Angels And Insects: A.S. Byatt

[poliphilo]

Angels and Insects contains two novellas about the existential terrors the Victorians experienced around science and religion. In the one we look at ants, in the other at In Memoriam.  I like Byatt's short fiction better than her big, door-stopper novels- where the demands of plot and characterization and all the things we expect of "a good read" tend to overwhelm her gift for fable and fairy tale. She's stranger, less conventional and (oddly) more ambitious when she's writing short.

Comments

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

That's a wonderful book. Byatt's underrated as a fantasist.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fantasy- or something very like- is what she's best at.