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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
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She had a phrase for the subtle pleasures of solitary air travel. She spoke it to herself like a charm as the great silver craft detached itself from its umbilical tube at Heathrow, waddled like an albatross across the tarmac and went up, up through grey curtains of English rain.
This collection of short stories is riddled with poetic verses and, sometimes not so straightforward explanations but rereading it again, you catch all these breadcumbs and subtle cues.
She had a phrase for the subtle pleasures of solitary air travel. She spoke it to herself like a charm as the great silver craft detached itself from its umbilical tube at Heathrow, waddled like an albatross across the tarmac and went up, up through grey curtains of English rain.
This collection of short stories is riddled with poetic verses and, sometimes not so straightforward explanations
Spoiler
like the whole Miller's daughter is knocked up by the dancing sailor and aborted or gave birth to a stillborn/dancing tapping feet she hears everywhere is the unborn fetus, which has a Gothic feel to it
Hm. Everyone seems to adore the tile story, but I felt like it was a bit labored, too deliberately scholarly, held at arm’s length. It did not have the passion and immediacy of, say, Valente. Not that it was bad, but I really had trouble being immersed in the story. And it’s odd that I cared more about the sketches of the women in the shorter stories thane the protagonist. I could try to unpack that, but life if short and I have so many more books to read!
The traditional tales were charmingly written, very pleasant to read.
The traditional tales were charmingly written, very pleasant to read.
Byatt is so obsessed with heterosexuality and gender-essentialism. She has a captivating style, but her obvious and repetitive views on the subject of men and women make me uncomfortable. In addition, "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" is a tad Orientalist.
Not my favorite work by Byatt, but I did enjoy the fairy tale of the Eldest Daughter.
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye is a collection of five short stories, with the title story being the longest and perhaps qualifying as a novella. Here are my thoughts on all five stories:
“The Glass Coffin” and “The Eldest Princess” are stories that have fairytale trappings but are inhabited by protagonists who realize that they are in a fairytale scenario and this influences their actions. They know how things “worked in stories” and use this knowledge to their advantage. “The Eldest Princess” is my favorite of the five stories in this book. Sent on a quest, the eldest princess knows that by the rules of fairytale, the eldest princess never succeeds on the quest but is usually turned to stone or similar fate. With the help of some unlikely companions, the eldest princess works to change her destiny.
“Gode’s Story” is about two prideful people and the fall-out of their relationship. It has a folktale feel. To tell the truth, I didn’t get the point or appeal of this story at all and it got very strange at the end.
As with the first two stories I mentioned, “Dragon’s Breath” is about the relationship between life and stories. A village fails to realize its impending doom from an approaching dragon and when the villagers escape, it’s without a plan and with much panic. It’s a bit forgettable, although I appreciated it as I was reading it.
In the title story, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, the main character – Gillian – is an English narratologist and professor, who studies and collects stories from around the world. The story begins when Gillian is at a conference in Turkey. Narratologist friends from Turkey show her around – take her to see Hagia Sophia, Ephesus, etc. and amongst the descriptions of place, Byatt includes stories retold by the characters, and the main character’s thoughts about narrative. This structure reminded me of what I’d heard about the structure of Byatt’s The Children’s Book, which I haven’t read.
Maybe midway through the story, Gillian is given a glass bottle as a gift, as she is fond of glass paperweights. When she opens the old bottle, a djinn is released with the power to grant her three wishes. Gillian and the djinn also swap stories from their personal lives.
One thing I appreciated about the title story is the contrast between the djinn’s style of story and Gillian’s style of story when they talk about themselves. The djinn doesn’t understand the modern concept of story, where there is no conclusive end.
Unfortunately, the title story didn’t fully engage me overall. I do think Byatt is a good writer and I like how she articulates themes about storytelling. I just didn’t feel compelled to keep reading the title story for its own sake. I finished the story so that I would complete the book.
I feel like this review is not the greatest, but I had a hard time thinking of what to say exactly about the whole collection.
