Status
Checked out
Publication
Random House (1993), Edition: 1st U.S. trade ed, 339 pages
Description
These two fascinating novellas, like A.S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning novel Possession, are set in the mid-nineteenth century, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance. "Morpho Eugenia" is a lively Gothic fable of the Earthly Paradise, of the Victorian obsession with Darwinian theories of breeding and sexuality and the parallels between insect and human society - the capture and taming of nature, whether it be a young woman in a country house or a rare butterfly, gleaming in the forests of the Amazon. "The Conjugial Angel" concerns Tennyson's In Memoriam, published in 1850, mourning the death seventeen years before of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister Emily. A philosophical ghost story, bizarre, comic, and moving, in which fictive mediums meet "real" characters, it explores the contemporary preoccupation with God and life after death. Resonant, magical, entirely original, this is A.S. Byatt at her best.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member dczapka
It's hard to address this volume as one whole unit without commenting on its individual pieces.
"Morpho Eugenia," the first novella, is a compelling portrait of the Victorian conflict between science and religion, with a self-proclaimed non-religious scientist forced to grapple with what nature
"The Conjugial Angel" is, sadly, far less compelling despite dealing with what I feel are far more interesting topics (love, death, angels, poetry, and seances). I felt, as I did in "Morpho," that Byatt dwelt too often in her metaphors, slipping into exhaustive but tedious description at the expense of the story.
Like a more sophisticated, more critical Eggers, this collection is stronger on style than on substance, and while it truly brings the reader into a fictional but fully-realized version of Victorian England, it doesn't particularly succeed beyond that.
"Morpho Eugenia," the first novella, is a compelling portrait of the Victorian conflict between science and religion, with a self-proclaimed non-religious scientist forced to grapple with what nature
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endorses but his ethical side cannot. It's a patient, building study of character, of seeing only what we choose to see, but the interludes of religious debate and ant-watching are, sadly, almost too tedious to endure before the final pages force the narrator and the reader to consider things through a whole new, too-brief lens."The Conjugial Angel" is, sadly, far less compelling despite dealing with what I feel are far more interesting topics (love, death, angels, poetry, and seances). I felt, as I did in "Morpho," that Byatt dwelt too often in her metaphors, slipping into exhaustive but tedious description at the expense of the story.
Like a more sophisticated, more critical Eggers, this collection is stronger on style than on substance, and while it truly brings the reader into a fictional but fully-realized version of Victorian England, it doesn't particularly succeed beyond that.
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LibraryThing member baswood
This was an unread book that has been lurking on my bookshelves for about 25 years. It would have been bought in a charity shop (the pencilled in price on one of the front-piece pages gives the game away) after I had read and enjoyed Byatt's previous book: the much admired Possession published in
Morpho Eugenia is the most straightforward of the two novellas in that the completely fictionalised characters operate amongst a background of historical figures. William Adamson has returned from a ten year exploratory trip to the Amazon basin and survived a shipwreck where most of his worldly goods have been destroyed. He had managed to save a couple of extremely rare mounted butterflies and had been welcomed into the rich family of the Alabasters, where Harald as the head of the family invites him to stay to teach his children about the natural world and help him with a book he is in the process of writing. William Adamson falls in love with Eugenia: Alabasters eldest daughter, but dare not approach her because of his lowly social rank and lack of money. Adamson begins a study of the local ant population in an attempt to fine tune his skill as a naturalist, he is encouraged by Matty Crompton who sees the publication of a book as a way out of their financial dependency on the Alabasters. The story takes shape as a romance with many allusions to the workings of the ant colonies that exist in parallel to the numerous staff employed in looking after the Alabaster family. Byatt skilfully draws the reader into the life of the Alabaster household and gives a lecture on the social life of ants at the same time.
