Showing results by author "A.S. Byatt" in All Categories

Ragnarok is the story of the end of the world. It is a tale of destruction of life on this planet and the end of the gods themselves. What more relevant myth could any modern writer find? As the bombs rain down in the Second World War, one young girl is evacuated to the English countryside. She is struggling to make sense of her new wartime life.

Each story is in some way inspired by a painting of Henri Matisse, each is also about the intimate connection between seeing and feeling - about the ways in which a glance we meant to be casual may suddenly call forth the deepest reserves of our being. Their subjects' lives unravel from simple beginnings - a trip to the hair dresser, a cleaning woman's passion for knitting, lunch in a Chinese restaurant but gradually the veneer of ordinariness is peeled back to expose pain, reveal desire, or express the intensity of joy in colour and creation.

In Yorkshire, the Potter family are preparing to celebrate Elizabeth II’s arrival on the throne. Its three youngest members, however, are preoccupied with other matters. Stephanie has grown tired of their overbearing father and resolves to marry the local curate. Anxious teenager Marcus gains a new teacher and suffers increasingly disturbing visions. Then there is Frederica. On the brink of adulthood, a love affair with a young playwright may offer the freedom she desperately desires.

Frederica Potter arrives at Cambridge University greedy for knowledge, sex and love. It isn’t long before she becomes infatuated with a mysterious and controlling poet. Back in Yorkshire, her sister Stephanie abandons academia and is confronted with the boredom and frustrations of motherhood. Meanwhile, their younger brother Marcus begins to recover from a nervous breakdown. Each sibling is desperate to shape their own future, but a horrifying event will soon change their lives forever.

It is the height of summer. After she is expelled from boarding school, Anna Severell returns to the strict, orderly house of her father, a celebrated novelist. The family is soon joined by Oliver Canning, a talented young academic who urges her to take control of her future. As autumn begins and Anna enters university, the pair grow closer. A single mistake, however, could put her newfound independence at risk....

Phineas G. Nanson, a disenchanted graduate student, decides to immerse himself in the messiness of ‘real life’ by writing a biography of a great biographer. But a ‘whole life’ is hard to find. Everywhere he looks he finds fragments and gaps. Phineas’ mind tracks the journeys of his subjects from the deserts of Africa to the maelstroms of the Arctic. Along the way he meets others building wholes from bits and pieces - taxonomists, ecologists, even travel agents - and begins to puzzle out his future. But who will guide him from the labyrinth and back into his own life?

In Morpho Eugenia, an explorer realises that the behaviour of the people around him is alarmingly similar to that of the insects he studies. In The Conjugal Angel, curious individuals - some fictional, others drawn from history - gather to connect with the spirit world. Throughout both, Byatt examines the eccentricities of the Victorian era, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance, science and faith into a sumptuous, magical tapestry.

It is 1968, and Frederica Potter is surprised to find herself embarking on a new career in television. While she endeavours to navigate this fast-paced and occasionally bewildering industry, her lover John takes up a post working with a pair of unusual scientists. Yet in Frederica’s home county of Yorkshire, tumultuous events are unfolding. Soon her future, and that of the people closest to her, begins to look rather different.

Novellerne har det fælles præg, at de handler om det uventede, det forandrede. Om den menneskelige psykologi, om alt det der foregår under den kontrollerede overflade. De foregår i et realistisk univers, men med fantastiske og surreelle indslag, som er en dejlig udfordring for læserens ordglæde, fantasi og fortolknings- og forestillingsevne.

To fantastiske fortællinger fra victoriatidens England, der kombinerer filosofi og underholdning. I den første fortælling tager en ung naturforsker ophold hos en tidligere præst og amatørbiolog, der er levende optaget af tidens brændende spørgsmål. På underfundig vis trækker Byatt en ironisk parallel mellem husets myldrende liv og myretuens, eller bistadets.

Seks realistiske hverdagshistorier fulde af skarpsindige, livskloge iagttagelser, undertiden med fantastiske indslag. Bl.a. i den centrale novelle "Kulde", et moderne eventyr om kærlighed og modsætningerne mellem mand og kvinde, her fremstillet med overrumplende nye aspekter.