“The Glass Coffin” and “The Eldest Princess” are stories that have fairytale trappings but are inhabited by protagonists who realize that they are in a fairytale scenario and this influences their actions. They know how things “worked in stories” and use this knowledge to their advantage. “The Eldest Princess” is my favorite of the five stories in this book. Sent on a quest, the eldest princess knows that by the rules of fairytale, the eldest princess never succeeds on the quest but is usually turned to stone or similar fate. With the help of some unlikely companions, the eldest princess works to change her destiny.
“Gode’s Story” is about two prideful people and the fall-out of their relationship. It has a folktale feel. To tell the truth, I didn’t get the point or appeal of this story at all and it got very strange at the end.
As with the first two stories I mentioned, “Dragon’s Breath” is about the relationship between life and stories. A village fails to realize its impending doom from an approaching dragon and when the villagers escape, it’s without a plan and with much panic. It’s a bit forgettable, although I appreciated it as I was reading it.
In the title story, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, the main character – Gillian – is an English narratologist and professor, who studies and collects stories from around the world. The story begins when Gillian is at a conference in Turkey. Narratologist friends from Turkey show her around – take her to see Hagia Sophia, Ephesus, etc. and amongst the descriptions of place, Byatt includes stories retold by the characters, and the main character’s thoughts about narrative. This structure reminded me of what I’d heard about the structure of Byatt’s The Children’s Book, which I haven’t read.
Maybe midway through the story, Gillian is given a glass bottle as a gift, as she is fond of glass paperweights. When she opens the old bottle, a djinn is released with the power to grant her three wishes. Gillian and the djinn also swap stories from their personal lives.
One thing I appreciated about the title story is the contrast between the djinn’s style of story and Gillian’s style of story when they talk about themselves. The djinn doesn’t understand the modern concept of story, where there is no conclusive end.
Unfortunately, the title story didn’t fully engage me overall. I do think Byatt is a good writer and I like how she articulates themes about storytelling. I just didn’t feel compelled to keep reading the title story for its own sake. I finished the story so that I would complete the book.
I feel like this review is not the greatest, but I had a hard time thinking of what to say exactly about the whole collection.
There are five short stories in this book. The first four are just that, short, but the last one which gives the name of this book is quite lengthy.
The Glass Coffin is about a tailor who goes out into the world to find his luck. He meets a little grey man who gives him shelter for the night in exchange for helping with house chores. The tailor cooks, feeds the animals who also live in the house, and in return for his good work and kindness, gets to choose one gift out of the three the little grey man is offering.
“You have chosen not with prudence but with daring”, says the little grey man, and the tailor sets off on his way. His choice will make him face a difficult challenge, but guided by optimism and courage, the tailor will have to let go of his fear in order to fully experience the life-changing adventure. He sees a beautiful glass coffin, has to confront an evil magician, and dispel a terrible curse. It’s a nice little story, beautiful and quite straightforward.
Gode’s Story is also about a man, this time a young sailor, who’s in love with the miller’s daughter. It’s a complicated love story, full of symbolism that would be difficult to explain without giving away too much. It reminded me of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, because it takes place near the sea and it involves a lot of waiting. I’ve enjoyed this as well but not as much as the first story.
The Story of the Eldest Princess is about three sisters, princesses “in a kingdom between the sea and the mountains”. One by one, they go on a quest to bring back the blue color of the sky which had changed to other shades. The eldest princess meets a scorpion, a toad and a cockroach on her way; she helps them and they return the favor. This has echoes of Little Red Riding Hood, but is also a story within a story and by the end of it I felt trapped, not knowing what to believe. The abrupt ending left me confused.
Dragon’s Breath is about a family with three children, Harry, Jack, and Eva, who grow up on tales about dragons. Life in their village is boring for the three siblings and they all dream of more exciting things, of adventures and castles and riches within their walls. And one day adventure comes but not in the way they thought it would, and it changes their lives and their perspective on things.
