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Yes, I get that she's making fun of the Oxford set, and of course there's plenty of make fun of, but not allowing those characters their actual merits while emphasizing their flaws renders them unreadable.
That said, I love this bit: "Next day Oliver was terribly gloomy. She [Elizabeth] knew that brilliant people were far more moody than the other kind, and made him a specially good brunch, but he wouldn't eat it."

My issue with Howard so far is that she apparently doesn't know that there is a difference between being knowledgeable and being clever. Oliver, the supposedly "clever" brother of Elizabeth (I'm always suspicious of characters named after the author), will spout facts at their obnoxious stepfather in order to irritate him. These repeated displays are supposed to evidence Oliver's cleverness. Falls flat.

"Names, you know, are a way of weaving the world together, by relating the creatures to other creatures and a kind of metamorphosis, you might say, out of a metaphor, which is a figure of speech for carrying one idea into another" (Byatt 150-1).

Further indication that William's probably being cuckolded:
"'And I have yet to learn what use you are to the world, or anyone in it,' said William, his temper rising. Surprisingly, Edgar laughed at this, briefly, and without a smile.
'I told you,' he said. 'I have noticed you know nothing'" (Byatt 124-5).

Familiar, moving, worth recording: "The hands were ivory-coloured, the skin finely wrinkled everywhere, like the crust on a pool of wax, and under it appeared livid bruises, arthritic nodes, irregular tea-brown stains. William watched the hands fold the wavering papers and was filled with pity for them, as for sick and dying creatures" (104).

My fear is that Eugenia's twins, Agnes and Dora, are Edgar's children. "They resembled Harald [Eugenia and Edgar's father] himself, they had bred true to stock" (Byatt 82). Terrible if true. It would give us some insight into the argument William witnessed earlier (but did not hear) between Eugenia and Edgar (53).

The bit about William's childhood journaling, specifically his complaint that "he was not using his gifts, whatever they were" (10), is giving me a giggle. Byatt's so good at pointing out all the embarrassing things we do (or I do).