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balletbookworm's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely beautiful writing and that's why I read Byatt. As usual Byatt has not only exquisitely drawn characters but also snippets of fairy tales and poems. Lovely.
lizwisniewski's review against another edition
3.0
Had to read it due to subject, right up my alley, and author, I know she can be good....Well tried it - but such a struggle.
dawn_fox's review against another edition
4.0
My first Byatt novel and, on the whole, it was a satisfying and enjoyable experience.
The book follows several interconnected families from the late 1800s to the start of the First World War. The characters are an interesting mixture of artists, liberals, Fabians, bohemians, anarchists and suffragettes. There's a huge cast of characters, which I initially found to be hard work as it was difficult to keep track of who everyone was, but this later became something I loved. With such a long book there was plenty of time to get to know the characters and follow them over many years.
I was disappointed with the last few chapters as I felt that it really rushed through the war years. There were also a few weak chapters, which felt like pure history lessons. These were present, I guess, to give context to what the characters were doing and what was going on around them but I felt they were too long and detailed; they took me away from the main plot (which I was so absorbed in) for too long. There were also occasional chapters/sections that I found a bit boring (I admit I skipped most of them). These were short stories, long descriptions of plays/puppet shows and pages of poetry written by the characters. I probably missed some important imagery or metaphor or symbolism, but I was always keen to get back to the story and all this faff was just a distraction.
All in all, though, this was an enjoyable read and for a huge chunk in the middle, I couldn't put it down; I read several hundred pages on a miserable Sunday afternoon. Would recommend.
The book follows several interconnected families from the late 1800s to the start of the First World War. The characters are an interesting mixture of artists, liberals, Fabians, bohemians, anarchists and suffragettes. There's a huge cast of characters, which I initially found to be hard work as it was difficult to keep track of who everyone was, but this later became something I loved. With such a long book there was plenty of time to get to know the characters and follow them over many years.
I was disappointed with the last few chapters as I felt that it really rushed through the war years. There were also a few weak chapters, which felt like pure history lessons. These were present, I guess, to give context to what the characters were doing and what was going on around them but I felt they were too long and detailed; they took me away from the main plot (which I was so absorbed in) for too long. There were also occasional chapters/sections that I found a bit boring (I admit I skipped most of them). These were short stories, long descriptions of plays/puppet shows and pages of poetry written by the characters. I probably missed some important imagery or metaphor or symbolism, but I was always keen to get back to the story and all this faff was just a distraction.
All in all, though, this was an enjoyable read and for a huge chunk in the middle, I couldn't put it down; I read several hundred pages on a miserable Sunday afternoon. Would recommend.
moviebuffkt's review against another edition
4.0
Really love Byatt's work, and her attention to detail, but this was to strung out for me. I usually enjoy following her characters through history, but in this case, there were too many characters and not enough story. The vignettes and parallels felt too flimsy. But, well written and researched.
claritybear's review against another edition
5.0
A deeply detailed and descriptive book. Stories within stories and fictions within histories. The era A.S. Byatt chooses to write about the 1860's through 1810's is a transformative time in England and Germany (her main geographic locations) and it in many ways mirrors our current time. The return to land, vegetarianism, reflection upon children and education, liberal ideas-they were all embraced by most of the characters of Byatt's novel.
I spent the first section of the book trying to decide if I was enjoying myself and reminding myself to keep reading. I spent the rest of the book wishing it would continue onwards. It has the feel of a Russian novel with the many layers of family, characters and interweavings of relationships but with a different tracking method altogether.
Byatt combines good storytelling(faries and lost shadows and underground worlds) with honest and clear reality (unwanted pregnancy, lost loves and untimely deaths) and ties it all up with insight, humour and lovely descriptions.
My first Byatt book and I look forward to reading back into her writings.
I spent the first section of the book trying to decide if I was enjoying myself and reminding myself to keep reading. I spent the rest of the book wishing it would continue onwards. It has the feel of a Russian novel with the many layers of family, characters and interweavings of relationships but with a different tracking method altogether.