“Such wonder, such amazement, are the opposite, the exact opposite, of boredom, and many people only know them after fear and loss. Once known, I believe, they cannot be completely forgotten; they cast flashes and floods of paradisal light in odd places and at odd times.”
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye is the last story and it takes up more than half the book. I loved the first passage – a brilliant description of modern times told in a fairy tale way, one of those paragraphs that echoes in the mind for a long time after the story has ended. Its beauty spills into the rest of the story but somewhere along the thread of this tale I became bored and wished for something more exciting to happen. In a way I was like the three siblings in the previous story, impatient, wanting adventure, excitement. And just like them, I got my wish, but I had to wait a while.
This is the story of a woman narratologist, middle aged, successful in her career, who travels a few times a year to conferences where she meets like-minded academics and they listen to each other discourse on the history of fairy tales and legends and such. This is by far the most academic story in this collection – references and analysis of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shakespearean plays, Greek myths, the Thousand and One Nights and the origins of various fairy tales made the story quite interesting up to a point. There are plenty of details that help make the reader familiar with the heroine’s life, her feelings, her hopes. There are also a few stories woven into this tale, of Patient Griselda, of Gilgamesh, bits of history about Turkey, where the woman visits for one of her conferences, and where she buys, in a bazaar, a curiously shaped bottle which she will later discover, houses a djinn.
The bottle could be made from “nightingale’s eye”, a famous Turkish glass from the 19th century, she is told, and because she is a collector of glass paper weights, she buys it. That’s when the real adventure begins. Her first meeting with the djinn involves a funny little part about a tennis match, which was quite amusing to read, and also endless philosophical discussions.
Byatt’s prose is anything but simple and in this last story its construction is intricate, layered, there are vivid descriptions of colors and smells, of sensuality, and it pulls the reader right in from the first sentence. It is also the kind of prose that you have to work for to fully appreciate, but the reward is well worth it. The beginning was interesting, but I felt a little disappointed with the way things were progressing. The appearance of the djinn brought back the interesting element and it never slacked off until the end. This was my favorite story along with The Glass Coffin.
“Being inside a woman has certain things – a few things – in common with being inside a woman – a certain pain that at times is indistinguishable from pleasure. We cannot die, but at the moment of becoming infinitesimal inside the neck of a flask, or jar, or a bottle – we can shiver with the apprehension of extinction – as humans speak of dying when they reach the height of bliss, in love.”
The Glass Coffin is about a tailor who goes out into the world to find his luck. He meets a little grey man who gives him shelter for the night in exchange for helping with house chores. The tailor cooks, feeds the animals who also live in the house, and in return for his good work and kindness, gets to choose one gift out of the three the little grey man is offering.
“You have chosen not with prudence but with daring”, says the little grey man, and the tailor sets off on his way. His choice will make him face a difficult challenge, but guided by optimism and courage, the tailor will have to let go of his fear in order to fully experience the life-changing adventure. He sees a beautiful glass coffin, has to confront an evil magician, and dispel a terrible curse. It’s a nice little story, beautiful and quite straightforward.
Gode’s Story is also about a man, this time a young sailor, who’s in love with the miller’s daughter. It’s a complicated love story, full of symbolism that would be difficult to explain without giving away too much. It reminded me of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, because it takes place near the sea and it involves a lot of waiting. I’ve enjoyed this as well but not as much as the first story.
The Story of the Eldest Princess is about three sisters, princesses “in a kingdom between the sea and the mountains”. One by one, they go on a quest to bring back the blue color of the sky which had changed to other shades. The eldest princess meets a scorpion, a toad and a cockroach on her way; she helps them and they return the favor. This has echoes of Little Red Riding Hood, but is also a story within a story and by the end of it I felt trapped, not knowing what to believe. The abrupt ending left me confused.
Dragon’s Breath is about a family with three children, Harry, Jack, and Eva, who grow up on tales about dragons. Life in their village is boring for the three siblings and they all dream of more exciting things, of adventures and castles and riches within their walls. And one day adventure comes but not in the way they thought it would, and it changes their lives and their perspective on things.
