A. S. Byatt: On Histories and Stories

Chatto & Windus

$59.95


Reviewed by John McCrystal*

Stories, British novelist and English lit teacher A. S. Byatt says repeatedly in this collection of essays, appeal to us because they reflect the truth of our lives: they have beginnings, middles and ends.

Stories are a denial of death - sometimes self-consciously so, as in Arabian classic, The Thousand and One Nights, where Scheherezade tells stories to defer her execution. They are a human response to death, as much a product of our thirst for immortality as reproduction. Stories, like our genes, outlive us.

There are seven essays in this collection, each of which is intended to shed light upon the complex interdependence between story and history, the real and the imagined, life and death. How much light is shed depends upon the reader's stamina and dedication: this is seriously highbrow stuff.

What does come through clearly is Byatt's love of story. She's not afraid to speak of her emotional response on the same level as her intellectual analysis. She may have carried the personal-response element too far, for the genesis of several of the essays, and perhaps of the collection itself, seems to have been criticism of her best-known work of fiction, Possession.

Her defence of pure story in general, and of historical fiction in particular, seems pointed towards the kind of snobbishness that disparages historical fiction as mere entertainment, as fairy stories for adults.

Accordingly, much of the argument developed in this collection resembles special pleading.

There are references to Possession throughout, and an explanation of the layers and resonances built into that novel. I'm probably being a little unfair, but this seemed to be motivated by Byatt's impatience at the ignorance of critics who missed the jokes. You can't help but be impressed by her knowledge, but Possession hardly gains from the over-intellectualisation.

For the writer who is serious about experimenting with story forms and reflecting upon the nature and purpose of storytelling, this is probably essential reading. But most readers will probably prefer to read Byatt's fiction in blissful ignorance.

*John McCrystal is an Auckland freelance writer.