The Biographer's Tale [Import] [Unbound]

A. S. Byatt (Author)

Product Details

• Unbound
• Publisher: Modern Library (January 2001)
• ISBN-10: 0375413421
• ISBN-13: 978-0375413421
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An acquired taste, December 14, 2000

By 

Rosanne Dingli (Karrinyup, Western Australia Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Biographer's Tale (Hardcover)

This book is not a light read. It is heavy, layered, rich and in some parts indigestible. Yes, like the best Christmas cake. It contains not only literary references, but scientific and historical ones. One is expected to know who Carolus Linnaeus was, and Galton, and Lyle. One is expected to smile at elevated jokes and nod at passing references to evolution theory, history of science, philosophy. One is expected to remember the trials and tribulations that related to literary fads such as deconstructionism and post-colonial feminism. However, there are other layers, that allow those readers intent on a story to find a narrative that engages. There is the eternal search for romance, the confusion and wonderment that accompanies a change in career direction. There is the uncertainty that comes when one meets a gay couple, or when one meets a person with a definite hard-wired hardcore sexual perversion. A S Byatt uses research like some people use mayonnaise. This is the novel you read not so much to pass the time, but to relish and savour, to wonder at in awe. How can one person have at one's disposal such a wealth and weight of knowledge? And... what have I missed by not knowing what was necessary to know?

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Researching Identity?, December 18, 2000

By 

Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Biographer's Tale (Hardcover)

This is a very literary book and an entertaining story, but you have to be in the mood. It is saturated with in-jokes. The long biographical bits can be very tedious if you don't like random bits of curious facts. It can easily be seen as pretentious. What grabbed me was that this novel is about the obsessive need to understand and possess another's identity. How much do we need to know to understand someone and what do we do when that understanding is found? Is history fixed or malleable? No answers are possible and this novel concedes to that point. It conveys a deep understanding that all this knowledge that we desperately acquire to know another must be gathered and dropped simultaneously if we are to gain any idea about another person's identity.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Missing Things, January 26, 2001

By 

Thomas W. Jensen "deathbreedon" (Salt Lake City, UT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Biographer's Tale (Hardcover)

Of all Byatt's fictions, I am most fond of the Frederica Potter trilogy, (hopefully tetralogy soon) and then "Possession." While the comparisons that have been made between "The Biographer's Tale" and "Possession" are apt, the differences reveal the reasons this was much less satisfying for me, despite its diverse and interesting expositions and fragments. Unlike the works I mentioned above, this book is much narrower with a smaller set of characters. In the hands of some novelists this leads to deeper, more interesting and ironic portrayal of character. However, I found the character's in "The Biographer's Tale," to be more remote and static, even though what they study is provocative. I suspect that Byatt's keen observation and imagination is at its best when it can focus on on the interactions of a broad and socially diverse set of people. Unfortunately, today's academic climate rarely provides that.

In general, Byatt's recent works seem more polished and less lively than her earlier work, polished to the point of preciousness in some cases. It may sound anachronistic in this post-post modern age, but I miss the flesh, blood, surprise and risk of her earlier work and the deep, believable characters that have remained with me for years.