rescued' from the museum, and Dorothy, one family's determined-to-be-different daughter, give hope that class and circumstance will somehow give way to something more that transcends this time and this place. Highly recommended. One of the best books I've read this year.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 20, 2010
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"The Childrens Book" was set up to make a point, I'm sure, or even a series of points. It was very slow moving, took forever for me to get interested in it. Some of the characters were engaging and I enjoyed the theme of women's rights but that was a minor theme. It was mixed up with a lot of the amount of damage done to the women characters. The somewhat sympathetic theme of homosexuality was not kept true, either. By the end the gay characters were turning straight as if they had just been misunderstood!
I think that the ending was the biggest disappointment. It was too rushed as if the author was told to just wrap up the loose ends quickly because that was the way it came off. The problem was that there were few characters that I cared about by the time the end came.
I was hugely disappointed with the entire book. I had very high hopes for it and the whole thing fizzled.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This is a great book in its scope and originality. At least, I've never read anything like it before and it was the first novel by Byatt that I've read. I loved the characters and the various historical figures that come in and out of the novel. I love how Byatt evokes a strong sense of place no matter if we are in England, Germany or France. Her knowledge of England at the turn of the 19th century is astounding. If you like historical fiction than this is for you! Also if you want to learn a few things or simply love art, this is for you! My only criticism of this book is that at times it becomes tedious as Byatt tends to stray away from the action of the story and jumps into page long explanations of background information that tends to bore. I think it could've been a bit shorter and I think the ending wraps up to suddenly and comes off as slightly contrived. I would recommend this to someone who is looking for an intellectual and thought provoking book, not someone looking for a quick read. I read fast and it took me two months while reading other books to get through this dense novel!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 9, 2010
This is an extraordinary novel! It is at once a deep and rich narrative of an all too human family in all its darkness and at the same time a breathtakingly scholarly depiction of a period of human history - its politics, its sociology, its arts, its system of education, and especially the struggle of women. One comes away with the same kind of feeling that one might get from hearing a master professor give his [her!] best lecture of the year. I loved Possession, but I found this to be an even richer experience. I will be giving this book to my children and to my friends as one of the best novels I have read in some time! READ THIS BOOK!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 22, 2012
This book took me a very long time to read because it is not very gripping. At the same time everytime I went to read The Children's Book I was excited to see what was coming next. Throughout the entire book the reader gets to watch a great variety of people go through life and learn many different lessons and I personally really enjoyed it. I am happy to read any book that can take the reader through the whole spectrum of emotions from happiness to anger and everything in between, and this book definitely does just that. The book starts off a bit slow but once the reader gets to know the characters and connect with some the story becomes really a great read. I definitely recommend The Children's Book to any reader.
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Posted August 24, 2011
AS Byatt presents her readers with a historical panorama full of rich characters. Her story moves through the lives of a Bohemian family and their friends at a pace that is perhaps slow, but it allow breathing room for the characters and has you invest in the lives of the children we watch grow up through the tale.
One of Byatt's favorite themes, the idea of fairy stories and passing along inventions and tales comes through very strong. It feels much stronger character and narrative-wise than her novel Possession, which lacked the blood and passion that this novel has more of.
