Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)It's pretty hard not to be impressed with this thing, with its amazing scholarship and spectacular writing. In fact, I don't know that I've ever come across a novel like it, with its poems and its letters and its diaries and its fairy-tale stories. This is literature with a capital "L," so much so that you almost feel you have to genuflect before it every time you pick it up.
The story has to do with a contemporary English "Ash" scholar, who discovers while poking around in the dusty old library, what appear to be drafts of heretofore undiscovered love letters, written in the hand of Ash. Randolph Ash, by the way, is a fictionalized major English Victorian poet--probably on a par with Browning or Tennyson--and wasn't known to have had a relationship with any other woman than his wife. After a little detective work, our scholar discovers the identity of Ash's love interest, who it turns out was also a poet--fictionalized Christabel LaMotte. With the help of a female LaMotte scholar, the two then begin an odyssey of literary discovery, uncovering truths in the lives of these literary giants to whom they have spent their young lives studying. To add interest to this already interesting plot is some suspense, in that other, less-altruistic scholars appear to be on their heels, and also there is the smoldering love interest between these two.
It is an excellent story but what is truly remarkable about this novel is that Ms. Byatt has also added large chunks of these poets' literary works. There are numerous lengthy poems by both Ash and LaMotte. There are some of LaMotte's stories. There are the letters themselves, written in Victorian prose, and comprising about forty pages worth of text. There is part of the diary written by Ash's wife. And finally, there is a lengthy diary written by LaMotte's cousin, which solves one mystery and opens the door to another.
The poetry is superb, excellent on its own, and with each poet displaying a distinct style. The letters also, which begin in a somewhat dry, Victorian way, eventually become more emotional, and quite moving. On top of everything else, these literary creations add a great deal to what we know of Ash and LaMotte, illuminating their character and making them more complex. Indeed, through their works alone, we come to feel a great deal of empathy for both of them.
It is a novel which works on many different levels: there is the juxtaposition of the manners and morals of today compared with those of 150 years ago; there is the competition in the trenches of Academe; there is the suspenseful plot; there is the beauty of the poems and letters themselves; and finally, most incredibly, we see how the poems themselves function as metaphors for both the newly discovered love between Ash and Christabel, and the burgeoning love exhibited by those who followed them. It is also an interesting treatise on art, how it is created, and what in the human heart occasionally allows it to flourish.
With that said, however, be prepared to be patient. The plot stops dead, often, and the reader is suddenly confronted with forty pages of diaries, or six pages of some epic poem. Take a break if you must, but don't skip over them. Read them. Take your time doing so, and in the end you will find that it has been a very rewarding experience.
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