While I was entertained by Morpho Eugenia I found the second novella; The Conjugial Angel much more interesting. Here Byatt successfully introduces her characters into the lives of the poet Alfred Tennyson and his family, while also seamlessly providing a mini critique of the poetry. We are in the world of the Victorians enthusiasm for seances as a means of contacting the dead. A medium Sophy Sheekhy and her friend Lilias Papagay arrive at the house of Captain Jess for an arranged seance. Captain Jess's wife Emily is the sister of Alfred Tennyson and she was engaged previously to Arthur Hallam who was also a very close friend of the poet. Arthur died young at 22 and Alfred mourned his death for a number of years and wrote one of his most successful poems "In Memoriam" to the young man who had made such an impression on him. Mrs Emily Jess is hoping that the seance will enable her to communicate with Arthur beyond the grave and Lilias Papagay is also wishing to find out the truth of her husband reported missing at sea some ten years previously. Many prominent Victorians were serious in imagining that they could receive messages from the dead with the aid of a medium and Byatt describes the seance with due reverence to her subject. The seance also allows her to read between the lines of Tennyson famous poem and imagine the relationship between the poet his sister and the handsome young Arthur:
"Alfred had taken Arthur and bound him to himself, blood to blood and bone to bone, leaving no room for her. It was true that late in the poem, reference was made to her love and her loss, but that too was painful, most painful. Alfred had allowed his fantasy to imagine Arthur's future, Arthur's children, Alfreds nephews and nieces , mixing their blood."
Of course there has been speculation about the nature of Alfred and Arthurs relationship: was it a love affair, was it requited? If the example of Byatt's prose sounds a bit like something D H Lawrence might have written then it gets even more so when she speculates about a homosexual relationship.
So from reading theses two novels I have learned more that I need to about ants and have become interested in the thoughts and feelings that inspired one of Tennyson's famous poems. Byatt just about stops short of giving a lecture on either subject and I can forgive her this because of her brilliant evocations of life in Victorian Britain. She tells good stories, romantic stories that fit well with the lives of the characters both historical and imaginary and if she does sound a bit like D H Lawrence in places; well there is nothing wrong with that. When I take down a long unread book from my shelves to read then at the end the decision is: either to put it back on the shelves or put it in the charity book box. This one went back on the shelves and so 4 stars.
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1990. This book published two years later is in fact two novellas both classified in the genre historiographic metafiction or in more simple words; in the same style as Possession. The reader is therefore plunged back into a Victorian Britain where Byatt introduces characters who mix with or are inspired by historical figures most commonly from the literary world. I was a little skeptical as to whether I would enjoy the reading experience of books written in such a similar fashion, but I needn't have worried both Morpho Eugenia and The Conjugial Angel work their magic despite their "Hollywood Endings." Morpho Eugenia is the most straightforward of the two novellas in that the completely fictionalised characters operate amongst a background of historical figures. William Adamson has returned from a ten year exploratory trip to the Amazon basin and survived a shipwreck where most of his worldly goods have been destroyed. He had managed to save a couple of extremely rare mounted butterflies and had been welcomed into the rich family of the Alabasters, where Harald as the head of the family invites him to stay to teach his children about the natural world and help him with a book he is in the process of writing. William Adamson falls in love with Eugenia: Alabasters eldest daughter, but dare not approach her because of his lowly social rank and lack of money. Adamson begins a study of the local ant population in an attempt to fine tune his skill as a naturalist, he is encouraged by Matty Crompton who sees the publication of a book as a way out of their financial dependency on the Alabasters. The story takes shape as a romance with many allusions to the workings of the ant colonies that exist in parallel to the numerous staff employed in looking after the Alabaster family. Byatt skilfully draws the reader into the life of the Alabaster household and gives a lecture on the social life of ants at the same time.
