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Little Black Book of Stories

A.S. Byatt

3.80 · Rating details · 2,351 ratings · 299 reviews

Like Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, Isak Dinesen and Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt knows that fairy tales are for grownups. And in this ravishing collection she breathes new life into the form.

Little Black Book of Stories offers shivers along with magical thrills. Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood: two middle-aged women, childhood friends reunited by cha ...more

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Paperback, 256 pages

Published February 8th 2005 by Vintage (first published 2003)

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· 2,351 ratings · 299 reviews

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Mar 21, 2018 Cecily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories-and-novellas, fantasy-faeries-magic, god-religion-faith, magical-realism

Reading Byatt is like casting a net in a tropical fish tank: each dip brings a different combination, mostly of startling variety and beauty. But sometimes I catch some pondweed, rocks, or detritus as well.

I had a similar experience with this collection of five stories from 2003, ranging from 5* to 2*. I admire her work, but often find aspects that detract and distract. But the best are so good, I keep coming back.

They are superficially very different in style, setting, and plot, but they are c ...more

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Jul 02, 2016 Dolors rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Curiosity killed the cat

Shelves: read-in-2016

Beguiling perplexity.
This is what Byatt’s five tales provoke in the spellbound reader.
But why are they black?
Byatt’s writing brims over with multichromatic imagination, but among the seemingly disparate storylines there is a common theme that binds them together: the imminent presence of death, lurking ominously around every corner, changing shapes and costumes, appearing as a blind, slimy monster from the depths of a forest during WWII, a walking metamorphosis from flesh to stone or in the form Beguiling perplexity.
This is what Byatt’s five tales provoke in the spellbound reader.
But why are they black?
Byatt’s writing brims over with multichromatic imagination, but among the seemingly disparate storylines there is a common theme that binds them together: the imminent presence of death, lurking ominously around every corner, changing shapes and costumes, appearing as a blind, slimy monster from the depths of a forest during WWII, a walking metamorphosis from flesh to stone or in the form of conventional illness related to growing old.

The temporary condition of mankind’s existence reigns over the pages of this collection, a fact that becomes obvious in the constant change the human body suffers with the passage of time.
Natural ageing, psychological trauma, self-inflicted abuse, paralizing grief… the body is the gravitational center around which revolves the sinister spectre of death, changing masks, threatening everything that is fresh and bright.

A pragmatic but troubled gynecologist confronts his religious upbringing and the real meaning of free will when he crosses paths with an enigmatic arts student in Body Art while a woman goes through an inexplicable transformation that reveals her true identity in Iceland, helped by a mystic stonemason in A Stone Woman. The fantastical prevails in Byatt’s stories, but always without belittling the piercing realism that orbits around the narrative duplets that become the protagonists in the five fables. What do they have in common? The questioning of the traditional division between reality and myth and the nightmarish quality of the quotidian.

Life can be spent in total darkness if we do not dare to turn on the light to confront the invisible ghosts that haunt us. These tales concentrate the evocative power of books for children, the mystery of the Gothic atmosphere and a postmodern outlook that leads to a seductively dark meditation on how we struggle against our most secret fears and primal desires.
The best of the ancient folklore seen through bountiful imagination, this is where Byatt’s greatness lays, in her cultivated prose, alive and probing, which traps the reader in a permanent spell that won’t ever completely dissipate, no matter how long ago childhood and fairy tales were left behind.
...more

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May 04, 2014 Zanna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: environment, feminism, magical-realism, short-stories, bechdel-pass

Why black? Because black absorbs and radiates? Because the subjects are full of pain? Because the black book contains our connections? Because the dark is where we paint our fears and hopes?

I am cursed with this line-seeking mind. I abandoned Ariadne. Why will this story not lie flat and hand me the thread? Literature, why do you merely intrigue me, draw me deeper, without ever solving the labyrinth?

When I read Byatt I argue with my inexplicable sense that this is the only literature: be calm ch ...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Rowena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, fantasy, gothic, favorites

One of the reasons I adored this short story collection was Byatt's ability to describe things so well. Her descriptions of nature and colour were especially wonderful. I think it's safe to say I have never read any short stories quite like these, they were all unusual and came with twists. My favourite story was "Stone Woman" in which a woman finds herself turning to stone. As a geology-lover, her descriptions of the different rock formations and minerals resonated with me and I had to read tha ...more

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May 01, 2018 Jonfaith rated it liked it

The human world of stones is caught in organic metaphors like flies in amber. Words came from flesh and hair and plants.

