The Virgin in the Garden

1. It is a great novel. Well written, engaging characters, and even a plot with a beginning and a middle and an end you want to arrive at, and you do. Things to bear in mind though is that Byatt is British and writing for a British audience. Also she is a high-end literary critic extremely well-versed in British and American literature. Consequently some stuff will go over an American's head because it is a Brit thing. And some stuff is going to go over everyone's head because Byatt expects the reader to know a lot of literary and cultural references and look them up if she doesn't or just grasp the meaning from context or just slide on by. But that's what makes her books all the more challenging and interesting to those with the knowledge already or the desire to learn more . 2. Byatt is extremely meticulous and detailed when it comes to background. Can be a bit of a slog sometimes but for those with the interest and attention span it is well worth it as it brings the period in question to life, along with the charatcers and the story. And what is really great is that this is but the first book in a quartet so there are three more great novels to look forward to after you finish reading "The Virgin in the Garden"

If the test of a great novel is that you want to read it again, or pick up the next one (this is the first of a quartet) then this is a good novel. If Still Life--the next title in the quartet--had been right here on the shelf I'd have started it right after I reread the Prologue. The present time of the novel is 1953, the year of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and, in the world of the novel, of a verse drama about the first Queen Elizabeth enacted on the grounds of an old and elegant estate in Yorkshire. The story is that of a Yorkshire family: father Bill Potter who's reputed to be a magnetic teacher at Blesford Ride, a public school, but we see him primarily as a dogmatic liberal who terrorizes his family while promoting his ideas on education (he's for it) and religion (he's against it). Winifred, his wife, caters and defers, of necessity becoming exactly the kind of woman he deplores and whose life her daughters (Stephanie and Frederica) seek to escape. Marcus, the youngest and his mother's favorite, is inner-directed, even spiritual, awkward with just about everyone, observant of phenomena of his world--and becomes prey for a disturbed science teacher. The novel, which in general is slow moving and highly allusive has a surprisingly dramatic closing sequence for a writer who says she didn't think she could tell stories. I had to laugh, though, at the very end: the scene is between Daniel, the fat, unkempt priest who marries the elder Potter daughter against the wishes of her parents, and Frederica in the small flat where the pregnant Stephanie is comforting the very disturbed Marcus. Here's the last paragraph: "Waiting and patience, of this inactive kind, did not come easily to him. Or to Frederica, he decided, without much sympathy for her. He gave her a cup of tea and the two of them sat together in uncommunicative silence, considering the still and passive pair on the sofa. That was not the end, but since it went on for a considerable time, is as good a place to stop as any." I loved that ending and asked myself why: 1. It caused me to consider the title of the second book in the quartet, Still Life. Stephanie and Marcus were "still" in their way but that was not true of Frederica and Daniel about whom "stillness" is almost the last word that would occur in any description of their characters. 2. It sent me immediately back to reread the prologue where I rediscovered that Daniel was one of the guests at the celebration in the Portrait Gallery in 1968---long after the New Elizabethan Age furor is over. Alexander Wedderburn, who wrote the 1953 verse play as a budding writer teaching at Blesford Ride, is also there, signaling perhaps that these two, and Frederica who invited them are of most interest in the novel. 3. The implication that there's more to the history of these characters made me want to continue immediately with the next book. And that reminds me that I absolutely loved the way Byatt handled time in the novel, the

Imagine yourself as an extremely gifted, intellectual girl of seventeen from an extremely intellectual family with an equally precocious sister coming of age in England during the time of Elizabeth II's coronation just past the age of Austerity (As opposed to America's Post-War Economic boom, England went through a period of scarcity so severe that there was food-rationing, more severe than during the actual war.), and you will have a good idea of the milieu in which A.S. Byatt and her sister, Margaret Drabble (as well-known a writer as her sister, in England) grew up. You will also be able to put yourself in either the character Frederica's or in her sister, Stephanie's, shoes. The one you fancy most will depend on your taste, I suppose. All the other reviewers seem to favour Frederica, and, in fairness, the book does become, especially towards the end, her story. Still, I prefer Stephanie's quiet, Wordsworthian depth and empathy to Frederica's stylised Racine-like hardness (A bit of a Manichean simplification here, but I think it will do for the prospective reader. I'm not writing a dissertation.) In any event the choice, I think, is a personal one. I notice that there is much comparing of Byatt to Jane Austen here. I should be especially wary of this comparison if I were a prospective reader, for a couple of reasons: 1) There is much explicit sex here, so much that, had this book been up for publication in the year it was set, it would have been unanimously turned down because of the Obscenity Laws. D.H. Lawrence (mentioned often herein) is the apt comparison 2.) I just don't see it, aside from Byatt's obsession with detail, but this detail extends to the sexual realm as well. Austen fans beware: Sexual acts are more frequent than tea parties here, and are as intricately described as the former are in Austen. So what we have here are two very different takes on literate and literary girls coming of age in the heady dawn of a new Elizabethan era. Stephanie dominates the first half and Frederica the second half of the book, approximately. Also, there's the matter of their younger brother Marcus and his relationship with Master Cummings. I don't want to say too much about this because it's rather obscure and involved, and it also reminds me of nothing so much as an Iris Murdoch novel, except (thankfully) Byatt treats it with irony and many of these passages are terribly humourous. In Murdoch, it all would be tragic. My own feeling? The book affected me deeply. I feel like I know people of my parents' age on a deeper level, particularly women. It blurs the lines between dreams and life, literature and life so effectively that they become part of one dizzying phenomenon, with the unremitting stress on the sexual subtext of all our thoughts and actions ringing truer than true. The narrator, who pops in a few times to give the reader a Proustian perspective on things, puts is thusly, in re Frederica: "....whilst Alexander was n

It seems as if it is impossible for A.S Byatt to write a bad or even a mediocre story. After this novel, she is one of my new absolute favorites and I have vowed to read everything this amazing author has written. I began to read The Virgin in the Garden, and could not put it down. I was enraptured by the beautiful descriptions of the two contrasting "Elizabethian ages" and the characters. Frederica has to be one of the most despicable, and yet intriguing literary characters in years. My breath was also taken away by the story of Marcus Potter--a haunting, amazing character that will stay with you for days. The way Byatt writes, she transports you to 1950s England and the lives of the Potters. I felt as if I knew these characters like family, and could almost sit down to lunch with them by the end of the book. Her style, timing, and subtle metaphors of passion and life are irresistible and amazing. This is truly a writer who will stand the test of time to become an icon in the likes of the Brontes, Jane Austen, and Kate Chopin. I cannot wait to share this book with everyone I know. Highly, highly reccomended. Go to the bookstore or your local library, ignore the new glossy bestsellers that try and cheat you out of your money and instead pick up this gorgeous, powerful read that new authors cannot hold a candle to.

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.