“Such wonder, such amazement, are the opposite, the exact opposite, of boredom, and many people only know them after fear and loss. Once known, I believe, they cannot be completely forgotten; they cast flashes and floods of paradisal light in odd places and at odd times.”
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye is the last story and it takes up more than half the book. I loved the first passage – a brilliant description of modern times told in a fairy tale way, one of those paragraphs that echoes in the mind for a long time after the story has ended. Its beauty spills into the rest of the story but somewhere along the thread of this tale I became bored and wished for something more exciting to happen. In a way I was like the three siblings in the previous story, impatient, wanting adventure, excitement. And just like them, I got my wish, but I had to wait a while.
This is the story of a woman narratologist, middle aged, successful in her career, who travels a few times a year to conferences where she meets like-minded academics and they listen to each other discourse on the history of fairy tales and legends and such. This is by far the most academic story in this collection – references and analysis of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shakespearean plays, Greek myths, the Thousand and One Nights and the origins of various fairy tales made the story quite interesting up to a point. There are plenty of details that help make the reader familiar with the heroine’s life, her feelings, her hopes. There are also a few stories woven into this tale, of Patient Griselda, of Gilgamesh, bits of history about Turkey, where the woman visits for one of her conferences, and where she buys, in a bazaar, a curiously shaped bottle which she will later discover, houses a djinn.
The bottle could be made from “nightingale’s eye”, a famous Turkish glass from the 19th century, she is told, and because she is a collector of glass paper weights, she buys it. That’s when the real adventure begins. Her first meeting with the djinn involves a funny little part about a tennis match, which was quite amusing to read, and also endless philosophical discussions.
Byatt’s prose is anything but simple and in this last story its construction is intricate, layered, there are vivid descriptions of colors and smells, of sensuality, and it pulls the reader right in from the first sentence. It is also the kind of prose that you have to work for to fully appreciate, but the reward is well worth it. The beginning was interesting, but I felt a little disappointed with the way things were progressing. The appearance of the djinn brought back the interesting element and it never slacked off until the end. This was my favorite story along with The Glass Coffin.
“Being inside a woman has certain things – a few things – in common with being inside a woman – a certain pain that at times is indistinguishable from pleasure. We cannot die, but at the moment of becoming infinitesimal inside the neck of a flask, or jar, or a bottle – we can shiver with the apprehension of extinction – as humans speak of dying when they reach the height of bliss, in love.”
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Hello, I'm officially outting myself as a rabid A. S. Byatt stan.
The Glass Coffin: 3.5 stars
A standard little fairy tale, but with the nice twist of genre awareness.
Gode's Story: 3 stars
The Story of the Eldest Princess: 4.5 stars
Oh, I love this one.
Dragons' Breath: 4 stars
A short concentration on the power of telling stories.
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye: 5 stars
This is literally one of my favorite things I've ever read in my whole life. This story is beautiful. It has moments of slightly over-done orientalism, but it kind of fits into the mold of the story that's being told? It's difficult for me to describe, I think. But there's something truly magical about this story.
The Glass Coffin: 3.5 stars
A standard little fairy tale, but with the nice twist of genre awareness.
Gode's Story: 3 stars
The Story of the Eldest Princess: 4.5 stars
Oh, I love this one.
Dragons' Breath: 4 stars
A short concentration on the power of telling stories.
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye: 5 stars
This is literally one of my favorite things I've ever read in my whole life. This story is beautiful. It has moments of slightly over-done orientalism, but it kind of fits into the mold of the story that's being told? It's difficult for me to describe, I think. But there's something truly magical about this story.
I am reading this as part of my project to read all the winners of the mythopeic award. I got two stories into this collection and wasn't loving it so I am going to leave it here. I thought the stories were okay, but rather forgettable for me and I would rather move on to something I will enjoy more.
A collection of weirdly beautiful, mysterious tales - perfect to read on a journey!