A collection of slightly stories which appear to announce in all-caps, IF I CARED MORE I WOULD PLAGIARIZE. Yet it doesn't. I am not sure about our own state either. Byatt is always will suited for the epic scale (As long as she avoids Babel) but the shorter pieces appear to stumble.

The Blitz features a few times here, as do geriatric concerns, obstetrics and gynecology. There' ...more

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Feb 16, 2015 Deea rated it really liked it

Shelves: short-stories, best-2015, favorites

The Thing in the Forest ****
Body Art ***** (lovely)
A Stone Woman ***** (exquisite)
Raw Material ***
The Pink Ribbon ****

ONCE UPON A TIME there was magic immersed in real life. Magic! And magic was palpable…just like in fairy tales and people believed in it. When exactly in the evolution of humanity did we lose the ability to believe in what we could not see? When did we forget that there are things which cannot be explained by science, that our world is not only populated by visible beings, but al The Thing in the Forest ****
Body Art ***** (lovely)
A Stone Woman ***** (exquisite)
Raw Material ***
The Pink Ribbon ****

ONCE UPON A TIME there was magic immersed in real life. Magic! And magic was palpable…just like in fairy tales and people believed in it. When exactly in the evolution of humanity did we lose the ability to believe in what we could not see? When did we forget that there are things which cannot be explained by science, that our world is not only populated by visible beings, but also by invisible creatures? These are some of the questions that Dame Byatt wants to make the reader of this book think of.

Usually fairy tales have happy endings: the prince and the princess get married after struggling with opposite forces, the dichotomy good versus evil is ever-present and good defeats evil with no exception. In Byatt’s stories however, real life takes over: rather than focusing on how people get together and stopping at that, Byatt’s princesses and princes, heroines and heroes (who are actually real people) have to face consequences after an important moment from their lives. In Byatt’s imagined worlds there is no such thing as happy ending…maybe this is why the volume is called “Little BLACK Book of Stories”.
All the stories from this volume are good, but there are two which are really amazing: “Body Art” and “Stone Woman”. I will only talk a little bit about the second one because it’s fresher in my mind.

Ines, whose mother has recently died, starts noticing after a surgery that her body is turning to stone. While looking for a place where to stay when her metamorphosis is complete, she meets a stone mason from Iceland. He tells him her secret and he invites her to Iceland, after telling her stories about trolls and their transformation over time. They go together to this “primal chaos of ice, stone silt, black sand, gold mud” (Iceland) and her metamorphosis is completed there. Byatt explores in this story many aspects related to stones and she creates very plastic descriptions:

“The mind of stone lovers had colonized stones as lichens cling to them with golden or grey-green florid stains. The human world of stones is caught in organic metaphors like flies in amber. Words came from flesh and hair and plants. Reniform, mammilated, botryoidal, dendrite, haematite. Carnelian is from carnal, from flesh. Serpentine and lizardite are stone reptiles; phyllite is leafy-green.”

or

“Labradorite is dark blue, soft black, full of gleaming lights, peacock and gold and silver, like the aurora borealis embedded in hardness.” In the context of this story which takes place in Iceland, the valences of this phrase are simply exquisite.

A wonderful book which made me highly appreciate Byatt's sharpness, eloquence and way with words, a book which made me want to see Iceland very soon and made me read about artists such as Matisse and his contemporaries and a book which convinced me to explore her literary abilities further in the near future. Highly recommended for anyone who still believes in magic. ...more

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Jul 04, 2018 Lisa rated it liked it

Shelves: tbr-shelf-2018, short-stories

I read all of these dark, fairy-tale like stories dutifully but was glad to be finished. Byatt writes paragraphs of lush, descriptive prose but I found the language overpowering - I had an urge to skim. My favorite was "The Stone Woman" -- I can still see the images vividly in my mind.

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Apr 22, 2017 Berfin Kanat rated it liked it · review of another edition

Hikayeler korku ögeleri taşısada ürkütmekten ziyade tuhaf hissettiriyor. Hepsini beğenerek okudum diyemem ama yazarın tarzı hoşuma gitti, diğer kitaplarını da okumak istiyorum.

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Apr 02, 2009 Sharon rated it it was ok

Having heard good things about A.S. Byatt's mastery of the short story, I was anxious to read this book. Unfortunately, I found myself disappointed.

