Should I prioritise this?

Depends. To be honest, this one is the only Byatt I have loved. I could not make it through The Children's Book or Angels and Insects. Having said that, I really did love it quite unreservedly back when I read it, when was first released. I'll tell you what. If you decide to read this, let me know and I will read it again, along with you. I got deeply carried away by both the academic pursuit of the two main characters and by the story that draws them in involving a mythical figure. Byatt, if you've never read her, tends to divide people into love/hate camps.

This would be a first Byatt. I noticed the division on GR.

I admire her a great deal, and I think book appreciation is so much influenced by the context of a reader's life at the time they read the book. So, while I've not gone further with her other novels yet, I plan to pick her up again in future.

I thought I had read this, but now I don't think so. I read Djinn In The Nightingale's Eye. But the first book by her that I read was the one about the retiring sister who gets outed in her sister's novel and becomes so humiliated. Which one is that? Ah -- I believe it was this one: The Game. It was devastating.

Hi, Jan - I've not read that one, but it would be fascinating, too, given the notorious rivalry that is said to crackle and pop between herself and Margaret Drabble, her sister.

I didn't know that!

I believe Possession resided on my library list for a very long time but I never "got a round tuit." I see I should.

Let me know what you think. I have set aside two books of her short stories: The Little Black Book of ... and The Matisse Stories.

As for the sister story, I know only a little about it because, although I was curious about what had driven these two amazing women apart (think how they might have collaborated on work!), I drew a line at learning too much. Even the little bit that I did learn tarnished my respect for both Byatt and Drabble.

I know that an argument is rarely only about the thing it's purportedly about; nevertheless, what I've read about their disagreements sound so petty, catty, and snivelling that I did not want to learn more. I expect better of people with the intellectual and emotional breadth and depth to write as they do, even though I know that's unrealistic of me. It's kind of like enjoying The Ring Cycle and avoiding learning too much about Wagner: the artist creates the work but the artist is not the work, right?

The personal behaviour of the artist or author came up in a thread I posted in this morning. While I wonder whether we need biographies to tell us about the personal or sex life of the artist, the reality is that it is common practice now (obviously it must help sell books), particularly after the death of all of the participants.

Do we need to know this stuff? If it's available, should we read it? Does it only appeal to our prurient side? Should we allow it to undermine our respect for the artist or the work? They're not easy questions to answer, without sounding like a prude.

No, they are not easy to answer, Ian, I agree. I enjoy biographies sometimes, but rarely are the biographies I read about writers whose work I love. It's too easy to end up not loving them as human beings, and then to find it difficult to put that out of your mind when reading their works. Some exceptions I've made are Muriel Spark's biography by Martin Stannard, which Spark had initially wanted him to write, and the letters of MFK Fisher. It seems obvious that Fisher had intended her letters to be read by a larger audience one day (or, at least expected this was a possibility). I am not keen to read letters that horribly violate someone's personal privacy, though; ones that they would not have wanted the world to see.

This is a little off the subject, but nowadays there are even more possible connections, with authors' blogs. I have not been so eager to read all those blogs, especially if primarily for marketing purposes.

Once a few (five? ten?) years ago there was a new author I was interested in but I had missed her presentations. When one came up again, I went. It turned out to be for a group of aspiring writers. I found out her name was not her real name (to protect her family and children) and also that she was honing a public persona that wasn't really her, for marketing purposes. Reality, maybe, and some of it understandable (the protection part), but deflating.

Did you read that the guy who wrote Game of Thrones was flamed whenever he posted on his blog, because a lot of fans thought he should have been writing the next instalment of his book?

HaHa--I think I heard about that!

My son has read all of those.

I've sort of decided I should finish Proust before I start Game of Thrones.

Ha Ha! Probably a good choice, Ian.

Jan, I know, that's exactly the problem. As much as I don't want my impression of the person to overly influence my impression of their work, that can happen for better or worse. Sometimes, the two are so congruent that it's a moot point. Two funny people who spring to mind are David Sedaris and Bill Bryson. I met Sedaris when he was just becoming famous, and he was pretty much exactly who you would expect him to be. I would guess Bryson is much the same.

Good! Glad to be reminded everybody doesn't have a false public persona. Also one has to try and set priorities. Reading all the blogs might not leave much time for--reading.

...or writing.

Or watching Game of Thrones?

We have actually watched a few episodes in Series 1 and enjoyed them.

Jealous. Never seen it. Since we don't use our TV much, we've never bothered to get the pay channels, so when something interesting comes along that I do want to watch, I miss out. This explains why I just saw The Sopranos about eighteen months ago, got all excited about it, and then realised that social conversation had ended a long time ago. Funny about that.

Haha, this is actually what JB Hifi used to be for.

I know, right? And no more! We do have a grungy little video shop in Rosanna. I might pop in there and check out some DVDs (remember those? do people still use those?)

Oh, they're gone, here. I'm nostalgic for them.

Wow, seriously? I was joking! I didn't realise they are truly gone.

There was a video shop all during my children's childhood. It converted from tape to DVDs at some point. Then that came to an end, too. It's been (?) three or four years. I guess most people get Netflix. We don't watch much so we get individual movies from Amazon. Stream? I'm behind on the technology myself.

Oh I see. My husband is a computer and electronics whiz, but we don't have advanced media capabilities beyond my little iPod and my new Kindle that a friend gave me; so, we are way behind on experiencing what's happening with movies. But he just explained to me that many people now have media centres where they can directly access video on demand.