Titelnovellen handler om en kvindelig narratolog, der samler på eventyr. På en forelæsningsrejse i Tyrkiet forærer en ven hende en flaske af noget meget specielt glas, kendt som "nattergalens øje". Hun tager flasken med hjem på hotelværelset og snart efter befinder der sig en kæmpestor, charmerende, sandeltræsduftende tyrkisk djinn hos hende. De fortæller hinanden historier: han om adskillige årtusinder med erotisk tant og fjas, hun om sociale forskelle i nutidens England.

Tre noveller, der på hver sin måde er hjemøgt af den franske maler Henri Matisses ånd. Udgangspunkterne er enkle, dagligdags episoder – en tur til damefrisøren, en rengøringskones lidenskabelige forhold til det at strikke, middag på en kinesisk restaurant. Hverdagen forandres, låget løftes af det almindelige og afslører smerte, begær, længsel og glæde ved farver og kunstnerisk skaben.

A scholar pursues an elusive biographer, stumbling upon buried fragments of distant lives; a woman walks out of her previous existence and encounters an ice-blond stranger from a secretive world; a schoolgirl draws a blood-filled picture of Jael; a swimming pool reveals a beauteous monster in its depths. The settings range from the heat of Provence in summer to the cold forests of Scandinavia, from chalk-strewn classrooms to herb-scented hillsides, from suburban streets to rocky wilds.

Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood: two middle-aged women walk into a forest, as they did when they were girls, confronting their fears and memories and the strange thing they saw in their childhood - or thought they saw - so long ago. A distinguished obstetrician and young woman artist find they have sharply contrasting ideas about body parts, birth and death; an innocent member of an evening class harbours unexpected view on 'raw material'. The stories in this marvellous collection are by turns funny, spooky, sparkling and haunting.

Cassandra is an Oxford don; Julia, her sister, a best-selling novelist. They share a set of disturbing memories of a strange childhood game and of Simon, the handsome young neighbour who loved them both. Years later Simon reenters their lives via a television programme on snakes and intrudes into their uneasy compromise of mutual antagonism and distrust. The old, wild emotions surge back, demanding and urgent, and this time the game is played out to a fatal finish.

The constant theme running through this collection of short stories, the first collection by A. S. Byatt, is that of repetition, taking the form of family patterns recurring across generations, the return of the past in the form of ghosts and the disruptive force of family stories. A. S. Byatt was the winner of the Silver Pen Award for her novel Still Life (1986). Her other novels include Shadow of a Sun, The Game (1983) and The Virgin in the Garden (1981).

"Børnenes bog" er en overvældende roman om England i perioden 1885-1919, et stort, episk-historisk tidsbillede af den "edwardianske sommer": den idylliske, gyldne periode, der endte i Første Verdenskrigs blodige kaos. Det er en roman, der afslører de spændinger under overfladen, som idyllen skjulte, og som bragte død og undergang med sig, især for den generation af børn, der voksede op omkring århundredskiftet.

Den halvkedelige, ludfattige forskningsassistent Roland Michell, der forsker i den viktorianske digter Randolph Henry Ash, finder ved et tilfælde nogle optegnelser i en bog, der antyder et romantisk forhold mellem Ash og en kvinde, der ikke er hans hustru. Han stjæler optegnelserne, besat af tanken om at finde frem til denne mystiske kvinde. Det fører ham til den smukke, men kølige Maud Bailey, der forsker i en anden viktoriansk digter, Christabel LaMotte.

Træt af kun at beskæftige sig med teori kaster den litteraturstuderende Phineas G. Nanson sig ud i et mere virkelighedsnært projekt: Han vil skrive forfatteren Destry-Scoles' biografi. Det viser sig imidlertid, at Destry-Scoles førte en usædvanlig anonym tilværelse, og det eneste, manden har efterladt sig, er et syndigt rod af løsrevne notater om andre berømte mænd. Med disse gådefulde notater som afsæt kastes Phineas ? og læseren ? ud i et festfyrværkeri af historier, som Phineas kæmper med at skabe orden i.