Byatt combines good storytelling(faries and lost shadows and underground worlds) with honest and clear reality (unwanted pregnancy, lost loves and untimely deaths) and ties it all up with insight, humour and lovely descriptions.
My first Byatt book and I look forward to reading back into her writings.
tellingetienne's review against another edition
3.0
I tend to read quickly, and if I sit down with a book the size of The Children’s Book (provided I don’t have classes or work) I can finish it in two to three days. I had the time to do that, but I ended up taking a month to read this book. I had to read little snips and pieces at a time, a chapter here or there. There were so many stories and little plots going through it that I found myself taking notes, just to keep track of my thoughts.
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Children’s Book follows a family and their friends through their lives leading up to the first World War. It starts with a child living in the basement of a museum, and he is brought into the world of what feels like hundreds of strange characters. A author of fairy tales and her family, with its many children and skeletons in the closet, an eccentric potter with a drug addicted wife and two blank children, various anarchists, socialists, British bankers…the list goes on, until you become hopelessly confused as to who is who and what plot they are wrapped up with. There seems to be no unifying plot to the novel, it wanders into one plotline to another. As a reader, I was never satisfied, never given enough from the characters I liked most.
It was well written, gorgeously so, but that didn’t save it from dragging or being bogged down in the details. I feel that if I did not have the strange background that I do in history and useless knowledge I would have needed to look up half of the references to the organizations and politics in the novel. For example the main characters mostly come from a family of Theosophists, and if you don’t know the Theosophists, a lot of little nuances are lost. Those little nuances make the book 100% easier to read. Brush up on your Marxism and Anarchist history as well, if you want to make the most out of the history in this book.
Ultimately, I did enjoy reading The Children’s Book. I loved and hated it by turns, but that kept it interesting for me. However, I wouldn’t recommend it to a stranger. Actually, I’d only recommend it if I had extensive knowledge of your reading tastes and your research and google skills/educational background.
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Children’s Book follows a family and their friends through their lives leading up to the first World War. It starts with a child living in the basement of a museum, and he is brought into the world of what feels like hundreds of strange characters. A author of fairy tales and her family, with its many children and skeletons in the closet, an eccentric potter with a drug addicted wife and two blank children, various anarchists, socialists, British bankers…the list goes on, until you become hopelessly confused as to who is who and what plot they are wrapped up with. There seems to be no unifying plot to the novel, it wanders into one plotline to another. As a reader, I was never satisfied, never given enough from the characters I liked most.
It was well written, gorgeously so, but that didn’t save it from dragging or being bogged down in the details. I feel that if I did not have the strange background that I do in history and useless knowledge I would have needed to look up half of the references to the organizations and politics in the novel. For example the main characters mostly come from a family of Theosophists, and if you don’t know the Theosophists, a lot of little nuances are lost. Those little nuances make the book 100% easier to read. Brush up on your Marxism and Anarchist history as well, if you want to make the most out of the history in this book.
Ultimately, I did enjoy reading The Children’s Book. I loved and hated it by turns, but that kept it interesting for me. However, I wouldn’t recommend it to a stranger. Actually, I’d only recommend it if I had extensive knowledge of your reading tastes and your research and google skills/educational background.
nssutton's review against another edition
5.0
reading this book was like going on holiday - the descriptions are so rich and detailed that often when i snapped too, i was surprised to find myself in the break room instead of england. i loved following the characters and found myself freaking out as secret after secret were revealed. it was a bit of a clunker, heft wise, to start the year with but i'm sort of sad to set the characters back down on the shelf and move onto something else.
carrieliza's review against another edition
5.0
I read this epic in record time!
It's a sprawling book, spanning many years--yet it always keeps you in the loop as to what is going on historically, which I appreciated.
It's such a big book that I can't really put my thoughts about it together.
Loved Tom, tragically. And Philip and Dorothy. And the V&A, sort of as a character? Fantastic!
Things:
(Julian and Tom)
"Cambridge isn't bad. It's beautiful. Full of interesting people."
"Cambridge is alright for you. You like people."
"And you don't?"
"I don't know. I just don't know what to do with people."
