Little Black Book of Stories (2003)

From what others have said, Byatt has the sort of background where I know I'm missing quite a bit when I read anything she writes, not even catching a stray ripple. That first story, whuh? Even the other four, where I caught my breath or found myself with a sore back from unconsciously hunching as I became enrapt with the stories, I wonder what I'm missing. Still, those four, thumbs up. My take on them may be the obvious take, but they dance on my mind. Loss and parenthood, grief and geology (literally becoming stone), a sly (or obvious?) dig at writers who mine or steal experience, obligation. ( )

How does a child deal with fear? And how does she live on with the solution she found? "The Thing in the Forest" is leaving the reader with some very unrestful solutions; (What became of Aly?), teaching us perhaps why Kain was banished to being lost in the wood; something will always be too painful to remember.

"In a Stone Woman" the daughter´s stony feeling of loss when a loved mother die is elaborated; Byatt let her metamorfose to a troll whose only space left to live is ultima Thule. Byatt creates a picture of grief that will not leave you easily, a reminder written in stony language; Despair is a deathly sin. Loss is a challenge to humanity a thing we need to learn how to live with if we are to remain human.

"Body Art" is a sweet story of lost souls finding love. Auden´s "Love thy crooked neighbour / with thy crooked heart" springs to mind; the setting is certainly crooked (sterile and spooky) as are the hearts of the main characters (the only channel for communication is non-figurative art.) The strange combination of bleak circumstance and characters and a story that fulfills the laws of comedie, leave a feeling of what a steep climb any human project is, how steep a climb communication is.

Byatt`s language is as always a treat in itself.
The dark themes in these stories are given fantastic metaphors, demonstrating that the depths of our most difficult emotions cannot be pictured as living feelings in abstract terms. The metaphors are fantastic as in wonderful; For example; non-figurative art is not fantasy but a part of modern living, as is the practice of abortion. Abortion and abstraction bothers few. But Byatt uses everyday common modern commodities and everyday practices in a way that leaves the reader non the less in a surreal atmosphere.
Reason- and un-reasonable is questioned throughout all the short-stories, leaving the theme of the metastory (what is a folk tale?) easily to be the most important. ( )

Where Helen Simpson's stories are mostly grounded in everyday realities, Byatt's stories have more in common with fairy tales. In the first story, 'The Thing in the Forest', Hansel and Gretel is mentioned explicitly. The story concerns two women who, as young girls, were evacuated to the country. During their stay there, they wandered into a forest and saw (or did they?) the 'Thing' of the title, a terrifying creature reminiscent of the Laidly worm. In 'A Stone Woman', a woman finds herself (apparently) literally turning to stone. The central character in 'The Pink Ribbon', a full-time carer for his wife who has Alzheimer's disease, is visited by a woman who calls herself Dido - but is she real, or a figment of his imagination?

The stories are intellectually interesting, though emotionally they had less impact on me. Byatt is a very clever writer, and sometimes I think this almost works against her. Raw Material, for instance, is a story about a creative writing group (and perhaps a sly dig at the kind of people who take creative writing classes?), but it's a rather odd feeling to hear the central character (the teacher of the group) praising the work of Cicely Fox, the only member of the group who - in his opinion - is a real writer, when Byatt has given Fox's pieces of writing verbatim. The effect is almost as if Byatt (as the creative writing tutor) is praising her own work (in the guise of Cicely Fox).

My least favourite of the stories was 'The Pink Ribbon'. It's hard not to read about James Ennis buying a Teletubby for his wife, Mado (mad Mado?) and not think of Iris Murdoch(John Bayley, in his memoir of his wife, mentions how the Teletubbies became 'part of the morning ritual...They trot about, not doing anything much, but while they are there Iris looks happy'), which sits a little uncomfortably with Byatt's statement about disliking biography being turned into fiction ("I really don't like the idea of 'basing' a character on someone, and these days I don't like the idea of going into the mind of the real unknown dead"). [September 2009] ( )

These were very much Byatt, which is just what I was hoping for. The writing was always superb, and was never too long or too short for what needed to be said. As for the individual stories, I didn't especially like 'Body Art', but I really enjoyed 'A Stone Woman' and 'Raw Material.' The other two were good, but not exemplary. Overall, I'd say it's a good collection. Rating: 3.5 Stars ( )

This brilliant little collection of stories by award-winning author Byatt covers a wide range of topics and styles, often incorporating mythological or folkloric imagery to great effect. Byatt's protagonists are frequently trapped--either literally or more figuratively--in the day-to-day details of their own lives and in the expectations of others, and are looking for ways out that sometimes come in surprising forms. From the repressed doctor who reaches out to a free-spirited young artist to the middle-aged spinster who finds herself becoming a creature of stone out of Icelandic myth to the pair of very different adult women whose childhood sighting of a loathsome dragon has haunted them, they find redemption at best and find their comfortable assumptions shaken at least.

Standouts in the collection include 'The Thing in the Woods,' 'The Stone Woman,' and 'The Pink Ribbon.' ( )