On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays (The Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature) - Softcover

Byatt, A. S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674008332 ISBN 13: 9780674008335

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2002

Synopsis

As writers of English from Australia to India to Sri Lanka command our attention, Salman Rushdie can state confidently that English fiction was moribund until the Empire wrote back, and few, even among the British, demur. A. S. Byatt does, and her case is persuasive. In a series of essays on the complicated relations between reading, writing, and remembering, the gifted novelist and critic sorts the modish from the merely interesting and the truly good to arrive at a new view of British writing in our time.

Whether writing about the renaissance of the historical novel, discussing her own translation of historical fact into fiction, or exploring the recent European revival of interest in myth, folklore, and fairytale, Byatt's abiding concern here is with the interplay of fiction and history. Her essays amount to an eloquent and often moving meditation on the commitment to historical narrative and storytelling that she shares with many of her British and European contemporaries. With copious illustration and abundant insights into writers from Elizabeth Bowen and Henry Green to Anthony Burgess, William Golding, Muriel Spark, Penelope Fitzgerald, Julian Barnes, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, and Pat Barker, On Histories and Stories is an oblique defense of the art Byatt practices and a map of the complex affiliations of British and European narrative since 1945.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In recent years many novelists have become increasingly interested in history as fiction and fiction as history. In her powerful opening essays ? ?Fathers,? ?Forefathers? and ?Ancestors? ? A.S. Byatt considers the renaissance of the historical novel. She focuses on novels of wartime experience, the surprising variety of the distant pasts British writers have invented, and the new ?Darwinian novel,? stimulated in part by the discovery of DNA. These themes afford new readings of writers from Elizabeth Bowen and Henry Greene to Anthony Burgess, William Golding and Muriel Spark, and other contemporary authors.

A fascinating essay explores Byatt?s own translation of historical fact into fiction in the two novellas ? Angels and Insects. She skillfully addresses the recent European revival of interest in myth, folktale and fairytale, and the recurring attraction to themes such as The Arabian Nights, or tales involving ice, snow and glass. Vivid, profound and full of original insights, Histories and Stories redraws the boundaries of fiction today.

From the Back Cover

“Byatt is a wonderful writer, constantly engaging wherever she takes us.” – The Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0674008332
• ISBN 13: 9780674008335
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208