While I was entertained by Morpho Eugenia I found the second novella; The Conjugial Angel much more interesting. Here Byatt successfully introduces her characters into the lives of the poet Alfred Tennyson and his family, while also seamlessly providing a mini critique of the poetry. We are in the world of the Victorians enthusiasm for seances as a means of contacting the dead. A medium Sophy Sheekhy and her friend Lilias Papagay arrive at the house of Captain Jess for an arranged seance. Captain Jess's wife Emily is the sister of Alfred Tennyson and she was engaged previously to Arthur Hallam who was also a very close friend of the poet. Arthur died young at 22 and Alfred mourned his death for a number of years and wrote one of his most successful poems "In Memoriam" to the young man who had made such an impression on him. Mrs Emily Jess is hoping that the seance will enable her to communicate with Arthur beyond the grave and Lilias Papagay is also wishing to find out the truth of her husband reported missing at sea some ten years previously. Many prominent Victorians were serious in imagining that they could receive messages from the dead with the aid of a medium and Byatt describes the seance with due reverence to her subject. The seance also allows her to read between the lines of Tennyson famous poem and imagine the relationship between the poet his sister and the handsome young Arthur:
"Alfred had taken Arthur and bound him to himself, blood to blood and bone to bone, leaving no room for her. It was true that late in the poem, reference was made to her love and her loss, but that too was painful, most painful. Alfred had allowed his fantasy to imagine Arthur's future, Arthur's children, Alfreds nephews and nieces , mixing their blood."
Of course there has been speculation about the nature of Alfred and Arthurs relationship: was it a love affair, was it requited? If the example of Byatt's prose sounds a bit like something D H Lawrence might have written then it gets even more so when she speculates about a homosexual relationship.
So from reading theses two novels I have learned more that I need to about ants and have become interested in the thoughts and feelings that inspired one of Tennyson's famous poems. Byatt just about stops short of giving a lecture on either subject and I can forgive her this because of her brilliant evocations of life in Victorian Britain. She tells good stories, romantic stories that fit well with the lives of the characters both historical and imaginary and if she does sound a bit like D H Lawrence in places; well there is nothing wrong with that. When I take down a long unread book from my shelves to read then at the end the decision is: either to put it back on the shelves or put it in the charity book box. This one went back on the shelves and so 4 stars.
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LibraryThing member thorold
The two novellas of Angels & Insects are linked mostly by the way they refer to Tennyson's In memoriam, the most famous poem of the whole Mid-Victorian period. In "Morpho Eugenia" a young naturalist debates with a clergyman who is trying to resolve the idea of a benevolent creator with Tennyson's
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"nature red in tooth and claw", whilst his own personal life starts to mirror in odd ways that of the insect communities he is studying; in "The conjugial angel" we are back with spiritualism and Swedenborg, and looking, forty years on, at the consequences of Arthur Hallam's death and literary transfiguration from the point of view of his fiancée, Alfred Tennyson's sister Emily, who is now happily married to Captain Jesse, to the disgust of Tennysons, Hallams, and the Victorian public at large. The high point is certainly the chapter where Byatt slips in a complete critical essay on In memoriam in the time it takes the elderly Laureate to button his nightshirt. Show Less
LibraryThing member NaggedMan
Five stars for much of the writing. Five stars for getting the first novella to what should for me have been its turning point; sadly, turns out to be its non-conclusion. One wanted to know what happened next.
Similar though different, the second novella has a conclusion but it's firmly of the deus
Not helped by the fact that in my ignorance I'd assumed that the contents list (Morpho Eugenia, The Conjugal Angel) meant two parts of one novel. Took me several chapters of the latter before I stopped wondering when the connection might emerge . . . .
Similar though different, the second novella has a conclusion but it's firmly of the deus
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ex machina variety. And I could have live happily with about half the poetry.Not helped by the fact that in my ignorance I'd assumed that the contents list (Morpho Eugenia, The Conjugal Angel) meant two parts of one novel. Took me several chapters of the latter before I stopped wondering when the connection might emerge . . . .
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LibraryThing member Griff
Two novellas. Morpho Eugenia was fascinating, dark, and disturbing in many ways - as was The Conjugal Angel. The former more enjoyable for me, though Angel drew me in by the end. These aren't prim and proper little stories - rather, earthy and sensual in their own way despite the literary and
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scientific themes and content. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stevil2001
This is another of my catchup reads from my last semester of school. This book is actually two novellas, tenuously linked by the fact that they both occur in the Victorian era. We read the first, Morpho Eugenia, in class, but not the second, The Conjugial Angel, so I added the book to my list. The
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Conjugial Angel is a story about grief and how people move on; Alfred, Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H. plays a heavy role in the proceedings. I'm not sure if I could explain what happened, but I love Byatt's way of writing-- she has a playful tone that jumps all over the place and (gently) mocks her characters, but becomes suitable somber when events warrant it. Ideas are her forte, though, and Byatt explores those of grief, mourning, and judgment quite well. I look forward to reading more by her. (originally written January 2008) Show Less
LibraryThing member bostonbibliophile
Wonderful, detailed, fascinating short fiction. Both stories are full of surprises and twists. Byatt is an excellent short story writer and these two are richly written literary short fictions.
