The Children's Book
Jan. 13th, 2018 03:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI picked up The Children's Book by A S Byatt at a writing retreat back in December when the book I packed to read turned out not to be any good. I then bought my own copy to continue reading it, but it took me a good six weeks to finish it. I did break off to read two other books along the way, but it felt overall like quite a challenge.
It's a sprawling saga with lots of layers and many, many characters. There's a lot in it about art, the desire to create, and the ups and downs of being an artist, which I related to. And I did feel drawn in to the various strands of story. The book is about a collection of families in England, starting in 1895, following their changing relationships and fortunes, and particularly focusing on the children growing up and trying to find their place in the world.
There are vast swathes of reported action and conversation, interspersed with the odd dramatic scene. It feels like it's nearly all 'telling' rather than 'showing', but it's beautifully told, and quite immersive. It's also quite uncomfortable reading in places - despite the title, this is a very adult book, and touches on themes and actions that certainly would not have been portrayed in the literature of the time.
The book has huge scope but doesn't always seem to know what to do with it. It also has some inconsistencies that left me wondering. There are mentions of certain things that are never followed up - particularly 'an event in 1907 that changed all their lives', which is foretold in the narrative but doesn't actually happen, as far as I could tell. Some of the details are also quite repetitive - there are two suicides by people walking into the sea, and two young women who fall pregnant after only having sex once (co-incidentally with the same man).
But it's still very affecting, and I definitely became invested in the fate of all these characters. The story ends in 1919, so the last section is pretty grim. It's also quite a depressing conclusion since I couldn't help but think that the new generation that are supposed to provide hope for the future will all grow up just in time for World War Two.
Overall, it's an impressive tome, at over 600 pages, but even that length doesn't provide enough space for all the stories to be told fully, and it did feel as if there was a lot of summary. But the writing is good, the characters are engaging, and I always wanted to find out what was going to happen next, whether good or bad.
It's a sprawling saga with lots of layers and many, many characters. There's a lot in it about art, the desire to create, and the ups and downs of being an artist, which I related to. And I did feel drawn in to the various strands of story. The book is about a collection of families in England, starting in 1895, following their changing relationships and fortunes, and particularly focusing on the children growing up and trying to find their place in the world.
There are vast swathes of reported action and conversation, interspersed with the odd dramatic scene. It feels like it's nearly all 'telling' rather than 'showing', but it's beautifully told, and quite immersive. It's also quite uncomfortable reading in places - despite the title, this is a very adult book, and touches on themes and actions that certainly would not have been portrayed in the literature of the time.
The book has huge scope but doesn't always seem to know what to do with it. It also has some inconsistencies that left me wondering. There are mentions of certain things that are never followed up - particularly 'an event in 1907 that changed all their lives', which is foretold in the narrative but doesn't actually happen, as far as I could tell. Some of the details are also quite repetitive - there are two suicides by people walking into the sea, and two young women who fall pregnant after only having sex once (co-incidentally with the same man).
But it's still very affecting, and I definitely became invested in the fate of all these characters. The story ends in 1919, so the last section is pretty grim. It's also quite a depressing conclusion since I couldn't help but think that the new generation that are supposed to provide hope for the future will all grow up just in time for World War Two.
Overall, it's an impressive tome, at over 600 pages, but even that length doesn't provide enough space for all the stories to be told fully, and it did feel as if there was a lot of summary. But the writing is good, the characters are engaging, and I always wanted to find out what was going to happen next, whether good or bad.