Byatt certainly knows how to begin a story. The first offering in this collection is "The Thing in the Forest" and it begins, simply and intriguingly, with this sentence: "There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in the forest." Note the deliberate phrasing here with the word 'believed'. It is pivotal to the whole stor Having heard good things about A.S. Byatt's mastery of the short story, I was anxious to read this book. Unfortunately, I found myself disappointed.

Byatt certainly knows how to begin a story. The first offering in this collection is "The Thing in the Forest" and it begins, simply and intriguingly, with this sentence: "There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in the forest." Note the deliberate phrasing here with the word 'believed'. It is pivotal to the whole story. Everything that happens to these two little girls, and to the women that they become, revolves around that thing and the question of whether they actually saw it. After the incredible buildup of the girls' evacuation from London during wartime and their encounter with the thing in the forest, however, I found the denouement of the story to be a letdown. Something strange happened to these two at a young age. Byatt wants us to understand that how they dealt with it and incorporated it into their lives determined who they ultimately became. The ending is set up to be an a-ha moment, but for me, it fell flat because it failed to live up to the promise of that wonderful beginning.

I felt that each story in this collection had a hinge within it, some important pivot point around which the story turned and became something else. Sometimes the hinge is an event, like the formation of a scar after surgery, and sometimes it is an encounter with an unexpected person, like the young, fragile artist or an elderly woman with vivid memories. Although it's not always clear in what direction the story is turning, these points are like huge signs that blink to get our attention, and I found myself wishing the machinations were a little more subtle.

Byatt's writing is strong, in a conversational style that is warm and easy to read. Sometimes I found her overuse of adjectives to be annoying, as if she were a journalist desperate to get down every nuance of a scene. I also found the pacing to be a bit slow for my taste, with some stories dragging on interminably. "A Stone Woman" had the wonderfully surprising premise of a woman literally turning to minerals but there were only so many times I could read about the crystal growths under her skin and the clinking, chinking noises she made when she moved, before I began skimming those descriptive passages.

I thought my favorite story was going to be "Raw Material," about a disillusioned writer living in a trailer and teaching creative writing to a group of talentless wannabes. An elderly woman joins the class and begins to turn in essays on things she remembers from the past. Her writing is clear and clean, both descriptive and evocative, both literal and metaphorical. It sparks the jaded writer's own urge to write well, his own passion for the written word. Unfortunately, this story fell apart for me at the end. The final turn of events came completely out of left field and felt forced to me, almost as if Byatt had been writing along and couldn't figure out how to end the story, then suddenly came up with this shocking revelation. The pieces did not fit together, which I think is how Byatt wanted the reader to feel, as a mirror to the main character's own reaction. But for me, it simply knocked the whole story down and made it too unbelievable.

Much of the disappointment I felt in these stories came from a lack of interest in the characters and situations, as well as the very open nature of the endings. The writing is quite engaging and I always felt a keen sense of anticipation upon starting one of these stories. Unfortunately, by the end, I usually found myself saying "so what?" Ultimately, I came away feeling unfulfilled despite the promise of some very interesting beginnings. ...more

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Oct 13, 2017 Richard Newton rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-and-literature

Rather wonderful. Beautifully written, adult stories which mix a little fantasy with a deep understanding of the human condition. These are long short stories - some really novellas. Intelligent writing showing that the best reading experience is best when less is explained. I liked all the stories, but the last two - Raw Material and The Pink Ribbon were particularly fine.

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May 15, 2011 Eh?Eh! rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: eeeeelizabeth, lit-huh-rary, babble-added

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 (li ...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Connie (Ava Catherine) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: magical-realism, uk, 2015, short-stories-essays, src

I love Byatt's ability to take a simple idea and create a lovely story with a strong theme.

In "The Thing" she uses echoes of Hansel and Gretel with a modern twist. We are reminded that the wounds of our childhoods scar and shape us for the rest of our lives. Each person has to figure out how to cope with her Thing from the forest in order to survive. Setting this story in WWII is a stroke of genius. The children being evacuated from London during the war are vulnerable before they go into the f ...more

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Jun 30, 2016 Bandit rated it liked it · review of another edition

Second time trying Byatt, looks like this time her stories fared marginally nicer, but still...something about her writing just doesn't sing for me. I was able to appreciate it more now, see the beauty of it, but these modern fairy tales (with exception of the first one maybe) lacked the magic and fun and all those other fairy tale prerequisites that make them so delightful. Quick read, but unengaging and unmemorable. Probably an acquired taste sort of thing, judging by the author's popularity.

