Scan barcode
A review by ccallan
Angels & Insects: Two Novellas by A.S. Byatt
4.0
A couple decades ago someone gave me A.S. Byatt's Possession, which I loved. I'd never before or since read a book that was as good a piece of literary history as a whodunnit. And beautifully written. So you'd think I'd have gone through a bunch more of her books since then, but honestly I never touched another one.
Recently I thought I'd remedy that oversight by picking up this one. And it delivered the same magic as the first novel, though this time in the form of the two novellas. I was immediately captured by the first novela, Morpho Eugenia, which returned to her favorite era of Victorian country life. She chose a (now) classic theme of the Darwin-admiring naturalist trying to fit in with proper English society, and having a rough go of it. But as she tells the tale you don't even realize she's sucked you into a Victorian style as well, of polite but keenly observed insights, long sentences with lots of clauses. But these sentences don't make it hard going as much 19th century writing does. Instead, her prose sails along, until at times it culminates in beautiful long lists that I had to stop and read over again slowly just to savor the rhythm and the images portrayed.
"Her shoulders and bust rose white and flawless from the froth of tulle and tarlatan like Aphrodite from the foam." "Under his gaze the whole wood-floor became alive with movement, a centipede, various beetles, a sanguine shiny red worm, rabbit pellets, a tiny breast feather, a grass smeared with the eggs of some moth or butterfly, violets opening, conical entrance holes with fine dust inside, a swaying twig, a shifting pebble." If found it mesmerizing.
The second novela, The Conjugial Angel, then turns to another classic Victorian theme, the seance and Swedenborgian efforts to contact the dead. It's tangentially related to the first tale, but heads off in a different direction. This one required a bit more taste for Victorian poetry than I've got, and I confess to skimming a few pages where a character debates precisely the right image or word for a poem.
So my decades-long wait was rewarded, and hopefully I won't wait so long to read another.
Recently I thought I'd remedy that oversight by picking up this one. And it delivered the same magic as the first novel, though this time in the form of the two novellas. I was immediately captured by the first novela, Morpho Eugenia, which returned to her favorite era of Victorian country life. She chose a (now) classic theme of the Darwin-admiring naturalist trying to fit in with proper English society, and having a rough go of it. But as she tells the tale you don't even realize she's sucked you into a Victorian style as well, of polite but keenly observed insights, long sentences with lots of clauses. But these sentences don't make it hard going as much 19th century writing does. Instead, her prose sails along, until at times it culminates in beautiful long lists that I had to stop and read over again slowly just to savor the rhythm and the images portrayed.
"Her shoulders and bust rose white and flawless from the froth of tulle and tarlatan like Aphrodite from the foam." "Under his gaze the whole wood-floor became alive with movement, a centipede, various beetles, a sanguine shiny red worm, rabbit pellets, a tiny breast feather, a grass smeared with the eggs of some moth or butterfly, violets opening, conical entrance holes with fine dust inside, a swaying twig, a shifting pebble." If found it mesmerizing.
The second novela, The Conjugial Angel, then turns to another classic Victorian theme, the seance and Swedenborgian efforts to contact the dead. It's tangentially related to the first tale, but heads off in a different direction. This one required a bit more taste for Victorian poetry than I've got, and I confess to skimming a few pages where a character debates precisely the right image or word for a poem.
So my decades-long wait was rewarded, and hopefully I won't wait so long to read another.