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The Matisse Stories

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 1,263 ratings · 103 reviews

These three stories celebrate the eye even as they reveal its unexpected proximity to the heart. For if each of A.S. Byatt's narratives is in some way inspired by a painting of Henri Matisse, each is also about the intimate connection between seeing and feeling--about the ways in which a glance we meant to be casual may suddenly call forth the deepest reserves of our being...more

Paperback, 144 pages

Published April 30th 1996 by Vintage (first published December 12th 1991)

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May 10, 2007 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

You don't have to be an expert on Matisse or of art theory to understand and appreciate this rich collection of three stories by A.S. Byatt. In each story, Byatt frames a scenario with a Matisse painting in such a way that the story is not about the painting itself, but of the characters and they way life is reflected as if looking through a piece of art. The prose is lush in color and texture. Although art and art history are sprinkled throughout, these subjects aren't forced in a dry way and f...more

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Sep 10, 2007 Ashley rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: you and you and you

Shelves: fiction

Byatt is probably my favorite author. Everything she writes is so elegant and an advertisement for the depth and breadth of her knowledge. But these stories are my favorite. Especially the one about the middle aged woman at the hair salon. Byatt is an expert at conveying the insecurities of a woman who feels her looks are starting to go (which are really everyone's insecurities) and gets lost in the fantastic tales of her flamboyant hair stylist. Color and texture are important in all the storie...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was drawn to this book of short stories because A.S. Byatt has been a favorite ever since "Possession."
The title intrigued me because I have a very special connection to the art of Henri Matisse. So inspired by his paintings, I even named one of my cats after him. I was interested to see how the lives of the characters of these stories were affected by his art and colors as well.
All three stories in the book are very atmospheric and filled with vivid imagery.
My favorite story in the collection...more

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Sep 17, 2010 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

A ritual Japan celebrates every year is blossom viewing. Before it really becomes warm, everyone is daydreaming of a slow wave of cherry blossoms blushing from the south to the north of Japan, in the wake of the gradual thermal tsunami known as Spring.

One can imagine that it is not the Japanese contemplating the cherry trees--but the trees themselves, opening their trillions of little floral eyes to take in the Japanese--that had long ago instituted the ritual of viewing the blossoms. In anci...more A ritual Japan celebrates every year is blossom viewing. Before it really becomes warm, everyone is daydreaming of a slow wave of cherry blossoms blushing from the south to the north of Japan, in the wake of the gradual thermal tsunami known as Spring.

One can imagine that it is not the Japanese contemplating the cherry trees--but the trees themselves, opening their trillions of little floral eyes to take in the Japanese--that had long ago instituted the ritual of viewing the blossoms. In ancient times these blossoms would behold celebrated court beauties arriving in kimonos, with musicians playing flutes and drums, with handsome boys hanging brightly lit lanterns to glow amid the boughs as everyone quaffs their sake amid a tumult of glances, gossip and music. The blossoms would look out on nobles arriving by boat, with servants, musicians and courtesans waiting on their pleasure behind gauzy curtains, as illustrious Buddhist monks sitting on the prow become ever more drunk and prattle ever more loudly about Zen, as the moon climbs ever higher in the sky and the tumultuous hullabaloo of drunken voices reaches a crescendo, with everyone shouting into the face of someone else in order to be heard above all the rest.

The blossoms would see that after the crowd thins and then disappears and the moon sets and the eastern sky begins to blush and the dawn breeze stirs--that neither they nor the moon have been truly appreciated for what they truly are. They would feel, in short, that the moon and themselves have been somehow abandoned. And thus each blossom watches sadly as the moon sets and disconsolate and trembling brother and sister blossoms shake themselves loose from the branches of this fleeting and insensitive world, abandoning themselves in flights of sheer oblivion to sail in swirling flurries and dizzying eddies through the indifferent air.

Permeating this ritual is mono no aware the fundamental Japanese aesthetic category. It has been translated as 'an awareness of the Ah-ness of things' and as 'a certain sadness that arises when contemplating the evanesence of beauty.'

This collection of stories, particularly the second, is guided by a similar meditation. The difference is that Byatt's characters lack the Buddhist acceptance of ageing that comes from a life of celebrating mono no aware not only in blossom viewing, but also as the underlying aesthetic category in Japanese literature.