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Aug 04, 2012 Sam rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, shorts, proper-books

This is the first of Byatt's work I have read and I must say I did rather enjoy these stories. Each one has a darkly Gothic feel combining tragedy and horror with a human element to stop the story becoming unfeeling and flat. My two particular favourites were The Thing in the Forest and A Stone Woman both of which combined strong women in somewhat unusual circumstances where they have to dig deep and find their own strength to face their demons. Definitely an author I will look out for in future ...more

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Dec 29, 2007 Felicity rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Felicity by: Jeannine Hall

Shelves: fiction, short-stories, grad-school

A good story makes me want to read the next one; a great one makes me close the book, almost involuntarily. I want to read the next one, but not yet, not yet. There were several such stories in this little volume of five short stories.

Byatt, here, is inventive and unexpected. She brings characters rapidly to life and into their strange fates, and captures moments of vivid humanity. The stories are both dark and luminous.

The least strong, in my opinion, is "Body Art," which seemed slightly contr ...more

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Aug 27, 2013 Gearóid rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Wow!
Incredibly good stories.
Each story was so different and each story felt like a novel.
They were so complete and beautifully written.
You can see A.S Byatt really loves words......
pyrolusite,ignimbrite,omphacite,uvarovite,glaucophane,schist,shale,gneiss,tuff.
Sounds so cool!
"A Stone Woman" really stands out to me as an exceptional short story.
But all the stories are awesome in different ways.
Another 5 star's.

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Sep 30, 2015 Littleflamy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: racconti, libri-sottiletta, in-prestito, preferiti

Sono pochi i libri che ho voglia di rileggere interamente. Questo l'ho riletto. Penso sia una delle raccolte di racconti più attraenti che abbia letto negli ultimi tempi. Devo assolutamente recuperare tutto quello che ha scritto!

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Aug 28, 2017 Frabe rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Il "sapiente intreccio di elementi fantastici e di realtà quotidiana, di paure ancestrali e spaventi domestici, di emozioni e di sogno" (quarta di copertina) proprio non mi ha preso, in nessuno dei cinque racconti di questa raccolta.

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Apr 26, 2017 Susan DeFreitas rated it it was amazing

Feminist fairytales by a living master. She is to England what Ursula K. Le Guin is to the US, what Margaret Atwood is to Canada--but she might be my current favorite of the three because it is clear that the real, old, weird, hard tales of magic are in her blood.

To say that I loved this book would be an understatement. I wanted to eat it for all three meals of the day and sleep with it under my pillow. It's that good.

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Mar 27, 2018 Mikko Saari rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Oivallinen kokoelma, viisi kiinnostavaa ja tummasävyistä novellia. Kaksi tyttöä kohtaa sotavuosina metsässä hirviön; taiteilija putoaa lääkärin syliin yllättäen ja mitä siitä seuraa; nainen muuttuu pikkuhiljaa kiveksi; kirjoittajapiiri saa tarinoihinsa uutta materiaalia; mies hoitaa muistisairasta vaimoaan.

Aika tavanomaisia tarinoita, toisaalta; toisaalta omituisia ja synkkiä. Musta on monisävyinen väri, eivät nämä kaikki samaa synkkyyttä ole. Byatt on taitava kirjailija, jonka tekstiä on ilo l ...more

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Dec 12, 2018 Linda (Miss Greedybooks) rated it liked it

Shelves: already-have-tbr-piles

I don't like short stories much. They all seem to get me interested in characters and subjects or places, then end up without finishing the story. Maybe the writer wants me to select my own finish? Maybe the writer was not sure what they wanted? Maybe they just got lazy? I love "Posession", so I am very surprised at "The Little Black Book of Stories". There were actually some very interesting beginnings. And I am disappointed to find these as what I call unfinished stories.

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Jul 09, 2018 Berna Labourdette rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Es una antología breve, de cinco cuentos, pero ya sólo con "La Mujer de Piedra" merece destacar. Son todas narraciones como cuentos de hadas, con finales sorpresivos, muy bien escritos y evocadores, en su mayoría relacionados con la transición entre vida y muerte o el limbo entre ambas. En el caso de "La Mujer de Piedra", el solo paso de la materia orgánica a la inorgánica transforma el relato en una belleza. Muy bueno.