LibraryThing member lindawwilson
An all time favorite; did not read the book, because I saw the movie first.
LibraryThing member reannon
Read this for my April 2008 bookclub meeting. I had not read Byatt before and am not sure I will again. This is a collection of two unconnected novellas, both set in Victorian England, which is apparently Byatt's academic area of interest. Both are full of stories within stories. The first, the
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"insects" story, is at least reasonably coherent, but I found the second one to fall to pieces and wander from person to person. Show Less
LibraryThing member Gwendydd
The first quarter of the book was wonderful and very promising, and then the rest of it was just disappointing and dull.
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
This book is composed of two novellas both set in the mid-ninteenth century and both involving people of the upper classes. Otherwise the two works have nothing in common so it is hard to see how "A Major Motion Picture" could be made of them. Someone at work said he had seen it quite a while ago
Morpho Eugenia tells the story of William Adamson, an adventurer recently returned from the Amazon to England. He spent 10 years in the Amazon gathering samples of indigenous insects, particularly butterflies. Unfortunately his return ship sank and almost all of his specimens sank with it. This was a severe blow because he was counting on selling those specimens to give him enough money to return to the Amazon. When the wealthy collector, Lord Alabaster, invites William to his estate to show those specimens he did save, William leaps at the chance. Once there he falls in love with the Lord's eldest daughter, Eugenia. Eugenia was engaged to be married but her fiance died and she is quite depressed. Lord Alabaster invites William to catalogue his extensive collection of insects (and other items) and offers him a handsome salary. Because this is a good way to stay close to Eugenia and also to make some money, William accepts. Eventually he is emboldened to propose to Eugenia and she accepts. Eugenia and William have a double ceremony with Eugenia's younger sister. William and Eugenia continue to live at the manor house and William continues to catalogue the vast collection. Children are born in quick succession so that William's dream of returning to the Amazon remains just a dream. William passes on his fascination with insects to the youngest Alabaster children at the entreaty of their caregiver, Matty Crompton, and together they write a children's book. Eventually this book provides the means for William to return to the Amazon but not as he imagined.
The second book, The Conjugial Angel, was a struggle for me. It involves a group of people who are spiritualists, trying to communicate with their dear departed. There is much detail about the philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg, the founder of the Church of the New Jerusalem. I had never heard of Swedenborg or his church before. When I first read the title of the novella I read it as The Conjugal Angel but conjugial refers to the divine marriage of the Lord and the church, not marriage between two persons. Swedenborg believed that heavenly angels were composed of a man and a woman who were true and only loves on earth. One of the people in the group is the sister of Alfred Tennyson, Emily, and she was engaged to a friend of Tennyson's, Arthur Hallam. Sadly Hallam died very young while away on a European trip and Emily eventually married a sea captain, Mr. Jesse. Tennyson went on to write a poem to Arthur that was one of his most famous works. There is much quoting of this work and other poems of Tennyson, Keats, Browning as well as passages from the Bible. I found these passages, and the discussions about the spirit world, very tedious. The ending was a surprise and the best part of the work.
