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Available
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Description
Frederica Potter, 'doomed to be intelligent'' plunges into Cambridge Universty life greedy for knowledge, sex and love. In Yorkshire her sister Stephanie has abandoned academe for the cosy frustration of the family. Alexander Wedderburn, now in London, struggles to write a play about Van Gogh, whose art and tragic life give the novel its central Leitmotiv. In this sequel to THE VIRGIN IN THE GARDEN, A. S Byatt illuminates the inevitable conflicts between ambition and domesticity, confinement and self-fulfilment, while providing a subtle yet incisive observation of intellectual and cultural life in England during the 1950s
User reviews
LibraryThing member iayork
Simply beautiful...: Having read The Virgin in the Garden, I couldn't wait to read the second part of this so far wonderful series about the Potter family. Still Life centers on Frederika, Marcus and Stephanie and their struggles with their Yorkshire upbringing and their thirst for all things
Still Life, like The Virgin in the Garden, has beautiful, flawless language that you cannot help but devour in one sitting. I love A.S. Byatt's writing. Hers is a voice that I cannot get enough of. This trilogy is literary, thought-provoking and lyrical. It is difficult to write a review about it without giving some piece of imperative information about the plot. It is something you have to read and later discuss with friends or book club members. I cannot wait to tell friends about this amazing novel. Still Life is a literary marvel. I am still thinking of Frederika, such a memorable character. This is a truly superb story by an obvious master storyteller. I recommend Still Life, but I advise readers to read The Virgin in the Garden a whirl before this one.
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intellectual. Stephanie has abandoned the life of academia and opted for a family of her own. She is somewhat content with her life, but things fall apart for her after a tragedy ensues. Marcus has some struggles of his own. He does not know his place in the world. Does he belong in Yorkshire, or should he do what his sister Frederika did? She goes to Cambridge to quench her thirst for knowledge. What transpires is a story about various intellectuals and the changes in their respective lives. There are various twists throughout this novel. Still Life, like The Virgin in the Garden, has beautiful, flawless language that you cannot help but devour in one sitting. I love A.S. Byatt's writing. Hers is a voice that I cannot get enough of. This trilogy is literary, thought-provoking and lyrical. It is difficult to write a review about it without giving some piece of imperative information about the plot. It is something you have to read and later discuss with friends or book club members. I cannot wait to tell friends about this amazing novel. Still Life is a literary marvel. I am still thinking of Frederika, such a memorable character. This is a truly superb story by an obvious master storyteller. I recommend Still Life, but I advise readers to read The Virgin in the Garden a whirl before this one.
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LibraryThing member janeajones
Still Life is the second novel in the quartet about Frederica Potter, now studying literature and young men at Cambridge. Reading the novel is like eating dense dark chocolate -- it needs to be savored a bit at a time. Still Life leisurely rambles through a three-year period from 1953-56
There is little plot, but life moments are examined in minute detail against the backdrop of Van Gogh's letters (Alexander is writing a play about him), heady intellectual conversations, and voluminous literary allusions. Byatt obviously designed the book to have the quality of a still life painting, meant to be contemplated and studied. And hidden among the subjects is the memento mori -- embodied by a cataclysmic accident at the end of the book.
It took me a chapter or two to get into the book -- its pace is so different from The Virgin in the Garden which hurls headlong through one hectic summer -- but I found it genuinely rewarding.
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contemplating the various lives of Frederica, her siblings Stephanie and Marcus, and the playwright Alexander Wedderburn, all of whom also figured largely in the first novel, The Virgin in the Garden.There is little plot, but life moments are examined in minute detail against the backdrop of Van Gogh's letters (Alexander is writing a play about him), heady intellectual conversations, and voluminous literary allusions. Byatt obviously designed the book to have the quality of a still life painting, meant to be contemplated and studied. And hidden among the subjects is the memento mori -- embodied by a cataclysmic accident at the end of the book.
It took me a chapter or two to get into the book -- its pace is so different from The Virgin in the Garden which hurls headlong through one hectic summer -- but I found it genuinely rewarding.
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LibraryThing member thorold
The second Frederica novel picks up where the first one left off and takes us through to 1957, following Frederica through an incongruous spell as an au pair in the south of France and her undergraduate years in Cambridge, and Stephanie and Daniel through the challenges of starting a family and
Frederica's story is largely rueful comedy, as she experiments intellectually, emotionally and sexually with a string of more or less unsuitable men. Meanwhile, we have a strong hint already in the Prologue that things aren't going to go well for Stephanie and Daniel, however sensible, pragmatic and resilient they are.