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Jun 22, 2012 Althea Ann rated it really liked it

I've read several of Byatt's books - mostly because the covers tend to be irresistible. Until now, I've always found them to be good, but not amazing. This slim book of short stories is definitely my favorite of her work that I've read so far - perhaps I should go out of my way to find more of her short work!
Although advertised as 'fairy tales' these works are more 'inspired by' fairy tales than actual fairy tales. Well. Kinda sorta. I would recommend this to people who enjoyed Angela Carter's ' I've read several of Byatt's books - mostly because the covers tend to be irresistible. Until now, I've always found them to be good, but not amazing. This slim book of short stories is definitely my favorite of her work that I've read so far - perhaps I should go out of my way to find more of her short work!
Although advertised as 'fairy tales' these works are more 'inspired by' fairy tales than actual fairy tales. Well. Kinda sorta. I would recommend this to people who enjoyed Angela Carter's 'Bloody Chamber.'

The Thing In The Forest
This is a wonderful story. It's also genuinely horrific, creepier and more disturbing than many so-called 'horror' tales. Two little girls, sent away from London during the Blitz (I wonder if anyone's ever done a count of just how many stories feature this plot element), encounter the titular thing. Later, we see how that one day has affected them, even as adults.

Body Art
OK, this story was beautifully written... and obviously, the author was intentionally going for a lot of moral ambiguity here. But I cannot get behind the story's seeming message that if you just force a pregnant woman who is obviously not mentally, emotionally, or financially at a point where she wants to have a child, to give birth, she will fall in love with her baby and everything will work out for the best. OH NO. Still... the art made with the stolen medical/historical stuff? Wow.

A Stone Woman
Here, Byatt takes the common metaphor of being turned to stone, and turns it on its head. Here, turning to stone is not becoming lifeless or numb, but becoming strangely beautiful, oddly more alive, more in tune with the ancient rhythms of the earth.

Raw Material
Byatt's taught writing at some point, hasn't she? She must have. The portrayals of the amateur creative writing students here are hilarious.. and their criticisms of the one possible talented student heartbreaking. The eventual result? Horrifying.

The Pink Ribbon
Another really tragic story, about a man attempting to deal with his wife's Alzheimer's. Very well done, very sad.

...more

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Sep 24, 2007 Ashley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, thesis, fiction, short-stories, literary-fiction

I first discovered A.S. Byatt's work a few years ago when I picked up this book, quite honestly because the cover was pretty. This little volume hooked me into her style right away, and I've devoured all of her other works since.
Her short stories have a quality that is so unique - many of them are set in the real world that we know, but have that one element of fantasy, mystery, or horror that tips them over the edge and makes for fascinating writing. "A Stone Woman" is my favorite in this colle ...more

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Mar 20, 2007 Imogen rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: book people

I love the way that she writes- it's restrained and beautiful. I also love the way she twists stories halfway through every time- like, maybe now there should be a monster! Or, now a young woman should show up in the old man's life and we'll see what happens. She establishes characters and setting so well, then changes them pretty boldly, in ways that honestly surprise me. And work.

Ultimately though I feel like she does an "I'm an old lady and I don't believe in wrapping stories up neatly" thin ...more

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Aug 27, 2013 Kelly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: short-stories

I have enjoyed this collection of short stories more than any that I have read in quite a while. This is my first experience reading Byatt and I was very impressed. She is a beautiful writer. My favorite story was "Stone Woman." It was absolutely amazing. It may be my favorite short story of all time. That story is a must read for anyone who is a lover of nature. Her descriptions in that story are incredible and beautiful.

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Apr 17, 2009 Ade Bailey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

Five astonishing stories. I was utterly engrossed for a week in which I did little else than read them.

I got this for ten pence from the local library sale. More evidence if it were needed that what is most valuable in life costs next to nothing.

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Dec 07, 2009 Charles Matthews rated it really liked it

This review originally ran in the San Jose Mercury News on May 2, 2004:

Look at -- no, better yet, listen to the way this story begins:
''There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in a forest.''

How can you not read that story? As that sentence delicately steps from naive to sinister, it evokes the shivery delights of campfire tales.
Which is precisely what A.S. Byatt intends it to do. The first of the five stories in her slim but extraordinary new collection, ''Lit This review originally ran in the San Jose Mercury News on May 2, 2004:

Look at -- no, better yet, listen to the way this story begins:
''There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in a forest.''

