The Virgin in the Garden

Rating:
Summary: brutal going
Review: there's no music, as it were, in what a.s. byatt does: i have read three of her novels now and i'm, i think, in a pretty good position to judge her stuff as utterly pretentious and banal. read just one page of hers and compare it to a paragraph (a single sentence?!) of James Joyce. i am an english prof--hence all the lit allusions in this novel just kinda made me sick. she drops so many names/quotations you need an imaginary broom to sweep them away. dreadful dreck. you need something Englishy to read--investigate William Boyd or Julian Barnes. byatt is like a parody of good writing. only salman rushdie's fiction is more onanistic (though his criticism's pretty cool). byatt is the literary equivalent of Stevie Nicks! Icky!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Frustrated and unfulfilled...
Review: This coming-of-age novel by A.S. Byatt left me, and her characters, hanging. Byatt's deft characterizations of the members of an intelligent, eccentric English family quickly drew me into their world on the eve of the coronation of Elizabeth II. Unfortunately, while you are given a glimpse of some of the characters twenty years later, since the novel is set up in the '70's by flashbacks to that significant time in their lives, the novel ends abruptly, presenting you with a great gap. What has happened to these people in the interim? How have they come to be where they are now? The novel only partially answers those questions, leaving the reader frustrated and unfulfilled.

Rating:
Summary: A.S. Byatt does it once again!
Review: This is one of the best literary works I have read. I cannot fathom the bad reviews here. The story of the eccentric Potter family and the quirky works of their minds enthralled me from beginning to end. Frederica Potter is my favorite character in the book. She takes me back to heroines made famous by authors the like of Jane Austen. She is one of the most colorful characters I have ever read. All of the central characters are great. This novel chronicles the life of an eccentric family with subtle magic realism and palpable dark language.

This novel's setting floored me. Fifties Britain is described in such a way that made me feel as though I had been alive during those times. The Elizabethan backdrop is also mesmerizing. And I love the quirkiness and darkness in this book. A.S. Byatt is no doubt one of the best writers of this era. Hers is a voice you cannot help but love. She writes with beautiful prose. I have read her short-story collections and now this book and I cannot wait to read her other works. I cannot recommend The Virgin in the Garden enough.