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A review by ianbanks
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
5.0
It’s the story of Olive Wellwood and her family. Olive is a writer of children’s stories. However, there are secrets to Olive’s life that gradually unfold to the detriment of her relationships with her beloved children. To say more would reveal spoilers for the plot and you really need to come to them with an open mind. Suffice to say, Olive’s family live in a way that can best be described as bohemian in terms of the times she lives in (the novel is set in the years either side of the Boer War). In the orbit of the Wellwood family are artists and intellectuals of all stripe, all leading lifestyles that seem quite conventional to us now, but which required a certain amount of either courage or bloody-mindedness at the time, I’m not sure which.
Of course, Dr Byatt presents us with multiple sides to the issue and we learn that those practitioners of free love and intellectual freedom have sides that, while appearing to be modern and forward thinking, carry just as much baggage as the views they purport to be facing off against. As usual, those who have the financial backing to support their lifestyle changes are the ones that succeed or are able to make their way safely, while those without are left pretty much to their own devices.
Where this novel succeeds is the presentation of the times in which the characters live and their reaction to those times. There are frequent infodumps as to what is happening offstage in the wider world and they are presented as backdrop informing the character’s lives rather than as clumsy exposition. However, they are sometimes jarring and take you out of the novel. But, as they occur only a few times over the course of the 600+ pages of the book, they are probably more easily forgiven as a slight weakness here than they would be in a shorter story. And in at least one occasion, it makes the events and actions far more impacting and evocative. In any case, they are vital to a full understanding of how the world changes for the characters: the changes to the intellectual climate of a nation over time are vital to the success and impact of a novel of this type.
And it is successful: it climaxes in World War I and concludes in the days immediately following it, leaving you with the feeling that only a part of the tale has been told, as in all the best family sagas.
I loved it: your mileage may vary depending on how much sympathy you have towards some quite unpleasant characters or people who are far too intelligent or sensitive for their circumstances. But this is the story of children and how they grow and what happens to them during and after. It’s also the story of how Art is created and how it can consume a person’s life, for good or for ill, or sustain them in times of trial. Which is a story that needs to be told over and over again.