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and he recalled that the movie went back and forth between the two stories but from looking at the IMDb review it looks to me like the movie is only based on the first novella, Morpho Eugenia. This makes more sense because that story is almost cinematic in its descriptions.Morpho Eugenia tells the story of William Adamson, an adventurer recently returned from the Amazon to England. He spent 10 years in the Amazon gathering samples of indigenous insects, particularly butterflies. Unfortunately his return ship sank and almost all of his specimens sank with it. This was a severe blow because he was counting on selling those specimens to give him enough money to return to the Amazon. When the wealthy collector, Lord Alabaster, invites William to his estate to show those specimens he did save, William leaps at the chance. Once there he falls in love with the Lord's eldest daughter, Eugenia. Eugenia was engaged to be married but her fiance died and she is quite depressed. Lord Alabaster invites William to catalogue his extensive collection of insects (and other items) and offers him a handsome salary. Because this is a good way to stay close to Eugenia and also to make some money, William accepts. Eventually he is emboldened to propose to Eugenia and she accepts. Eugenia and William have a double ceremony with Eugenia's younger sister. William and Eugenia continue to live at the manor house and William continues to catalogue the vast collection. Children are born in quick succession so that William's dream of returning to the Amazon remains just a dream. William passes on his fascination with insects to the youngest Alabaster children at the entreaty of their caregiver, Matty Crompton, and together they write a children's book. Eventually this book provides the means for William to return to the Amazon but not as he imagined.
The second book, The Conjugial Angel, was a struggle for me. It involves a group of people who are spiritualists, trying to communicate with their dear departed. There is much detail about the philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg, the founder of the Church of the New Jerusalem. I had never heard of Swedenborg or his church before. When I first read the title of the novella I read it as The Conjugal Angel but conjugial refers to the divine marriage of the Lord and the church, not marriage between two persons. Swedenborg believed that heavenly angels were composed of a man and a woman who were true and only loves on earth. One of the people in the group is the sister of Alfred Tennyson, Emily, and she was engaged to a friend of Tennyson's, Arthur Hallam. Sadly Hallam died very young while away on a European trip and Emily eventually married a sea captain, Mr. Jesse. Tennyson went on to write a poem to Arthur that was one of his most famous works. There is much quoting of this work and other poems of Tennyson, Keats, Browning as well as passages from the Bible. I found these passages, and the discussions about the spirit world, very tedious. The ending was a surprise and the best part of the work.
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LibraryThing member ragwaine
Morpho Eugenia: Good writing, beautiful setting, good length, too normal.
The Conjugial Angel: Good characters kind of wasted, not much plot, more ranting about poetry. Could have been a lot shorter.
The Conjugial Angel: Good characters kind of wasted, not much plot, more ranting about poetry. Could have been a lot shorter.
LibraryThing member Niecierpek
These are two novellas in one volume. The first one Morpho Eugenia, was made into an esthetically stunning I thought Angels and Insects movie in 1995. I was really fond of the movie when it came out, but haven't seen it since. The book was a nice review of it plus. Really nicely written, clever
On the other hand, I couldn't get into the second novella at all. Like the first one, it's also set in Victorian times, but this one deals with spiritual seances and the life of Alfred Lord Tennyson and his sister Emily. A big fan of Byatt that I am, I tried to make progress with it a few times but in the end I just skimmed it. Maybe some other time I'll actually read it.
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novel of ideas, very skillfully woven to be satisfying at both intellectual and emotional levels. On the other hand, I couldn't get into the second novella at all. Like the first one, it's also set in Victorian times, but this one deals with spiritual seances and the life of Alfred Lord Tennyson and his sister Emily. A big fan of Byatt that I am, I tried to make progress with it a few times but in the end I just skimmed it. Maybe some other time I'll actually read it.
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LibraryThing member engelcox
Two novellas by A.S. Byatt, the author of a particular favorite book of mine, Possession. Both stories share some commonalties with that work: an historical setting made real through the use of documents (poems, stories) that signify the date of their creation by their style. Both stories are set
The second story is more like Possession in that it plays revisionistic (or maybe impressionistic) with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and his sister Emily through the medium of a medium (that is, a clairvoyant). The point around which the story revolves is Arthur Hallem, the subject of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” a friend of his youth and the betrothed of his sister, who died on a sea voyage when Hallem was twenty-two. Emily, now married, has lingering doubts about her choice of marriage, wondering, if she should have, as her brother’s poem snidely implies, spent her days in perpetual maidenhood. Are we destined to have only one soul mate, the other being with which we form ‘the conjugal angel’?
Byatt’s style is Byzantine. Her scholarship into literary history has informed her pen to leak the century from its nib, and is not for those married to modernity. Yet her subjects are fresh and vibrant, pictured with painful clarity in the harshest of lights. Her characters ache in-between the lines.
