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Rating: 
Summary: A painting of color
Review: Henry Matisse's paintings were solid, colorful, and strangely calming to just sit back and look at. A.S. Byatt's "Matisse Stories" have a similar effect (though the effect of Matisse and his artwork only really is established in the third story). A mixed bag of three stories, all focusing on women and Matisse's paintings."Medusa's Ankles" introduces us to an aging woman who is drawn into a hair salon by the "rosy nude," a Matisse painting. Her semi-friendship with the hairdresser deteriorates when he leaves his middle-aged wife for a pretty young girlfriend, forcing the woman to face her own aging and life."Art Work" introduces a very artistic couple and their eccentric housekeeper -- who has a few secrets of her own. And "Chinese Lobster" takes on the sobering topic of sexual harrassment, when a young art student files a suit against a visiting professor who is lecturing on Matisse. But it turns out that the student may be the problem... Matisse is sometimes the center of these stories, but elsewhere you can barely find the poor guy. His paintings -- and the destruction of them -- is the center of "Chinese Lobster." But his art is only a minor part of the other two stories. Byatt's flair for description doesn't fail her now -- she paints vivid, lush descriptions of restaurants, hair salons and past memories. At the same time, she adds small "everyday" touches like live lobsters, little dishes, paints. While both "Medusa's Ankles" and "Chinese Lobster" are solid, self-contained little stories, "Art Work" is something of a mess. It seems to focus on too many subplots (Debbie's feelings about giving up her work, her husband's artwork) before settling on one. And her descriptions of art galleries and so forth seem rather off, as if she has never tussled with them and isn't sure how it happens. While "Art Work" bogs down the overall effect somewhat, "Matisse Stories" is a charming little (very little) collection for fans of the French artist. Pretty and sometimes thought-provoking.
Rating: 
Summary: My first reading of A.S Byatt's work...
Review: I think this was probably a bad book to pick. I liked how she was descriptive, but sometimes I didn't see how the pieces of Matisse's work connected with the story. The first two stories were the best, but I found the third one to just be boring and depressing.
Rating: 
Summary: The color of our world
Review: These three short stories about how women see our world --- the colors they see, the sounds they hear, the thoughts they think-- are truly remarkable for their philosophic depth and their word craftsmanship. In some ways, reading these stories (stories attuned to the everyday details of our lives); stories that describe the ringing of the phone, the belt buckle of the hairdresser; the color of the still-alive lobster in his "cage" with as much, if not more, attention as they do the "big themes" of life, death, and marriage. They are haunting, they are short and crisp and precise. The language flows gracefully and forcefully (though you do not notice the force until later; until you have closed the book). And they stay with you.
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