Excellent - vivid and thought-provoking. Looking forward to reading this again. ( )

A painting of color: Henry Matisse's paintings were solid, colorful, and strangely calming to just sit back and look at. A.S. Byatt's "Matisse Stories" have a similar effect (though the effect of Matisse and his artwork only really is established in the third story). A mixed bag of three stories, all focusing on women and Matisse's paintings."Medusa's Ankles" introduces us to an aging woman who is drawn into a hair salon by the "rosy nude," a Matisse painting. Her semi-friendship with the hairdresser deteriorates when he leaves his middle-aged wife for a pretty young girlfriend, forcing the woman to face her own aging and life."Art Work" introduces a very artistic couple and their eccentric housekeeper -- who has a few secrets of her own. And "Chinese Lobster" takes on the sobering topic of sexual harrassment, when a young art student files a suit against a visiting professor who is lecturing on Matisse. But it turns out that the student may be the problem...Matisse is sometimes the center of these stories, but elsewhere you can barely find the poor guy. His paintings -- and the destruction of them -- is the center of "Chinese Lobster." But his art is only a minor part of the other two stories. Byatt's flair for description doesn't fail her now -- she paints vivid, lush descriptions of restaurants, hair salons and past memories. At the same time, she adds small "everyday" touches like live lobsters, little dishes, paints.While both "Medusa's Ankles" and "Chinese Lobster" are solid, self-contained little stories, "Art Work" is something of a mess. It seems to focus on too many subplots (Debbie's feelings about giving up her work, her husband's artwork) before settling on one. And her descriptions of art galleries and so forth seem rather off, as if she has never tussled with them and isn't sure how it happens.While "Art Work" bogs down the overall effect somewhat, "Matisse Stories" is a charming little (very little) collection for fans of the French artist. Pretty and sometimes thought-provoking.

This book consists of three short stories, dedicated "For Peter, who taught me to look at things slowly ....

The first, Medusa's Ankles, delivers the impact that the aesthetic deterioration of a middle-aged woman has on her husband and herself, symbolized by her hair. It was a short story dense with meanings and I am at exactly and precisely the right age to exquisitely appreciate it. The next story, Art Work, starts off with an extremely sensory description of the setting, including a stunning description of a washing machine. As with the previous story, one of the key issues was how one sees things and people. The role and meaning of color was integrated into all the relationships and the storyline, which ends with a good "gotcha". The last story, The Chinese Lobster, hinges on a student's dissertation on the female body and Matisse. This focus is used to enable another examination of women in relationships and professions.

Highly recommended. My synopses do not convey the emotional and aesthetic power of these stories. 4.5 stars. ( )

I fell head over heels in love with A.S. Byatt when I read Possession: A Romance 15 years ago in one holiday weekend in which I did almost nothing else but read. Since then, I've made it a point to gather together everything Byatt has written, and I'm parceling her work out to myself in doses, so I don't run out too soon. The Matisse Stories, in my hardcover edition is a lovely little book, pleasant to hold in the hand, printed on heavy cream paper with line drawings to illustrate the stories which are, after all, ekphrastic in nature, that is, about artworks in one way or another. The three stories in this book are all saturated with color, as are Matisse's paintings, so that one can almost see them, and all are about middle-aged woman coping. My favorite of the three stories is "Art Work," in which a family is surprised by their cleaning lady -- but each story is a little art work, crafted with the kind of care Matisse took with his paintings. Get your hands on this one.

The stories are actually quite easy to follow. Well written stories but not lifechanging. ( )