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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Still Life picks up right where The Virgin In the Garden left off. Frederica is graduating, Stephanie and Daniel are expecting a baby, and Marcus, after his breakdown has moved in with Stephanie and Daniel (and Daniel's mum).
Frederica pursues academics, amongst other things, at Cambridge. She wants to work with those men of great minds and be looked upon as a great mind along with them but finds that as a woman she is still limited. Stephanie is wholly occupied with being a mother and helping Daniel in whatever capacity she can, but misses her "words". Marcus is getting better and learning how to act "more normally" with two new friends. All the while, Alexander, Frederica's obsession in the previous book, is in London writing a play about the life and relationships of Vincent Van Gogh, which is a wonderful parallel to the lives and relationships of the characters in the book.
I'm amazed by Byatt, whose insights on literature, language, and, well, nearly everything, remind me that I would be but a speck in her knowledge universe. Central to this book is relationships and how, failed or not, the people in them interact. And how, or rather if, our words and language is really enough to describe the world. Are our words adequate?
Though the book was written in the 1990's and is set in the 1950's, I can see the relevance to today. Written wonderfully, the second half of the book really picks up and punches you in the gut. Byatt writes of in a remarkable way.
Frederica pursues academics, amongst other things, at Cambridge. She wants to work with those men of great minds and be looked upon as a great mind along with them but finds that as a woman she is still limited. Stephanie is wholly occupied with being a mother and helping Daniel in whatever capacity she can, but misses her "words". Marcus is getting better and learning how to act "more normally" with two new friends. All the while, Alexander, Frederica's obsession in the previous book, is in London writing a play about the life and relationships of Vincent Van Gogh, which is a wonderful parallel to the lives and relationships of the characters in the book.
I'm amazed by Byatt, whose insights on literature, language, and, well, nearly everything, remind me that I would be but a speck in her knowledge universe. Central to this book is relationships and how, failed or not, the people in them interact. And how, or rather if, our words and language is really enough to describe the world. Are our words adequate?
Though the book was written in the 1990's and is set in the 1950's, I can see the relevance to today. Written wonderfully, the second half of the book really picks up and punches you in the gut. Byatt writes of
Spoiler
death
I would say it's been a challenging text for me to read as a not native speaker. However, it has reminded me about one of the important values - the beauty and power of thought, knowledge and a treasure of giving precise names to things around you.
It's rich in literary and historical references and has a lot of layers in it, so I'd say it's a book that brings pleasure not only at the first reading.
It's rich in literary and historical references and has a lot of layers in it, so I'd say it's a book that brings pleasure not only at the first reading.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, Death of parent
Minor: Sexual assault
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This second novel in the Frederica Quartet takes us from the summer before Frederica starts college, when she serves as an au pair in Southern France, through her time at Cambridge. Frederica explores her sexuality, acts the lead role in a disaster of a play, and falls in love with a reclusive poet/ scholar. She also meets Nigel. Many of the characters whom she befriends at Cambridge show back up in bit parts in Babel Tower.
Marcus also makes friends, Jacqueline and Ruth, who will show up in Babel Tower, and returns to his studies, approximating some sense of normality.
Daniel and Stephanie have two children, William (Will) and Mary. Stephanie dies.
Alexander has another affair with a married woman, because of course he does. This time it's the wife of his friend, Thomas Poole. He also writes another play, The Yellow Chair, about Vincent Van Gogh. We see a production of it toward the end of the novel.
In addition to these things, Still Life is interested in verbal still lifes, both of paintings--particularly Van Gogh--and in terms of extremely detailed description. Byatt's narrator draws attention to these considerations: the relationship between images and the things themselves, between words and the things themselves.
Marcus also makes friends, Jacqueline and Ruth, who will show up in Babel Tower, and returns to his studies, approximating some sense of normality.
Daniel and Stephanie have two children, William (Will) and Mary.
Alexander
In addition to these things, Still Life is interested in verbal still lifes, both of paintings--particularly Van Gogh--and in terms of extremely detailed description. Byatt's narrator draws attention to these considerations: the relationship between images and the things themselves, between words and the things themselves.
"It is impossible not to think about the distance between paint and things, between paint and the 'real world' (which includes other paintings.
It is not at all impossible, it is even common, not to think about the distance between words and things, between words and life, between words and reality....We know paint is not plum flesh. We do not know with the same certainty that our language does not simply, mimetically, coincide with our world" (178).
"Language, he said, had once been thought of as Adamic naming; words had been thought of as somehow part of the thing they named, the word rose flowering on the rose as the rose flowered on the stem. Then later--he gave examples, a near and brilliant history of words unfitting themselves from objects--men had become more self-conscious about language, had seen it as an artifact, torn loose from the world, a web we wove to cover things we could only partially evoke or suggest. And metaphor, our perception of likeness, which seemed like understanding, could be simply a network of our attempted sense making" (218).
In her essay, "Still Life/ nature morte," Byatt states that in writing Still Life, "I found myself writing into my text 'taxonomies'--from one girl's study of all young men in Cambridge, to a formicary and an essay in field grasses, from children's pictures representing alphabets to a long discursus on a child's pre-speech."
From a conversation between Alexander and Wijnnobel (who also reappears in Babel Tower, on the grammar committee):
From a conversation between Alexander and Wijnnobel (who also reappears in Babel Tower, on the grammar committee):
"In Freud's vision things secretly resent the calling to life of light. They wish to return to the state in which they were--instincts are conservative, 'every organism wishes to die only after its own fashion.' Maybe we could see our fascination for still life--or nature morte--in these terms? Maybe the kind of lifeless life of things bathed in light is another version of the golden age--an impossible stasis, a world without desire and division?" (192).
Art, plays, pretences, mapping life to stage; and language--gripping, holding, slipping and losing. Contemplating whether there is fear in knowing this, or what anxieties the age has realised and elicited. Vincent van Gogh, no longer poignant or melancholy, but in searing colour. Giddy glory and promise and deprivation. The feeling of life being full and yet also slipping away. To snatch and examine and dissect a mysterious word like love, or people, or sex. To decide whether literature knows about life accurately enough that it is a virtue/help to read life through it, or use it as a compass. Madness, or a different kind of vision. (Of whose bearer I am surprised to be fond.) Light and geometry and the precise curves and patterns of plants; the harmony of lines and repetitions suggesting something secure, a hand behind the screen, a mind for a generation with chaos and Freud on their lips. What do we do with ourselves? What have we done? Sudden death. Then, mourning mourning mourning. Discourse and words like nets with which emotion is borne and yet also escapes.
Not quite as strong as [b:The Virgin in the Garden|86888|The Virgin in the Garden|A.S. Byatt|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320497161s/86888.jpg|245459], but not-quite-as-strong Byatt still outranks most authors at full strength, in my book. Stephanie's storyline was the most compelling for me, as she searches for her sense of self after leaving a world of letters for the role of mother and clergy wife. Alexander seems to be included mostly for thematic purposes, at this point - the comparative ease with which he is able to pursue his art and compartmentalize his personal life is striking. Frederica's sexual and intellectual pursuits at Cambridge were diverting, but I wish there were more growth of her character in this book. The ending definitely sets the stage for that in the next book, however.