What I find fascinating is cultural differences in such realms. Although Byatt is adept at conveying a certain sensibility towards growing older, this collection would have been far more captivating had she contrasted that sensibility with other, more accepting, ones.

(less)

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Aug 21, 2009 Karen Elizes rated it 4 of 5 stars

If there is one thing to be said about this very small collection of stories, it is that A.S. Byatt herself is a artist, not only with words, but with paint and brush. Her knowledge of colour schemes seem to pop out at you while describing the smallest things in the most oddest scenes. Even when describing the most outrages of outfits worn by one her characters, a Mrs. Sheba Brown, who's own visual paint palette is notably obscure, is most beautifully described in a mesh of tinted vividness.

It'...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Guilia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wonderfully written, I really moved with Byatt's prose, felt her voice the way she formed her sentences (after A Room of One's Own I am particularly observant of these things) I also seem to understand Woolfe's comment on women reading woman literature - it does seem to flow much better - although a very crude generalization, of course, almost useless. Perhaps I should say that when reading Austen's Northanger Abbey, Woolfe's A Room of One's Own and the Matisse Stories very soon after one anothe...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: things-you-can-t-unsee, prose-poetry

No, l didn't like this very much at all. I've already professed a lack of interest in Matisse, but it wasn't so much that.. It's more to do with the fact that these are meditations on womanhood, ultimately, and she and I are very different in our expressions of it. -- I agreed with her thoughts on agism. But then she seemed to make the argument that it's curves and violently passionate carnality that truly make one a woman. I've never had curves and I prefer a more gentle sexuality. Really, it's...more

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Mar 11, 2010 Bettie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: art-forms, fraudio, shortstory-shortstories-novellas, published-1993, spring-2010

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 24, 2013 Jonfaith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jonfaith by: Ceridwen

My glibly tossed five stars register an exquisite afternoon as much as this collection of three jewels from Dame Byatt. All three caught me unexpected. Medusa's Ankle's recalled the lead story in Pulse by Julian Barnes, though I could be mistaken, perhaps I am thinking of The Lemon Table. Oh well the self-awareness was piercing. Art Work is brillaintly realized work, one which may have been a marvelous novel. The Chinese Lobster likewise was transportive, though it was more whispered verse than...more

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Jun 24, 2011 Sue rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 101booksin1001dayschallenge, audiobook-challenge, audio, librarybook, pages-read-challenge, read-in-2011

I would have to say that you need to know about some of Matisse’s paintings to get the how the stories coinside. While listening it almost seemed like the stories melt into one another. It seems like the main characters (Translator and wife) are one in the same in each story if you didn’t know any better.

It seems that art is the main theme of each story. The lovely picture hung in the salon. The “housekeeper” that has the collage art show made out of all the “bids & bobs” she gathers at her...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Feb 11, 2013 Tim Cole rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reason for reading:
While on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales I visited a number of secondhand bookshops and bought rather a lot of books… this was one of them. AS Byatt won the Booker Prize in 1990 for Possession. What would this offer? A quick glance and the concept had captured my imagination… an impulse buy that worked out well.

About the book:
Three short stories tied together in a straightforward way. All of them, to a greater or lesser degree, have an association with a painting by Matisse. Le...more Reason for reading:
While on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales I visited a number of secondhand bookshops and bought rather a lot of books… this was one of them. AS Byatt won the Booker Prize in 1990 for Possession. What would this offer? A quick glance and the concept had captured my imagination… an impulse buy that worked out well.

About the book:
Three short stories tied together in a straightforward way. All of them, to a greater or lesser degree, have an association with a painting by Matisse. Le Nu Rose hanging in a hairdresser’s shop and a middle-aged woman who eventually loses it destroying the place is the inspiration for Medusa’s Ankles. For the second tale, Art Work, Le Silence habite des maisons is the inspiration. A ‘home help’ for an artist and a writer becomes an artist herself, leaving them in the shade. La Porte Noir is the work tied into Chinese Lobster. It tells of a meeting between two staff at a university in a Chinese restaurant which follows a complaint of sexual harassment by a student against one of them – her art lecturer.

Quote, unquote:
She sat at home and shook, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with tears. When she had pulled herself together, she would go and have a shower and soak out the fatal coils, reduce them to streaming rat-tails. Her husband came in, unexpected – she had long given up expecting or not expecting him, his movements were unpredictable and unexplained. He came in tentatively, a large, alert, ostentatiously work-wearied man. She looked up at him speechless. He saw her. (Usually he did not.)