How can you not read that story? As that sentence delicately steps from naive to sinister, it evokes the shivery delights of campfire tales.
Which is precisely what A.S. Byatt intends it to do. The first of the five stories in her slim but extraordinary new collection, ''Little Black Book of Stories,'' ''The Thing in the Forest'' cycles through several modes -- once-upon-a-time fable, reminiscence, horror story, psychological realism -- before it ends with the sentence that began it, implying that the characters are caught in some horrifically inescapable loop. Byatt is working here on the margins of the genre associated with Stephen King, though she equals King in fecundity of imagination, far excels him in mastery of language and thought, and manages to give us the delicious creeps without succumbing to the gratuitous vulgarity of shock-lit.
What the two little girls see, or believe they see, in the forest is evil embodied, a foul creature with ''a liquid smell of putrefaction, the smell of maggoty things at the bottom of untended dustbins, the smell of blocked drains, and unwashed trousers, mixed with the smell of bad eggs, and of rotten carpets and ancient polluted bedding.''
Or is it that what they see is what they have done? For all of these stories, even the ones in which the supernatural plays an apparent role, are about the way imagination shapes reality or cushions us against it -- but only up to a point, for reality has a way of asserting itself after all.
In ''Body Art,'' Damian, an ob-gyn, becomes involved with Daisy, an artist, but is appalled when he discovers that she has appropriated items from the hospital's valuable collection of antique medical instruments to create a sculpture of the goddess Kali:
''Her four arms were medical prostheses, wooden or gleaming mechanical artefacts, ending in sharp steel and blunt wooden fingers, and one hook, from which hung what looked like a real shrunken head, held by the hair. Her earrings were preserved foetuses, decked with beads, enclosed in mahogany-framed glass jars like hourglasses. She brandished a surgical saw in another hand, and the final two arms were crocheting something in an immense tangle of crimson plastic cords. Her crochet hooks were the tools of the nineteenth-century obstetricians, midwives and abortionists; the dreadful formless knitting glittered like fresh blood.''
Damian insists that the sculpture be removed from the gallery and the implements returned to the hospital, but it's not just the grotesque and unauthorized use of the instruments that disturbs him. For he has always been attracted to Daisy, and by the end of the story both of them will face something neither has anticipated: that life can be more terrifyingly uncertain than those things that are often regarded as life's antithesis -- art and death.
Byatt's love of specialized and esoteric lore can make her fiction somewhat lumpy, as the narrative dodges around all manner of intellectual preoccupations. The novella ''Morpho Eugenia'' in her book ''Angels and Insects,'' for example, is aswarm with lepidopterology, and her most recent novel, ''A Whistling Woman,'' was a jumble of everything from Chomskyan linguistics to the sex life of snails.
In this collection, ''A Stone Woman'' tells how the protagonist, Ines, discovers that her body is gradually petrifying -- literally. And not just into ordinary rock, but into a variety of minerals and gemstones. Byatt's foray into mineralogy adds to the story's richness and strangeness. Here's a bit from her account of Ines' transformation:
