Feeling pretty small-souled myself

[flemmings]

I didn't know Byatt was Margaret Drabbble's sister. I found Drabble as unreadable as Lessing back in the 70s: the horrible lives of women who must, for some unrevealed reason, marry men was Martian territory to me, and this at a time when I still thought I was heterosexual. But lord those writers were Horrible Examples to avoid-- by, evidently, being celibate. 

(When people asked why I wasn't married, I'd answer, 'I don't have to be. I have my own money.' As much now as in Austen's day, I was convinced. Which may prove only how asexual I actually was, even if I had no word for it at the time.)

I read an early Byatt and looked at Possession, but never could get into her. Also, whatever I may think of Jo Rowling now, Byatt's snit fit twenty years ago because people were reading Harry Potter and not reading Seerious British Writers, ie her, left a bad taste in the mouth. But the real nail in the coffin was her spoilering The Shepherd's Crown and then humphing about What's the problem with that? meaning she had no notion of how genre conventions work. I never got the impression that she was a large-hearted person: rather the reverse, actually. And maybe it's an occupational hazard with writers of a certain generation, but that doesn't mean I have to cut her any slack. If Pratchett could be a decent human being, I think she could have done better.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

I like Drabble. Or should I say liked Drabble—I haven't read her in years. 😀

Byatt is a fairly cold writer. I admire more than like her.

[anna_wing]

I quite liked her fantasy collection "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye", but found her novels rather dull.

[oursin]

On recent re-reads I found Drabble (depending a bit on which book - haven't essayed the earliest ones) stood up pretty well - but on Byatt, yes, admiration more than love/like.

[flemmings]

Yes, cold is how I'd describe her too. Which prompts me to ask, are there any warm mainstream English writers? Outside genre, but even then... Genial, humane, who actually like people?

[flemmings]

I might give that a try. I think mainstream lit is not for me. See: Martians, above.

[flemmings]

Early Drabble is all I know and reading it was a downer.

[mallorys_camera]

Such an interesting question!

Zadie Smith? Hilary Mantel? (Even Mantel's Cromwell books, as convoluted as their prose style was, I would describe as "warm.") I'd describe Dickens as a "warm" writer if you want someone who's not contemporary.

"Literary fiction," of course, is just another genre. And one that until 20 or so years ago was dominated by men. Maybe that's my problem with Byatt–it felt like she was trying to impersonate a male writer. 😀

[flemmings]

With the 19th century there's a find line between humane and sentimental, and Dickens was both. But certainly a warm writer, as was Kipling in his short stories. Thackerey OTOH sneers too much for my liking. The father of both Amises and Burgess and Waugh and Maugham and and and. Out of Swift, because the satiric vein bit deep in English writers. Satire allows you to hate and despise people, and get away with it.

it felt like she was trying to impersonate a male writer

My feeling exactly! But of course, to be taken seriously by the literary establishment, you had to. But I felt that she thought that way naturally, and admired Pratchett for being her exact antithesis.