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in the past, near the turn of the 19th century. “Morpho Eugenia” (the insects of the title) is a little mystery story about a naturalist who has lost all of his specimens during a sea-wreck and is forced to work as a catalogist for a wealthy amateur, working through the amateur’s bought samples. The naturalist is loosely based, it seems, on Alfred David Wallace, the co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection with Charles Darwin. He finds that his patron’s family is nearly as interesting as nature, especially one young lady cocooned from the world. But cocoons hide things.The second story is more like Possession in that it plays revisionistic (or maybe impressionistic) with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and his sister Emily through the medium of a medium (that is, a clairvoyant). The point around which the story revolves is Arthur Hallem, the subject of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” a friend of his youth and the betrothed of his sister, who died on a sea voyage when Hallem was twenty-two. Emily, now married, has lingering doubts about her choice of marriage, wondering, if she should have, as her brother’s poem snidely implies, spent her days in perpetual maidenhood. Are we destined to have only one soul mate, the other being with which we form ‘the conjugal angel’?
Byatt’s style is Byzantine. Her scholarship into literary history has informed her pen to leak the century from its nib, and is not for those married to modernity. Yet her subjects are fresh and vibrant, pictured with painful clarity in the harshest of lights. Her characters ache in-between the lines.
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LibraryThing member ranaverde
First story is great - fun natural history and nice Gothic twist; second story has some interesting characters but oh, god, enough with the endless quoting of Tennyson!
LibraryThing member mykl-s
Byatt does it again.
LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
Angels and Insects - A.S. Byatt
(Morpho Eugenia and The Conjugial Angel)
This is really two books in one, joined only by the most tenuous of
connections.
The first, Morpho Eugenia, is the story that the 1995 movie 'Angels &
Insects' tells. The film follows the plot of the book faithfully,
definitely influenced my reading of the book. A shipwrecked naturalist,
William Adamson, is befriended by a wealthy Victorian gentleman, who
invites him to stay at his estate. The naturalist falls in
lust-at-first-sight with one of the gentleman's daughters, Eugenia, and,
to his surprise, is given permission to marry her. They wed and have lots
of children, but in a rather-obvious literary device, Eugenia has no
personality whatsoever. However, another woman, a children's tutor, Matty,
who collaborates with the Adamson on a book about ants, is just brimming
with personality, although he seems oblivious to it. However, when a
Shocking Truth is revealed, things quickly turn out the way the reader saw
that they should have long ago.
The Conjugial Angel, to me, was not as significant a piece. Although it
has some interesting themes and characters, it's rather lacking in plot.
It has to do with mediums in Victorian England, and has lots of
fascinatingly well-researched detail regarding their place in that
society. It's also about the poetry of Tennyson, and about grief and
mourning. It's only tertiarily about Mrs. Papagay, a woman whose lusty
husband, whom she very much loved, has been lost at sea, and how she turns
to being a medium to both make a living and to seek answers for herself.
It's too bad, because Mrs. Papagay is a great character, and I felt that a
more conventional novel structure would have showcased her story
wonderfully.
(Morpho Eugenia and The Conjugial Angel)
This is really two books in one, joined only by the most tenuous of
connections.
The first, Morpho Eugenia, is the story that the 1995 movie 'Angels &
Insects' tells. The film follows the plot of the book faithfully,
Show More
whichdefinitely influenced my reading of the book. A shipwrecked naturalist,
William Adamson, is befriended by a wealthy Victorian gentleman, who
invites him to stay at his estate. The naturalist falls in
lust-at-first-sight with one of the gentleman's daughters, Eugenia, and,
to his surprise, is given permission to marry her. They wed and have lots
of children, but in a rather-obvious literary device, Eugenia has no
personality whatsoever. However, another woman, a children's tutor, Matty,
who collaborates with the Adamson on a book about ants, is just brimming
with personality, although he seems oblivious to it. However, when a
Shocking Truth is revealed, things quickly turn out the way the reader saw
that they should have long ago.
