A. S. Byatt, or Dame Byatt as she's officially known, is a Booker Prize-nominated novelist who writes stories about intelligent, complex women - in other words, the kind of women we love here at Feministing. Byatt has written almost a dozen novels and numerous short stories, but her best-known work is Possession: a Love Story. Possession, which she wrote in 1990, is a fascinating story about the interaction of gender, history, literature and love. It was named one of Time's Best 100 Novels of All Time, and is required reading in colleges and high schools all over the world.
In a 1995 interview with Salon, Byatt offered an explanation for her tendency to create educated, willful female characters. "I'm a political feminist," she said. "I think women's lives need quite a lot of improving, some of which has now happened. I'm interested in feminist themes, women's freedom." Despite her political leanings, however, when it comes to teaching literary history, Byatt has very little patience for the practice of reading women novelists simply because they're women. "If you want to teach women to be great writers, you should show them the best, and the best was often done by men... Women should be truthful and then it will be more often done by women, or as often done by women." Given the quality of Byatt's work, it would seem that this prediction has, in part, come true.
Dame Byatt is in the States promoting her new novel The Children's Book, for which she received a Booker Prize nomination. She'll be reading from it, and speaking about her work, this Thursday the 29th at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Tickets are $10 if you're under thirty-five, and $19 for everyone else. You can (and should!) book a seat here.
And now, without further ado, The Feministing Five, with A. S. Byatt.
Chloe Angyal: What led you to become a novelist?
A. S. Byatt: I think I knew I wanted to write almost from the moment I learned to read. I write out of a passion for language and a belief that it is possible to describe things and say things. There are two single-minded characters in The Children's Book with whom I feel sympathy - Dorothy who wants to be a doctor, and Philip who wants to make a good pot. I want to tell good stories and write good sentences.
CA: Who is your favourite fictional heroine?
ASB: My favourite fictional heroine is Anne Elliott in Persuasion by Jane Austen. She is put upon and treated badly by people on the whole much less intelligent than she is - but her patience and self-possession and essential independence are credible and very moving. She is half way between a fairy story (Cinderella) heroine and a new kind of thinking woman.
CA: Who are your heroines in real life?
ASB: My heroine in real life is Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. I am breathtaken by the calm determined way in which she became a doctor when there were no women doctors at all. I think my living heroine is Toni Morrison - though it was perhaps also Iris Murdoch, who imposed impossible standards of truthfulness and enquiry into things.
CA: What recent news story made you want to scream, and why?
ASB: The story I read in The New York Times of the coal fired power station which cleaned its emissions to the air by brushing and washing its products - and then dumped all the poisons in the drinking water supply and the river. I do not think we are clever enough animals to clear up the mess we have created.
CA: What, in your opinion, is the greatest challenge facing feminism today?
ASB: Maybe a dangerous sense that enough has been accomplished. Also a tendency to be courteous and considerate to societies that restrict and damage the lives of women. There are things - like female circumcision - that are simply wrong and should be fought.
CA: You're going to a desert island, and you're allowed to bring one food, one drink and one feminist. What do you pick?
ASB: The drink - as long as I had a water supply - would be champagne - Veuve Clicquot for preference. My food would be an endless supply of cooked green vegetables - beans, broccoli, asparagus - with slightly salted butter. One feminist (now deceased) is a not-well-enough-known one called Evelyn Sharp - Faber & Faber have just reissued her autobiography, which is both witty and full of interesting things - she had all her furniture confiscated in the First World War because she would not pay taxes without representation. The living feminist is Toril Moi, who is wise and sensible and continues to revisit problems as they change.
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I hate to be such a downer, but I tried reading Possession and I absolutely hated it and I didn't finish it (And I always finish books!).
I saw the movie first and loved it so maybe that was the problem.
I liked her other works more than Possession, to be honest. Her fairytale retellings are killer good.
I read the book first and couldn't stand the movie! The movie is only kind of sort of like the book - the book is intensely about language (among other things), and that doesn't film well. I consider the film and movie separate entities.
Oh, big fan here! (Sorry, Athenia, but I couldn't bear the movie Possession, as it often goes when you love a book.) Her Potter series is amazing in so many ways -- such an intelligent, practical reading of *so many* issues throughout the fifties and the sixties, not only about women, and women's options and choices and recourse, but also about literacy, academia, science, media, censorship, divorce, motherhood, death and grieving, religion.... God, she's brilliant and so sympathetic. Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman are tied perhaps with Beloved as my favorite books of all time, and I think A.S. Byatt is one of my "living heroes." I'd give a left anything to hear her speak, if I weren't on the *other* side of Europe. I cannot believe I am missing this.
Chloe, I get the sense that she can be kind of pithy (tho' respectful and straightforward) with interviewers. How did that go??
Tried reading her work and thought it was pretentious twaddle. Sorry.
(Also, her actual title would be "Dame Ann Byatt," not "Dame Byatt.")
Sorry, that should have been "Dame Antonia." *head desk*
I never saw Possession, but I did see Angels and Insects and thought it was one of the *ugliest*, nastiest films I've ever had the misfortune to watch. The acting was good, the period details were fine, but the characters and story were incredibly unpleasant.
I LOVE AS Byatt! Possession is one of my favorite books, and as someone else mentioned, her fairy tale retellings are very cool. I was even able to design a feminist fairy tale independent study one year and used her Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye as one of the texts.
She is a Booker Prize winner, not just a nominee. She was nominated this year and didn't win, but Possession won in 1990.
Has anyone read her newest book? It didn't get a very good review in the NYT, and I'm curious to hear if any of you enjoyed it.
It's on my to-read list, but here's a link to a review that praises it:
http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2009/08/2009-booker-prize-nominee-childrens.html
I love Possession, but I must admit, I really struggled the first time I read it. The first 200 pages can be hard going. But once I got through that, I loved it, and think it is an extremely well-crafted book. I highly recommend it, but you do need some perseverance the first time around.