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123 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Virgin in the Garden: A S Byatt, December 3, 1999
I read this immediately after 3 consecutive readings of Possession, and having since read all Byatt's other fiction, I regard it as my second favorite. The book conveys all the intoxication with literature that one associates with Byatt, with levels of academic reference that I still haven't completely fathomed after several readings. Yet despite the apparent dryness of its themes, it is also a very funny book. Much of it must be, to an American audience, very English.The early 50's in Britain described here were the age of post-war austerity, but were also heralded as the beginning of a "new Elizabethan age". Byatt beautifully re-creates the half-hopeful, half-cynical atmosphere of those times. She gives us her characteristic juxtaposition of things cerebral and things visceral, obsession with Spencer, Racine, Ovid and sex. Her heroine of this and two subsequent novels, Frederica Potter, is portrayed, I think, to be somewhat like Jane Austen's Emma - a character no one will like very much. But as a creature possessing all the human passions in abundance, she's wonderfully attractive. I just love her. She must appeal to anyone who has ever suffered for possessing an excess of intelligence. The book also provides further exposure to the geography of Byatt, with explorations of the parts of Northern England which she subsequently introduced into Possession. The places, the characters, the culture depicted all give more clues about the contents of the fascinating mind of the author. Like all her other books, it forcefully argues the point that everything that it is to be human, intrinsic to our species, is contained in the edifice of our culture, and that our culture is entirely built of language. Her work challenges the reader, in every line, to examine and re-examine the richly heaped-up layers of meaning in the simplest of English words, and to recall with awe how Ovid and Chaucer and Spencer and Shakespear and Austen are alive and well and living in our brains every time we frame a sentence. The enthusiasm with which she conveys this philosophy in this book is a pleasure every time I return to track down fascinating quotes or to re-read it.
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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Satisfying Novel for Patient Readers, October 23, 2000
"The Virgin in the Garden" is a densely written novel that centers around a quirky English family during the time of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. The book deals with themes found in Byatt's other novels: lives of intellectuals and artists, the occult and spiritual, suffocating atmosphere of an academic village, gender dynamics and familial relationships. Byatt's characters rattle off quotes and allusions in just about every scene, but she rescues them from being mere voices of ideas by exposing their human weakness and imperfection. The portrait of the core family, besieged with problems, is utterly convincing. But she does this slowly, and the first of this three-part novel, filled with considerable background information, plods with lethargy. The ponderous pace is compounded by Byatt's habit of depicting scenes in minute details. Her power of observation is admirable, but the minutiae ultimately obscure the dramatic thread. Something must also be said about the novel's point of view: the change of focus character from chapter to chapter works well, but when this change occurs within a chapter, and often within a same paragraph, the effect can be disorienting. Despite these flaws, riveting drama awaits those who are patient; the second half of the novel is deeply engrossing. The narrative pulse quickens, tension explodes, and in a few memorable scenes, fine dialogue alone propels the story forward with breathless inevitability--quite rare for Byatt, and quite entertaining for readers.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A.S. Byatt does it once again!, September 30, 2004
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.
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