On the sidelines, the new University of North Yorkshire is launched, and Alexander is working on a new play, still in the fifties dead-end medium of verse drama, on the subject of Van Gogh's last years in Arles. This gives us the setting for the book's philosophical backbone, a long and wide-ranging discussion about how things relate to the words we use to name them and the painted images and metaphors we use to represent them, and how the human process of finding and understanding those names and images works.
Once again there's a lot about constraints on the role of women in fifties intellectual life, with social-realist detail obviously taken from Byatt's own experience both as student and as parent, and quite a bit of sharp comment on the culture of the time. Byatt is particularly hard on the boozy, macho pomposity-bashing of Kingsley Amis and the Angry Young Men — not only because of their indisputably narrow treatment of female characters, but also because they put the author in a position to declare anything he wants pompous and ridiculous, even when it's something valuable and worth preserving. That's worth bearing in mind when we look at today's funny memes!
A tighter, more claustrophobic story than The virgin in the garden, and quite tough in parts — intellectually challenging when it spins off into philosophical side-tracks, and emotionally-challenging in the Stephanie story. But never dull.
Fun to see that in 1985 Penguin were still prepared to let their cover artists have time to read the book: the Angela Barrett illustration puts characters from the story into the stage-set of Alexander's Van Gogh play (as described in the book) and plays around with some of the colour effects Byatt discusses.
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looking after the damaged-but-recovering Marcus as well as Daniel's elderly mother.Frederica's story is largely rueful comedy, as she experiments intellectually, emotionally and sexually with a string of more or less unsuitable men. Meanwhile, we have a strong hint already in the Prologue that things aren't going to go well for Stephanie and Daniel, however sensible, pragmatic and resilient they are.
On the sidelines, the new University of North Yorkshire is launched, and Alexander is working on a new play, still in the fifties dead-end medium of verse drama, on the subject of Van Gogh's last years in Arles. This gives us the setting for the book's philosophical backbone, a long and wide-ranging discussion about how things relate to the words we use to name them and the painted images and metaphors we use to represent them, and how the human process of finding and understanding those names and images works.
Once again there's a lot about constraints on the role of women in fifties intellectual life, with social-realist detail obviously taken from Byatt's own experience both as student and as parent, and quite a bit of sharp comment on the culture of the time. Byatt is particularly hard on the boozy, macho pomposity-bashing of Kingsley Amis and the Angry Young Men — not only because of their indisputably narrow treatment of female characters, but also because they put the author in a position to declare anything he wants pompous and ridiculous, even when it's something valuable and worth preserving. That's worth bearing in mind when we look at today's funny memes!
A tighter, more claustrophobic story than The virgin in the garden, and quite tough in parts — intellectually challenging when it spins off into philosophical side-tracks, and emotionally-challenging in the Stephanie story. But never dull.
Fun to see that in 1985 Penguin were still prepared to let their cover artists have time to read the book: the Angela Barrett illustration puts characters from the story into the stage-set of Alexander's Van Gogh play (as described in the book) and plays around with some of the colour effects Byatt discusses.
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LibraryThing member karl.steel
Brilliant.
I have to say, I'm still befuddled by people who don't like to read or think about books about people who like to read books and think.
Watch for Byatt's own intrusions to remark on her craft, Alexander Wedderburn's meditations on the phrase 'Still Life,' Frederica and Marcus and Byatt
A perfect gift for expectant mothers.
I have to say, I'm still befuddled by people who don't like to read or think about books about people who like to read books and think.
Watch for Byatt's own intrusions to remark on her craft, Alexander Wedderburn's meditations on the phrase 'Still Life,' Frederica and Marcus and Byatt
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wondering at various points, and often together, about the nature of metaphor.A perfect gift for expectant mothers.
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LibraryThing member lxydis
One of my favorite books of all time. A rich exploration of family and many many other things, intricately interwoven into the story e.g. like Van Gogh in Arles and his letters to Theo, or evolutionary biology and science. If you're confused by Prologue (only about 6 pages) set in the 80s, DO NOT
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WORRY ABOUT IT! Just skip it completely and read the rest of the book. It will make sense later. Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
While certainly taking my time with the series, I am impressed w/ Byatt's study of a scholar as a young woman, her family, and the shadowed idea of England in the 1950s. There is a measure of Iris Murdoch at play. Byatt knows that, knows that we know.
Awards
PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award (Winner — 1986)