What was good:
I love Matisse so that helps. AS Byatt has a style of writing that is easy to like and these brief bite-sized pieces make an enjoyable trio. The description of the changed look in the hairdressers is wonderful. The portrayal of a middle-aged woman’s rage and then the killer comment by her husband to finish the first story is truly magnificent. There is irony aplenty in the punchline for the second tale, while the third has a wonderful central character who is present only through her letters as a third party to the conversation taking place.

What wasn't good:
Well, they are very short stories and fairly one-dimensional. Looking back a couple of months on, I can’t say my view of the world has been dramatically changed or given a new perspective by what I read. But then these stories weren’t intended to.(less)

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Dec 08, 2011 Lindsey Stefan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Each story references or centers on a piece by the artist Henri Matisse.
The first is entitled “Medusa’s Ankles.” Susannah is a middle aged translator who picks Lucian’s hairdressing shop because of the Matisse painting she sees through the window. Her time in the salon causes her to reflect on aging and her relationship with her husband.
The second story is “Art Work.” Debbie is a former artist who now works as a design editor for a woman’s magazine so that her husband can continue to create hi...more

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Dec 19, 2010 SarahC rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-fiction

The Matisse Stories are a collection of Byatt’s modern stories, which I have set my mind to investigating throughout the coming year. This is a short volume of stories that are all influenced in some way by the art of French artist Henri Matisse, developer of Fauvism. [When I hear mention of Matisse, The Goldfish painting comes to mind, the only framed print of his work that I own and see regularly.]

Byatt incorporates ideas of Matisse’s art, but they aren’t “themes” of the stories. The stories a...more The Matisse Stories are a collection of Byatt’s modern stories, which I have set my mind to investigating throughout the coming year. This is a short volume of stories that are all influenced in some way by the art of French artist Henri Matisse, developer of Fauvism. [When I hear mention of Matisse, The Goldfish painting comes to mind, the only framed print of his work that I own and see regularly.]

Byatt incorporates ideas of Matisse’s art, but they aren’t “themes” of the stories. The stories aren’t structured in that sort of guided way. The stories themselves shine beyond any sort of scheme like that. They really tell of what the passion for art means to us and the way we live within each others’ lives in spite of the labels of our actual relationships. Each story tells of the way the color of each of our lives essentially bleeds into the life of a person around us and/or influenced by us. In the first story there seems to be a full, equal realization of this. In the second story the characters remain still baffled a bit by each other. In the last story, the stronger subjects of individual grief, fear, and honesty toward art itself override the coming to terms of relationships.

Byatt’s work leaves me in admiration. She is one of the most talented writers today in her ability to combine the elements of life into her stories. One of the best modern writers, her stories are so crafted as to never seem to announce, “look how modern and how clever we all are.” Byatt seems to understand that the story of people transcends the setting and the time period. She concentrates on the moment, the memory, the actually telling of something of the small thoughts of the characters. You are never left puzzled and in the dark on her intentions. She is a writer who shares with the reader the consequence and significance of what she is writing. So apparently a writer can still do this in the modern world and NOT leave the reader muddled AND STILL be a brilliant master of a writer.

I recommend these highly.(less)

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Jun 21, 2011 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, read-in-2011

A short, savory little tome. I read it all in two sittings yesterday, ravenously finishing the last piece on the subway home. These are relatively quiet stories, something I take to be part of the project's investment in capturing a kind of experiential tableau (like the Matisse pieces framing each tale). Each story features an obsessional impulse towards Matisse or art that brings the characters to some sort of revelatory moment. In two of the tales, this insight leads to a kind of break from q...more

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Dec 15, 2008 Clare added it

There are only three stories in this collection, and while they do not astound in the same way Little Black Book of Stories does - Byatt is not at the height of her powers here - they are still enjoyable, especially the final story, "The Chinese Lobster", which I'd read in The New Yorker archives several years ago. It features a weird, anemic art student, clashing with greater, older, well-educated (read: bougie) people, just as "Body Art", from Little Black Book, stars a similar character.

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Jan 15, 2013 Pearl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Needing a change from novels I picked up this small book of three stories from my bookshelves last night and could not put it down until I finished all the stores. Each story is influenced by a Matisse painting which is illustrated in the book. I loved each story but "Art Work" is my favorite. A feminist view point of what is art. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes good writing and enjoys art.

