Will no one say a good word for A.S.Byatt?

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haha Dr Vick's rudeness abt her was so awful I forgot exactly what she even said!

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

anyway defend the indefensible blah blah

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never read her but I do sense a general hipster prejudice against Booker listy middle class Englishwomen, like they can't really be where it's at.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 19 July 2003 19:57 (twenty-two years ago)

well was just saying on aim chat that her appearance on the history of the novel thing bought good ol' memories from the harry potter thread we had recently.

anyone watching that btw?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 19 July 2003 20:04 (twenty-two years ago)

what's her latest book like? i liked (a bit but not madly)the previous 3 in that 'series'

i love the way in more recent author photos she has taken to holding her polo neck/skivvy up so that you can't see her possibly increasing double chins.

― Clare (not entirely unhappy), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll say something nice about this one:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/scienceandnature/story/0,6000,545073,00.html

The excerpt reminds me of Judith Williamson.

― Orbit (Orbit), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I very much like AS Byatt. Maybe she is not where its at for many, but for us middle class with upper class pretention women who are obsessed with academia she is grand.

― isadora (isadora), Sunday, 20 July 2003 00:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I've not read her books, and I thought that the documentary about her showed her to be a prissy old-school literary type who goes round in life with her nose turned up. She must be well off, because she has an assistant who tidies up her papers, packs for her when she goes off to write in the south oif France, and things like that.

But I have a couple of good things to say about her. She spoke well on the otherwise superficial programme about the English novel. She champions Terry Pratchett, a writer largely overlooked by the literary elite, and has noticed that he writes good sentences. I'm also on her side about J.K.Rowling, though I don't see anything wrong with adults regressing back to childhood.

― thoth (Jake Proudlock), Sunday, 20 July 2003 10:54 (twenty-two years ago)

''She champions Terry Pratchett, a writer largely overlooked by the literary elite, and has noticed that he writes good sentences''

you know, we are going to have to test this out sooner or later bcz some ppl here detest prachett's writing.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 20 July 2003 10:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never heard of her!

― jel -- (jel), Sunday, 20 July 2003 11:01 (twenty-two years ago)

jel she's margaret drabble's older sister!!

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 20 July 2003 11:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't they hate each other? Drabble and Byatt, I mean?

― RickyT (RickyT), Sunday, 20 July 2003 11:16 (twenty-two years ago)

yes they fell out bcz drabble didn't put terry pratchett into the oxford companion to english literature — "his sentences may be amazing," as drabble famously said, "but he is rubbish in bed so out he goes"

[LIBEL LAWYERS THIS IS A FUNNY JOKE PLZ NOTE, BASED OTHERWHERE THAN REALITY

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 20 July 2003 11:23 (twenty-two years ago)

TS: I like Drabble better. I've only read a couple by each, but I don't intend to read any more by Byatt. There is a pomposity to her work that puts me right off.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 20 July 2003 11:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Did Drabble write Georgie Girl, or am I confusing her with someone else? That was a bloody awful book.

― RickyT (RickyT), Sunday, 20 July 2003 11:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I doubt she wrote that. She usually writes books called things like "The Radiant Way", "Jerusalem the Golden", and "The Ivory Gates". And "How I did the Reverse Cowgirl with my Literary Agent on the Back of a Scooter in Knightsbridge" (soon to be made into a film).

― thoth (Jake Proudlock), Sunday, 20 July 2003 14:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Babel Tower was the worst novel I've ever read and I can't even remember specifically why. I couldn't stop reading it though, although I hated almost every sentence of it after the halfway point. There was something horribly smug and false about the whole thing. Too bad because I want to read her other books but that one put me off and I haven't been able to force myself.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Sunday, 20 July 2003 15:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Margaret Drabble! That's who her sister is. I was trying to remember this weekend, because I'm knee-deep into one of her books, (Babel Tower, funninly enough) and it seems that all of her books (except Posession) are about sisters that hate each other and then one of them dies.

I like her because reading her books makes me feel smart and literary and intelligent... and overwhelmingly grateful that I never went into accademia.

(Though I really DO wish she'd stop with the trick where she writes a novel or poem inside another novel or poem. That's really irritating and needs to stop.)

I stayed up way too late trying to read Babel Tower last night so my thoughts are muddled. For someone who supposedly hates LOTR-type stuff, her Sade-ian sub-book is freaking awful. But maybe that's cause it's supposed to be a parody? Dunno. The Dreadful Husband is almost too awful to be believed.

― kate (kate), Monday, 21 July 2003 07:50 (twenty-two years ago)

It turns out Georgy Girl was actually by Margaret Forster.

― RickyT (RickyT), Monday, 21 July 2003 08:03 (twenty-two years ago)

kate, byatt loves tolkien, but dislikes harry potter

haha i have never read her and only picked up the disdain secondhand, but if her books are all really abt "sisters that hate each other and then one of them dies" that is tremendous!!

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 21 July 2003 09:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I read Obsession. I prefered the perfume.

She writes terrible sentences btw hence her Pratchet envy.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 21 July 2003 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I am liking BabelTower more and more the more I get into it. But I do wish she would stop using pages and pages of literary criticism as a substitution for plot.

And ha-ha, she really is going on about children's "literature" and what it should be like in this book, so no wonder she hates Harry Potter.

― kate (kate), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:24 (twenty-two years ago)

The Djin In The Nightingale's Eye is one of my favourite stories, although it must be some kind of wish-fulfilment on Byatt's part (middle aged academic meets genie, gets back youthful figure, has mind-blowing sex with said genie).

Possession I read at 18 and loved in a dreamy teenage girl way. I re-read it recently and found it still stands up (unlike other dreamy teenage girl books such as Wuthering Heights - I know it's a classic, but by God the characters wind me up.)

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 10:16 (twenty-two years ago)

six years pass...

The Children's Book is fantastic stuff.

― Tim F, Tuesday, 29 December 2009 08:15 (sixteen years ago)

seven years pass...

Drabble on Mary McCarthy. Everyone sounds awfully boring, although I can see my self giving Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood a shot.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 3 November 2017 11:39 (eight years ago)

i bet you can.

― Susan Stranglehands (jed_), Friday, 3 November 2017 12:22 (eight years ago)

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