Anonymous
Posted July 10, 2011
I loved this book and another of her books, not available electronically.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.OK. I am mid-way through the book. I so wanted to love this book. The premise is engaging and the embedded fairy tales are enjoyable. However, so far there just does not seem like there is a plot, but a series of incidents strung together and loosely bound. I feel frustrated. It took a while to understand who all these characters were, and I am hoping for more intertwining, but so far, the novel feels more like a series of vignettes. I may have to put it down and pick up another one.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.A review of this spell-binding novel demands the superlatives we remember from 1950s movies-"a story you'll never forget," "characters so real they'll take up permanent residence in your heart and mind," "history masterfully interpreted." Yes, the book is that good. Erudite and extraordinary, it's better written and carries more layers and dimensions than we find in the books about the boy wizards. Blurbs on the first pages call The Children's Book a literary feast and a tragic fairy tale. They're right. Byatt, who is the author of Possession, a novel of the secret lives of Victorian poets and modern literary scholars that won the Booker Prize, turns her attention here to the late Victorian era. This was a golden age in England, when idealistic but moneyed and often naïve people turned away from the business of banking and empire to live pastoral, medievalesque lives in the Garden of England, which is roughly the Kentish lands south of the Thames. It's the age of Fabians, anarchists, and other idealists, the romanticized society satirized by Gilbert and Sullivan in Patience, with its Wildean poets and lovesick maidens. Following the golden age comes the silver age, the Edwardian era whose king was more interested in his mistresses than anything else and whose authors gave us faux children's books like Wind in the Willows and Puck of Pook's Hill, which transported adults to idealized visions of a make-believe childhood. After Edward's death came the age of lead-World War I, in which almost an entire generation of Englishmen was slaughtered. Byatt brings history and historical figures like Rupert Brooke into the lives of her fictitious but realistic families, all of which have many children. We watch these children grow up through the ages of gold, silver, and lead. Some of them survive. The novel is filled with the details of family life, but there are secrets in these families. Some of the children learn that their mothers aren't the women they've always believed they were, their fathers are not who they think, their siblings and friends and cousins have secrets great and small. When one girl learns that her true father, for example, is a famous German puppeteer, she goes to visit him, and we see the artistic ferment of Munich before the war. Another girl wants to become a doctor in an age when girls were taught to embroider and play the piano but not to know anything about the human body. The wife and daughters of a famous artist live passive, zombie-like lives; we learn that the artist's house has a hidden room filled with pornographic bowls. Byatt's writing is satirical and elegiac at the same time, details are sharp, and the lives of the children of this 879-page novel are intertwined like the art deco stems and leaves of fantastical plants that bloom in surprising places and ways. While the only thing we might wish for in this novel is a list of characters that shows who's related to whom (and how), this is a book you'll pick up in every spare minute of your day, the book you'll sit and read for another five minutes that stretch into hours. Quill says: The Children's Book is about the ordinary, magical lives of people so finely drawn we won't soon forget them.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.jkcosmos
Posted April 11, 2010
'The Children's Hour' an excellent read. The connections and layering of plot & sub-plot, of characters & motivation...all engaging. The characters are well written and compelled to move forward. The plot line is engaging & interesting. Byatt is a master at connecting historical facts and moving ahead with energy and passsion.
Enjoyed 'Possession' & now this really fabulous story. jk
Reading The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt is a little like opening a long-abandoned toy cupboard and finding childhood thoughts and feelings inside, tattered and worn and well-remembered, rather than the playthings one might have expected. We recognize Byatt as masterful even as she begins, for in the first chapter one feels the power of her rich imagination: a young runaway is found sketching designs from originals deep within the bowels of an art museum during turn-of-the-19th-century London. The scurry of the 21st century is nowhere apparent as the author slowly unfolds a complicated set, and peoples it with many characters. This is a book one must slow down to appreciate.
Byatt might liken her novel to the work of a potter--she writes that the air inside a pot is part of the experience of the pot, and the form and glaze on a pot cannot alone capture the pot's essence. Perhaps the thoughts and feelings that a book inspires is what makes a novel art more than simply words alone. Her work is like a jeweler's art--intricate and complicated and filled with symbolism. A novel is like a dramatist's set, where the inclusion of the smallest detail focuses our attention, registers its importance, and sends us thinking in a certain direction.
I had a favorite character, Philip, and at first waited impatiently for him to show again, and when he did, I wanted him to stay. A good book could have been written about just him, the way he thought, his art, and how he made his way in the world. One could have said that of any of the many characters in the book, young and old. Byatt's skill was in revealing believable passions, scalding faults, and the real terrors the world holds for our fragile hopes. We see early 20th century England and its inhabitants in the midst of massive social and political change and realize the power and limitations of human intervention. When we close the book we feel closer in many ways to these paper people than to today's world hurtling past us too fast to comprehend.
Anonymous
Posted April 4, 2011
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Anonymous
Posted March 8, 2010
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Anonymous
Posted December 12, 2009
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Overview
From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Possession: a deeply affecting story of a singular family.
When children’s book author Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of a museum, she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends. But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house—and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. The Wellwoods’ personal struggles and hidden desires unravel against a breathtaking backdrop of the ...