Sugar and Other Stories

Byatt's first published collection of short stories, which appeared in between the novels Still life and Possession, contains eleven stories, mostly written for The New Yorker or Encounter. The subjects advance in a suspiciously logical sequence through the book: women's education, mother-daughter relationships, ghosts, accusations of witchcraft, writers and mortality. The opening story, "Racine and the Tablecloth", has a younger version of Frederica (called Emily here) at boarding school in York and locked in a struggle with a small-minded headmistress who thinks academic achievement is no excuse for refusing to engage with the community life of the school, in a kind of inverted Miss Jean Brodie set-up.

"Precipice-encurled" is show more particularly interesting in the light of what is to come in that it's historical fiction about Robert Browning — we meet him and his sister in Venice a couple of years after Elizabeth's death, planning a visit to friends in their holiday retreat in the Apennines, and sketching out a poem about Descartes.

The autobiographical title-story also ties a lot of threads together: the narrator talks about her memories of her (paternal) grandparents, who ran a sweet factory in Conisbrough, and reflects on how much creative fiction goes into family memories: her firsthand memories are conditioned by the way her mother "improved" the facts to turn them into family anecdotes, and she herself adds her professional writer's instinct to turn events into stories. She also talks about her father's death and his passion for Van Gogh (tying into Still Life, of course) and about her passion for Norse mythology and Ragnarök, which she traces back to a book her mother had used "as a crib" whilst doing compulsory Old Norse and Icelandic for her English degree, and which she read as a young child. And that, of course, links into several of her later novels, including Possession. show less

It is always a little sad to reach the point where there is no more fiction to read by a favourite writer - let's hope she still has more to come. This was Byatt's first collection of stories, the last book she published before [b:Possession|41219|Possession|A.S. Byatt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391124124s/41219.jpg|2246190], and although it lacks the thematic unity of most of her later story collections, it still contains some fine writing. There are some recurring themes - death (two of the stories involve ghosts) and how real life inspires the writing process.

The first story Racine and the Tablecloth is a moving tale of a clever girl who is bullied at school and feels antagonised by her teacher. Like some of the other show more stories here this one is a little elliptical.

For me the least convincing piece was The Dried Witch, a rather macabre story set in a primitive village, which is interesting because its style presages some of her later fairy stories.

On the Day that E.M. Forster Died is a story of a writer that must be at least partly autobiographical - she has a number of disparate ideas for her next novel and while sitting in the British Library she sees that they would be more powerful as part of a single larger work, and feels that the shadow cast by Forster has been lifted - those who have read the Frederica quartet ([b:The Virgin in the Garden|86888|The Virgin in the Garden|A.S. Byatt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1399401834s/86888.jpg|245459], [b:Still Life|91519|Still Life|A.S. Byatt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348286107s/91519.jpg|1794016], [b:Babel Tower|91688|Babel Tower|A.S. Byatt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1193064878s/91688.jpg|1063051] and [b:A Whistling Woman|68123|A Whistling Woman|A.S. Byatt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389037506s/68123.jpg|1374506]) might recognise this description. For me this quartet and [b:Possession|41219|Possession|A.S. Byatt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391124124s/41219.jpg|2246190] are Byatt's most complex and rewarding works. The story then moves off on a tangent to a decidedly odd encounter with an old acquaintance who tries to involve her in a bizarre conspiracy.

The penultimate story Precipice Uncurled is a curious story of a talented young painter falling in love with a friend of Robert Browning, and his death in a fall from a mountain in the Apennines where he is trying to capture the light. I suspect my ignorance led me to miss some of the resonances and context for this one, but it is interesting because it was probably written when she was already thinking about Possession.

The final story Sugar gives the collection its title. Sugar is about family history and the way stories are filtered and changed by the teller - the narrator compares her parents' conflicting memories of her grandfather, the owner of a boiled sweet factory, and the stories of her aunts and uncles.

As always with Byatt there are plenty of ideas here and this is a rewarding read, but perhaps not the best starting point for someone new to her work. show less

I was first turned on to Byatt by a lovely woman who loved English fiction due to the time she spent abroad. Though A. S. Byatt is acclaimed for her novels like Possession, I find her short stories much more readable and engaging. This is my favorite of her collections.

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3616386.html

Stories from early in Byatt's career; I have previously read Possession, which I loved, and Babel Tower, which I did not. Two of these are ghost stories, most of them demonstrate a talent still coming together. I particularly liked the first one, “Racine and the Tablecloth”, about feminist liberation through boarding-school essays, and the last two, “Precipice-Encurled”, an exploration of Robert Browning à la Possession, and the clearly autobiographical “Sugar”. All very digestible.

Themes seem to run from story to story. The first two are both about differences between generations (women's); 2-4 about death and survival, and attitude to ancestors, which links with former generations in 1; No 5, `The dried witch', ends with her death and survival. Also theme of woman ageing, which carries on through 7, 9, 10 (Juliana). Then 6 and 7 are about literature and language. The heroine of 6 is a lecturer in lit; of 7 is a writer, with treatment again of the theme of death. The heroine of 8 is another woman writer, now introducing the theme of fear - or carrying it on from the end of previous story. Fear (woman's) is main theme of next story, 9. Sudden death, literature (and art), and one generation investigating an earlier show more one, in 10.
Then the last one, 11, which gives the collection its title, and from which
the cover pictures derive. It chiefly reverts to theme of family history, inter-generational relations, development. show less

sette racconti bellissimi, in cui le storie fanno da padrone e le parole sono evocative.

À.S. Byatt est une auteure remarquable par la richesse, la subtilité et la pertinence de son écriture. Un académisme un peu trop marqué entache ici et là la force du texte dans certaines nouvelles (notamment dans Loss of face) mais on pardonne aisément une nouvelliste aussi douée.
Les émotions souvent violentes qui affleurent sous les mots d'une grande précision et d'une belle élégance sont particulièrement bien restituées, au fil de nouvelles très diversifiées.