The Conjugial Angel, to me, was not as significant a piece. Although it
has some interesting themes and characters, it's rather lacking in plot.
It has to do with mediums in Victorian England, and has lots of
fascinatingly well-researched detail regarding their place in that
society. It's also about the poetry of Tennyson, and about grief and
mourning. It's only tertiarily about Mrs. Papagay, a woman whose lusty
husband, whom she very much loved, has been lost at sea, and how she turns
to being a medium to both make a living and to seek answers for herself.
It's too bad, because Mrs. Papagay is a great character, and I felt that a
more conventional novel structure would have showcased her story
wonderfully.
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LibraryThing member JaneHarrison
Although most favor the first story, Eugenia Morpho, I like The Conjugal Angel best. It's about Tennyson and circle haunted by Hallam.
LibraryThing member jo_lafaith
I just finished the novella collection, ‘Angels & Insects’ by AS Byatt, which is a bind up of two novellas; Morpho Eugenia and Conjugial Angel. Both stories are set in Victorian England (like the poet plot in ‘Possession’) and employ many of the same storytelling devices and themes that I
Morpho Eugenia focuses a lot on science and the juxtaposition of science and religion. It follows a scientific explorer after his research is destroyed in a shipwreck. He goes to stay with a wealthy family where he catalogues their collection of specimens and he falls in love with the beautiful daughter. While there he helps with the younger children’s lessons and begins observing the ant population. It has an almost gothic vibe to it, and deals with a dark revelation. Even though I saw it coming, and you might say it’s “too long”, because like ‘Possession’ it goes off on tangents and quotes poetry and even contains a story within the novella, the atmosphere is just so enjoyable. I love her writing and am happy to experience it, wherever it goes.
Another thing I noticed was that this style she uses reminds me a lot of classics I’ve really enjoyed, like ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ or ‘A Room with a View’. There are conversations between characters that explore opposing viewpoints on a theme or ruminate on an idea for multiple pages. Her works have that feeling and it works so well within the setting.
Conjugial Angel is about mediums and seances and connection through death. Full disclosure I thought I would prefer this one, but it didn’t quite hit for me. I still enjoyed her writing and some of the moments, and ideas presented.
As I said in my ‘Possession” review, these just won’t be for everyone… but if it works, I think you’ll really enjoy the time you spend here. The next books I have of AS Byatt’s to work my way through is that Frederica Quartet which is set in the 60s and 70s. So it should be a little different, and I’m excited to see what changes in her style. BUT I’m waiting a bit before I start it, as each book is quite long.
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enjoyed so much in ‘Possession’, in new and interesting ways. Morpho Eugenia focuses a lot on science and the juxtaposition of science and religion. It follows a scientific explorer after his research is destroyed in a shipwreck. He goes to stay with a wealthy family where he catalogues their collection of specimens and he falls in love with the beautiful daughter. While there he helps with the younger children’s lessons and begins observing the ant population. It has an almost gothic vibe to it, and deals with a dark revelation. Even though I saw it coming, and you might say it’s “too long”, because like ‘Possession’ it goes off on tangents and quotes poetry and even contains a story within the novella, the atmosphere is just so enjoyable. I love her writing and am happy to experience it, wherever it goes.
Another thing I noticed was that this style she uses reminds me a lot of classics I’ve really enjoyed, like ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ or ‘A Room with a View’. There are conversations between characters that explore opposing viewpoints on a theme or ruminate on an idea for multiple pages. Her works have that feeling and it works so well within the setting.
Conjugial Angel is about mediums and seances and connection through death. Full disclosure I thought I would prefer this one, but it didn’t quite hit for me. I still enjoyed her writing and some of the moments, and ideas presented.
As I said in my ‘Possession” review, these just won’t be for everyone… but if it works, I think you’ll really enjoy the time you spend here. The next books I have of AS Byatt’s to work my way through is that Frederica Quartet which is set in the 60s and 70s. So it should be a little different, and I’m excited to see what changes in her style. BUT I’m waiting a bit before I start it, as each book is quite long.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1992
Physical description
339 p.; 6 x 1.25 inches
ISBN
0679405127 / 9780679405122
Local notes
Fiction