''She observed its beginnings in the mirror one morning, brushing her hair -- a necklace of veiled swellings above her collar-bone which broke slowly through the skin like eyes from closed lids, and became opal -- fire opal, black opal, geyserite and hydrophane, full of watery light. . . . She saw dikes of dolerites, in graduated sills, now invading her inner arms. But it took weeks of patient watching before . . . she surprised a bubble of rosy barite crystals, breaking through a vein of fluorspar, and opening into the form known as a desert rose, bunched with the ore flowers of blue john.''
This gorgeous specificity is certainly over the top, and some will object that such virtuoso cataloging weighs the story down. But it's also what keeps ''A Stone Woman'' from dwindling into allegory -- the story of a woman who turns into stone could easily have been a preachy parable, either feminist or anti-feminist, but Byatt is working in the realm of myth, as she sends Ines to her destiny in a land of stone -- Iceland. Anchoring her story in physical reality gives it a substance and depth that such a fantasy would otherwise lack.
Fantasy is also present in ''The Pink Ribbon,'' about a man whose wife, sunk into senile dementia, is oddly fascinated by the Teletubbies. At night, the man is visited by a mysterious woman who claims to be a ''fetch,'' the spirit of a living being, the embodiment of his younger, saner wife. Byatt's audacious trick is to play off the familiar but truly bizarre fantasy of a children's TV show against the sad, melancholy but somehow genuine fantasy of the haunted husband.
But my favorite story in the collection is not a fantasy. ''Raw Material'' is about a failed novelist, Jack Smollett, who teaches creative writing courses to adults in provincial English cities. His students write cliche-ridden stories full of rape, torture and murder -- sometimes working out their own revenge fantasies: e.g., ''A tale of the entrapment and vengeful slaughter of an unjust driving examiner.''
Then one of the students, Cicely Fox, a woman in her 80s, hands in something extraordinary: an essay titled ''How We Used to Black-lead Stoves.'' Dazzled by this elegantly written memoir of a childhood chore, Jack reads it to his students, who react to it with hostility and ''merciless adjectives'': '' 'Slow.' 'Clumsy.' 'Cold.' 'Pedantic.' 'Pompous.' 'Show-off.' 'Over-ornate.' 'Nostalgic.' ''
But Cicely is unperturbed, even when her next essay, ''Wash Day,'' gets the charge of being ''overwritten'' from the class, which begins to shun her as ''teacher's pet.'' (The contrast of Cicely's simple, eloquent, marvelously detailed essays with the portrayal of Jack's sour cynicism and his students' relentless banality is superb -- Byatt's astonishing gift for voices has never been better displayed than in this story.)
Secretly, without informing Cicely of his plan, Jack enters her essays in a writing contest -- and they win. But when he goes to tell her of her prize, he makes a shocking discovery. Yet, tellingly, the story doesn't end with Jack's discovery. In none of these stories is Byatt out for cheap thrills -- even at their most sensational, they are vehicles for reflection.
Byatt's novels have always struck me as unfocused and restless, as if she were a little bored with having to live with the same characters for so long. But the short story concentrates her strengths; the very conciseness of the form doesn't allow her to dawdle or divagate. And these are stories that are extraordinarily varied in style and emotional texture, from the mythic in ''The Stone Woman'' to the mundane in ''Raw Material,'' and from the unspoken guilt that lingers in ''The Thing in the Forest,'' to the sexual tension of ''Body Art,'' to the regret that haunts ''The Pink Ribbon.''
''Little Black Book of Stories'' is abundant proof of Byatt's greatness as a writer.
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Jan 10, 2019 Gael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This collection of stories has to be one of my favourites, ever.