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Mar 16, 2013 Merinde rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I really liked how she evoked the colours of the paintings throughout this book. It's very vivid - not just when she is describing a real painting, something already known - but how she makes the imaginary mrs. Brown's work come to life too. As for the plot - I especially liked the second story, the last one was disturbing but memorable. It made me uncomfortable in several ways, so that was interesting.

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Mar 30, 2012 Tortla rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: feministy, short-stories

The usual elegant and meandering storytelling. I would love Byatt's short stories, but they so frequently wallow in the disappointments and frustrations of aging...I'm still young, and maybe I'll feel differently when I'm closer to the ages of her middle-age-and-beyond protagonist, but for now the prospect of aging as a sort of crumpling defeat is deeply...horrifying? repulsive? something that makes me want to distance myself from these stories. I'd like to be excited for the prospect of becomin...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Rowena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourite-authors, short-stories

Another wonderful short-story collection from Byatt. As always, her descriptions of everyday life and items are exceptional. Having just visited a Matisse exhibition a couple of months ago, learning more about his paintings and his temperament was very interesting. I had no idea Matisse was considered to be a misogynist, for example. The main theme of this book is of course art, pretty fitting as I consider Byatt to be an artist of words. She's also a very knowledgeable writer and reading these...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Desire rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this collection of short stories in one sitting. Matisse is one of my favorite painters, and I loved Byatt's concept of building the stories around his work. Although each story is relatively short, the central women characters are richly developed and each narrative is beautifully and fully resolved by the end. Great book!

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May 16, 2012 Chitra Divakaruni rated it 5 of 5 stars

Though I think of Byatt primarily as a novelist, she has delineated the brief, seemingly simple events in these stories with a light, masterful touch. Their humble settings and cast of characters remind us that the drama of human life can be played out anywhere, and surprises await us in the most unexpected places.

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Oct 03, 2011 Bandit rated it 1 of 5 stars

It is entirely possible that this is a good book, however I didn't like it at all. The second story was ok, the rest I found to be uninteresting and boring. None of the characters were particularly likeable and the stories failed to enlighten or entertain. Come to think of it, I'm not a huge fan of Matisse either.

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Jul 24, 2011 Tori added it

2003- My first reading of A.S Byatt's work...I think this was probably a bad book to pick. I liked how she was descriptive, but sometimes I didn't see how the pieces of Matisse's work connected with the story. The first two stories were the best, but I found the third one to just be boring and depressing.

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May 30, 2013 sandy rated it 2 of 5 stars

I appreciated tying in with Matisse as a novel approach, though sometimes it felt a little forced. My lack of familiarity with Matisse probably played a role in my lukewarm-ness about this. She is clearly a good writer, but I was not particularly inspired by the plots or the characters.

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Feb 02, 2011 Alwa rated it 2 of 5 stars

ehhhh, probably more like 3 stars, but I started reading The Fire Next Time right after it, and pretty much anything would suffer in comparison. Found this a little literal for me, but would still be interested in Little Black Book of Stories.

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Nov 10, 2012 Lbaker rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

An interesting concept, stories all have a bit of Matisse art attached in some way.

Enjoyed the first story Medusa's Ankles quite a bit.
Found second story Art Work quite predictable and petty.
Third story The Chinese Lobster was disjointed.

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Jul 04, 2009 Gloria monaghan rated it 3 of 5 stars

wonderful little book esp the last story. She always does the wonderful little contradictions of academia particularly well. Book work reading for the last story which stays with you like a painting. The woman is an art historian by trade I believe. IT works.

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Nov 08, 2012 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

A collection of three short stories, each one resolves around a Matisse painting, by the author of the award- winning book, 'Possession.' One story deals with a hair salon, another with professors, sexual harassment and a student who hates Matisse, but the one that stood out to me was called 'Art Work.' The story introduces us to a family and their inimitable cleaning lady. Debbie, her artistic husband and her kids depend on their cleaning lady to keep their house running smoothly, but she has s...more

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Jun 18, 2013 Candace Wegner rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've read this many times. It was soul-stirring and pleasurable and disturbing --- all at the same time -- when I read it this time. I'm entranced by the imagery but moved by the implications. Highly recommended!

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About A.S. Byatt

A.S. Byatt (Antonia Susan Byatt) is internationally known for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize-winning Possession, The Biographer’s Tale and the quartet, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman, and her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s E...more

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