---
"You knew you were out of London when the bark of the elm trees ceased to be thick with soot. London was a creature that grew busily and decayed busily: terraces and houses went up and came down. Cranes stood skeletal against the glow of the streetlights; there were huts in the road for the diggers of drains and of channels for cables. The air was nasty in his lungs."
It's a sprawling book, spanning many years--yet it always keeps you in the loop as to what is going on historically, which I appreciated.
It's such a big book that I can't really put my thoughts about it together.
Loved Tom, tragically. And Philip and Dorothy. And the V&A, sort of as a character? Fantastic!
Things:
(Julian and Tom)
"Cambridge isn't bad. It's beautiful. Full of interesting people."
"Cambridge is alright for you. You like people."
"And you don't?"
"I don't know. I just don't know what to do with people."
---
"You knew you were out of London when the bark of the elm trees ceased to be thick with soot. London was a creature that grew busily and decayed busily: terraces and houses went up and came down. Cranes stood skeletal against the glow of the streetlights; there were huts in the road for the diggers of drains and of channels for cables. The air was nasty in his lungs."
mirandala's review against another edition
5.0
Dense, dense, dense. But in a good way. Sometimes the characters (and there are a lot of them) get a little lost in all the period detail and discussion of political and academic thought, but never so much that you lose interest in them.
kirinmccrory's review against another edition
5.0
1,000/5
an excerpt from "The Woods" by Julian Cain
(an original poem written by one of the fictional characters in this book)
"[...]
And no shapes hold. I watched a wood
Mix the four elements so air was flame
And earth was liquid: nothing stood
Trees were wild matchsticks, wild fire came and came
Bursting your ears and eyes. And men were mud.
Were severed fingers, bleeding stumps between
The leafless prongs that had been trees. And blood
Seeped up where feet sank. Helpless we trod
On dying faces, aimlessly we fell
On men atop of men ground into clods
Of flesh and wood and metal. Nothing held.
There was no light, no skyline, up and down
Were all the same. Our lifeblood welled
Out of our mouths and nostrils.
In another wood
Alice walked with a fawn. They had no name.
Nor girl, nor beast, nor growing things. Plants stood
Things flew and rustled. They were all the same.
Quiet was there, indifferent, good,
Stupidly good, like that disguised Snake
In the First Garden, where the First Man named
The creatures, and knew Sin, and was ashamed.
In Thiepval, for a time, and in a space
Extreme of noise made silence. Too much pain
Took pain away. I too was given grace
To know unknowing. I knew not my name
Nor name of any thing in that dark place.
I stared indifferent at the stumps of wood
And stumps of flesh and metal. All was one.
The man beside me rattled in his blood.
He coughed and died. And I knew I was done."
an excerpt from "The Woods" by Julian Cain
(an original poem written by one of the fictional characters in this book)
"[...]
And no shapes hold. I watched a wood
Mix the four elements so air was flame
And earth was liquid: nothing stood
Trees were wild matchsticks, wild fire came and came
Bursting your ears and eyes. And men were mud.
Were severed fingers, bleeding stumps between
The leafless prongs that had been trees. And blood
Seeped up where feet sank. Helpless we trod
On dying faces, aimlessly we fell
On men atop of men ground into clods
Of flesh and wood and metal. Nothing held.
There was no light, no skyline, up and down
Were all the same. Our lifeblood welled
Out of our mouths and nostrils.
In another wood
Alice walked with a fawn. They had no name.
Nor girl, nor beast, nor growing things. Plants stood
Things flew and rustled. They were all the same.
Quiet was there, indifferent, good,
Stupidly good, like that disguised Snake
In the First Garden, where the First Man named
The creatures, and knew Sin, and was ashamed.
In Thiepval, for a time, and in a space
Extreme of noise made silence. Too much pain
Took pain away. I too was given grace
To know unknowing. I knew not my name
Nor name of any thing in that dark place.
I stared indifferent at the stumps of wood
And stumps of flesh and metal. All was one.
The man beside me rattled in his blood.
He coughed and died. And I knew I was done."