The Children's Book

Two boys, Julian Cain and Tom Wellwood, are wandering around a half-completed museum in London when they come across a third boy, Philip Warren, drawing the museum's sculptures. He has fled from his family and his life in the horrible pottery factories, and the Wellwood family takes him in and finds him a place with Benedict Fludd, a strange and temperamental sculptor. At first glance, all of these families appear happy, particularly the large Wellwood family with successful children's book author Olive Wellwood and her banker husband Humphry at its head. As the years go by, however, and the children grow up and learn the realities of the world, they understand that their childhood was an illusion as paper thin as Olive's fairy tales. I loved this book. I don't think everyone will love it; it's a long, dense book, more a portrait of family and art than anything with a plot. Although, to be honest, I didn't think the descriptions of pots were as boring as everyone says, and there weren't as many as I'd expected, either. I loved the intricate detail and the thought that went into this book. I felt it was such a gorgeous picture of late Victorian England, and Edwardian England, and even, heartbreakingly, World War I era England. It was a full picture of a society both different from our own and becoming our own. Honestly, I could live in this book's atmosphere, even if I wouldn't particularly want to live in a time where options for women were so limited. I adored the children in each of their various ways and was fascinated by their coming-of-ages. There are so many different strands with each of them in the novel and their fates are all bound up together. I was riveted by Dorothy's determination to become a doctor, for example, and I completely admired her ambition and devotion to science. I cheered on her success. I longed for the happiness of Elsie and Philip, two children seriously disadvantaged by their upbringing. I was torn by Tom's story, and didn't understand why his mother didn't understand. In short, each of the characters has their own plot arcs, and some are heartbreaking, while some are joyful. Closing the book with the effects of World War I makes the entire rest of the book feel idyllic. I felt as though I was feeling what the British must have felt as they sent their sons off to die, each with their own life story as these character possess, and I found the entire last section absolutely heartbreaking. Here is a book that depicts the horrors of war, how each life is cut off abruptly with no preparation and no ending. It's easy to see how this changed England and this book brought it home to me. I'm not sure I loved The Children's Book as much as I loved Possession, but the more I think about it, the more I think that might be possible. It has made this review hard to write because I can't pin down exactly why. But I've tried, and if you have the patience for this, I believe it will reward you immensely.

"The Children's Book" is a wonderful novel. I am not sure if I can describe (although I will try) all my thoughts about this amazingly complex, detailed, beautifully written and knowledgeable novel, which is at the same time an epic portrait of a generation, a study of an era, and a cornucopia of great characters and attitudes. The time is the break of Victorian and Edwardian epochs, until the end of WW1 (the novel spans more than two decades, from 1895 to 1919). The language is appropriately adjusted. The prose of "The Children's book" deserves to be mentioned, it is rich, lively, there are always most accurate words for the descriptions of objects, people, landscapes as well as feelings and subtle psychological nuances. There is a lot of word play (I am sure more than I discovered - one of many reasons why I think I will go back to this novel many more times), also with use of other languages. Most important events of the time are described (like the great rendering of the International Exposition in Paris, 1900) For example, the family central to the story, the Wellwoods, lives in Todefright, which can, obviously and ironically, (considering the plot developments) be seen as "Fear of Death". Olive Wellwood, a successful writer of children's stories, is based on the English writer Edith Nesbit. Her husband Humphry is a womanizer, (they have an open marriage - not necessarily, as we can see, a recipe for happiness) who left his job at the bank because of his political views. Both Olive and Humphry are socialists, trying to live according to the rules of the Fabian Society, and most of their friends are from these circles. They have seven children, and the two eldest, Tom and Dorothy, are described in most detail. The other families, the relatives, neighbors and friends of the Wellwoods, also have children, who interact on a regular basis, forming friendships and love relationships. The plot begins when Olive visits her friend, Prosper Cain, who is a curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and during the visit her son - Tom and Prosper's son - Julian discover a runaway boy, Philip, who has been hiding in the museum and skillfully sketching the exhibits. Olive takes Philip home, and when his talent and wish to be an artist potter are discovered, he becomes an apprentice of the eccentric neighbor potter, Benedict Fludd. The first occasion to meet most of the characters is the annual Midsummer feast hosted by the Todefright Wellwoods, and later all of them are followed in a meandering, digressive, detailed, wise and ambitious plot. There are, typical for Byatt, incestuous, twisted family relations (known from "Angels and Insects", for example), theme of children of parents - successful artists ("The Shadow of The Sun") and the topics she always comes back to - art, society and family relations, personal freedom. Also, a very English connection to nature is always present - Tom, a real boy who never grows up (does his name refer also to Tom

When I thought about reviewing The Children's Book I figured I'd take an intellectual tack, address the common complaint about excessive period detail in terms of Byatt's literary intentions and modern expectations about the scope of the novel. But other people have made those points, as well as I could have and probably better. So I'm going to do something different. The back-and-forth in other reviews on Byatt's use of detail may create the impression that, for better or for worse, this will be a difficult book, the sort of thing that feels like work even for those who appreciate its intentions and admire its depth. For some readers this will of course be true. But others will have an experience like mine: loving The Children's Book for pure pleasure of reading, flying through 425 pages in a single day, staying up until 5:00 AM to finish the book and feeling emotionally devastated in the best possible way afterward. The historical detail was part of this. One might get the impression from some of the reviews that Byatt just throws random facts in to show off that she's done a lot of research. In fact the detail, while extensive, is shaped by Byatt so that it both reveals the aspects of life in that era that interest her and works as literature. I haven't read enough novels with such ambition; it is, perhaps, out of vogue at present. The characters are fascinating too. I fully respect that the novel's digressive structure makes it difficult for many readers to connect emotionally to the characters' dramas. I had no such trouble. I felt like their stories were worth waiting for, and that a greater superficial tightness of construction would damage their plausibility and undermine the sense of constant incipience that defines the lives of some children and young adults. It is this sense of the reality of the characters' lives that makes their encounter with the brutality of World War I all the more devastating. The thing with novels about war is that their characters are in some sense created to die-- it's hard to create a full sense of who they were and what they wanted from life before the war came. The sudden outbreak of the conflict fifty pages from the end of this 675 page book gives the war a shadow (what more can literature ever give) of its historical terror. I see that these rambling remarks don't add up to much of a review. I hope they'll help someone nonetheless. Here's one more: in response to an interview question on how she wished to be read, Byatt observed in a general context that "Readers should be empowered to skip." If you're thinking about reading The Children's Book but are worried about its length or level of detail, take the plunge. If something bores you, skip it. It's better to read and enjoy part of a book than to fail to read all of it. I think Publishers Weekly was a bit silly in saying "Buried somewhere in here is a fine novel," but if you find you share that impression, feel free to dig around fo

This is a wonderful sprawling novel that takes readers from the pastoral innocence of children to the deep dismay and destruction of war. It tells the story of a number of families in Britain from the end of the Victorian era through to the first world war and encompasses the yearnings of youth for lives outside that previously dictated by class and gender. It's not a novel of love, it's a novel of change and through that change, love is lost and found. Characters are beautifully rendered and the reader weeps when so many promising lives are squandered in the killing fields of the war. It's an elegy to art, to involvement and to family.