The Children's Book in Around the World in 80 Books

May 20, 2010 SarahC rated it really liked it

Shelves: four-seasons

A.S. Byatt is one of the few authors writing today that I will not hesitate to pick up and read. For example, The Children’s Book is 675 pages long, but I dove in due to my love of the authors previous books. Byatt does provide a detailed, complex story when she writes, but I feel this is due to her generosity and respect for the reader. She wants to give us a chance to enjoy much of the rich thought and background that went into the central story. The subject of TCB comes with much backstory an A.S. Byatt is one of the few authors writing today that I will not hesitate to pick up and read. For example, The Children’s Book is 675 pages long, but I dove in due to my love of the authors previous books. Byatt does provide a detailed, complex story when she writes, but I feel this is due to her generosity and respect for the reader. She wants to give us a chance to enjoy much of the rich thought and background that went into the central story. The subject of TCB comes with much backstory and details that you will likely relish. The years beginning just before 1900 and then into WWI make up a fascinating period of English history. Additionally, the characters of TCB all share in the world of art, literature and stage, and the story often includes descriptions of visual richness.

Moving through this novel, the reader sees that Byatt has created a generation of young people who will grow and spread throughout this era of new thought, Utopianism, feminism, and political strife. The story begins in 1895, where we find two solid characters to set the tale in motion. Young teen Phillip Warren, poor and a runaway, is found living in the basement of Museum Keeper Prosper Cain’s South Kensington Museum. Phillip is pulled out of that basement by daring authoress Olive Wellwood and family and brought to their home of Todefright in Kent.

The paths of these two main characters continue to join and rejoin throughout the story. Phillip is quickly made apprentice to the mad potter Benedict Fludd. Philip has an amazing talent for color, design, shape, and technique and his persistence and success enable many of the aspects of the story. Phillip offers purpose and progress at the Purchase House Pottery and the Fludd family teens see some hope.

Olive Wellwood’s frantic writing talent, her nontraditional marriage and family, and the Wellwoods’ place within the radical social movements pave another path of the story. Where Olive has come from (a poor, northern mining existence) and what she tries to hold onto now (modernism and materialism at the same time) affect the story greatly. She, her husband Humphrey, and the other adults want a new society, but have trouble living in it as they form it.

Naturally the story’s children rise to give TCB its energy. Philip Warren and his sister Elsie, the Todefright Wellwoods, the more conservative other Wellwoods of Portman Square, London, a discovered family in Germany, and the young friends, the Cains, grow and populate this golden yet fragmented fin de siecle, or Silver Age. They each seek their defining moments but are both challenged and broken by their talents, their parents, their sexuality, their politics, and their hearts.

The reading of this book flew past, despite its length. I couldn’t wait until the next development. The young people of this book lived a generation only slightly before my oldest living relative. In other words, just before my own living memory. This era did escort us into the age we live in now. I like to think that their passion for ideas and social remedies was not crushed by the era of wars that followed and that something of these artists and reformers is still among us today.

I recommend this novel for Byatt fans and readers of strong, focused “novels of ideas” (to borrow a phrase from Dame Antonia herself).

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Dec 31, 2015 Karen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-chunky-book-challenge

This is the first book I have read by this author. I liked it, but I didn't love it. She has a wonderful writing style, so I understand the acclaim. It seemed as though Byatt couldn't decide if she wanted to write a novel or a British history of the time period she chose (1898 - 1919), so she wrote both. In between she added in children's stories. This book has everything: Art museums, pottery, puppets, Shakespearean plays, Peter Pan, Suffragettes, Socialists, Anarchists, and more free love than ...more

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Jun 04, 2010 Davida "Davi" rated it really liked it

Edited: August 2025, changed from 3 to 4 stars because apparently I’m still thinking about this book 15 years later!

This multi-generational novel covers a group of Upper-Middle class families in England, early 1890s - 1919 or so. This is exactly the kind of book I expected to love. I did learn a lot about the movement to incrementally bring change to England, and Europe, but I can hardly say I loved or even really liked the book. I am still thinking about it.

The positives are the history, and t ...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Jessica rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, england, world-war-i

So. So. Long. I barely finished this nearly-900 page doorstop in time to return it to the library, and it just never seemed to pick up speed in a sustained way. There were pieces that grabbed me (particularly Phillip's story), but Byatt throws so much else into the mix that it's hard to keep up your interest. If I hadn't picked this up for a challenge, this would be a rare DNF for me. Byatt writes very well and the talent is evident, but wow, I need a break. ...more

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