Each one is surprising, compelling, moving. Byatt really gets into the psyche of her characters. She places them in strange & stimulating situations then expresses their struggles with her well-considered prose.

I loved A Stone Woman. Beautifully descriptive and set in such atmospheric landscapes, both emotional and physical. And A Pink Ribbon was so moving.

I think this is a book I will keep and reread.

In the meantime, I'll be lo ...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Mariano Hortal rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, genre-short-story

publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/el-libro-ne...

Estoy convencido de que este libro de cuentos es, sin lugar a dudas, la mejor puerta de entrada para conocer a esta escritora; mucho más que otros libros que, probablemente, resulten muy áridos a la hora de ponerse con ellos a pesar de su indudable calidad.
La razón es clara, en la mayoría de sus libros, hace un alarde de erudición e inteligencia que, posiblemente, abrume al lector poco acostumbrado a este tipo de lecturas. Sin embargo, en este publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/el-libro-ne...

Estoy convencido de que este libro de cuentos es, sin lugar a dudas, la mejor puerta de entrada para conocer a esta escritora; mucho más que otros libros que, probablemente, resulten muy áridos a la hora de ponerse con ellos a pesar de su indudable calidad.
La razón es clara, en la mayoría de sus libros, hace un alarde de erudición e inteligencia que, posiblemente, abrume al lector poco acostumbrado a este tipo de lecturas. Sin embargo, en este “Libro negro de los cuentos” tenemos cinco cuentos breves que se leen bastante rápidamente y no pierde un ápice de la prosa detallada, exhaustivamente florida de Byatt; concentrada, eso sí, de tal manera que, además, consigue que tengas implicación emocional con las historias, y eso, es definitivo.
En la primera historia “La cosa del bosque”, esta implicación no es tan evidente, pero es un buen comienzo a lo que ya comente en este post : “¿Qué son los sueños sino la vida misma?”. Esa visión fantasmagórica, es, al fin y al cabo un elemento imaginativo que utiliza para crear la fábula, y que les sirve a las dos protagonistas del cuento para mantenerlas unidas para siempre,; el concepto de la ficción, a través de pequeñas fábulas en este caso, como base que sustenta y ayuda a afrontar las vicisitudes que nos encontramos en la vida.
Funciona, de hecho, de esta manera el segundo cuento “Arte corporal”, una historia excelente y milagrosa sobre el misterio del nacimiento de un bebé; es aquí donde te gana para el resto de historias, ya que la implicación emotiva/emocional es muy potente para el lector:
“-Todo el mundo habla del amor. Amor, amor, amor. Tú y yo, yo y tú… Bueno, no tú y yo personalmente, sino en un sentido abstracto. Nadie escribe canciones a los bebés, ¿no? Pero en cuanto la vi, eso fue amor, eso es lo que era, sé que es amor…”
Ese relato me costó acabarlo porque, al ir en transporte público, me entraron unas ganas tremendas de echar unas lágrimas y no podía ser claro.
En “Una mujer de piedra”, la transformación de una mujer en piedra sirve como pretexto para reflejar la superación de una persona, la búsqueda de la identidad personal a toda costa, literatura a raudales:
“Temblaba por el esfuerzo y la emoción, por miedo a un encierro de piedra y por una confusa inquietud respecto al islandés. La cuchilla del pan resbaló cuando ella bregaba para cortar el tierno pan de molde, y le hizo un tajo en la mano de piedra, entre el pulgar y el índice. Sintió dolor, cosa que la sorprendió, y vio el chorro de sangre caliente que manaba de la herida, cuya profundidad era incapaz de apreciar. Observó el espero líquido rojo que le corría por el dorso de la mano y goteaba en el pan, en la mesa. Era de un color dorado rojizo y formaba largos regueros vidriosos, y allí donde tocaba el pan, el pan echaba humo, y allí donde tocaba la mesa, el líquido siseaba, humeaba y abría un ardiente orificio en la madera para luego gotear, ya de un rojo más apagado, en el suelo de plástico, donde dejaba círculos chamuscados y ampollas de color ámbar. Sus venas estaban llenas de lava fundida. Apagó los minúsculos fuegos y echó a la basura el pan quemado. Pensó: “No voy a quedarme bajo la lluvia y cubrirme de musgo. Tal vez entre en erupción. No sé cómo ocurrirá”. Con la cuchilla del pan en la mano contempló las rugosas estrías que su sangre había cavado en el acero. Sintió pánico. Por fantástico que fuera, convertirse en piedra era una metáfora de la muerte. ¿Pero convertirse en lava fundida y contener un horno en su interior?”.
Lo que parece una metáfora de la muerte se convierte en la antítesis de la misma.
Curioso el relato “Material en bruto” sobre un taller de escritura creativa y el fatal destino de una de sus alumnas, un brutal final que servirá de aprendizaje para el resto de alumnos:
“Sus alumnos, por su parte, bullían de excitación con la idea de escribir sobre ello, un día. Estaban justificados. Al fin y al cabo, Miss Fox pertenecía al mundo normal de sus relatos, el mundo de la violencia doméstica, la tortura y las conmociones traumáticas. Escribirían lo que sabían, lo que le había sucedido a Cicely Fox, y sería la más satisfactoria de las terapias.”
Para acabar, no sólo no baja el pistón, sino que llegamos a lo sublime con “La cinta rosa”, otro milagro, la narración de de una mujer que tiene Alzheimer y vive con su marido que contemplará la progresiva degeneración de su esposa hasta convertirse casi en un bebé, todo ello tratado con exquisitez, como un nuevo cuento de hadas que servirá para superar lo que nos viene mal en nuestras vidas.
Byatt combina erudición y emoción a partes iguales, y lo hace tan sabiamente que no puedes dejar de leerla. La ficción como motor de nuestras vidas, la literatura como la mayoría de los lectores la entendemos. ...more

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About A.S. Byatt

A.S. Byatt

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A.S. Byatt (Antonia Susan Byatt) is internationally known for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize winner 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 Ey ...more

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“Well, I would hardly say I do write as yet. But I write because I like words. I suppose if I liked stone I might carve. I like words. I like reading. I notice particular words. That sets me off.” — 3 likes

“He always told them the same thing, to begin with. ‘Try to avoid falseness and strain. Write what you really know about. Make it new. Don’t invent melodrama for the sake of it. Don’t try to run, let alone fly, before you can walk with ease.” — 3 likes

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