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Still Life
 
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Still Life (Paperback)

by A.S. Byatt (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Still Life + The Virgin in the Garden + Babel Tower
Price For All Three: £17.77

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Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (18 May 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099479915
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099479918
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 3.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 71,284 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #12 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Byatt, A.S.
    #25 in  Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards > Women's Literary Fiction

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Product Description

Review
"A major novel...a marvellous and most unusual work." -- "Iris Murdoch"
"Affords enormous and continuous pleasure." -- Anita Brookner

Product Description
In this sequel to "The Virgin in the Garden", Byatt illuminates the conflicts between ambition and domesticity, confinement and self-fulfilment, while providing a observation of intellectual and cultural life in England during the 1950s.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Still Life
74% buy the item featured on this page:
Still Life 4.2 out of 5 stars (6)
£6.99
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Winter's Tale, 10 Feb 2004
By Dr. Kenneth W. Douglas "drkennydouglas" (Glasgow) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
"Still Life" is shorter than either "The Virgin in the Garden" or "Babel Tower", but feels longer. I don't necessarily intend this as a criticism: this is, however, a darker and more contemplative book than its predecessor.

Byatt's superscription, a passage from Bede, is not only apposite but cuts to the heart of the matter. Imagine, says Bede, that you're dining with friends on a winter's evening (Christmas dinner, maybe?), when a sparrow flies in from the darkness, crosses the room and flies out again into the dark. Such is the life of man.

Where "The Virgin in the Garden" was all overheated summer, there is a wintry chill here: the book opens and closes with preparations for Christmas, but there is little festive cheer. Frederica has now left school and embarked on a colourful undergraduate career at Cambridge. Meanwhile, her sister Stephanie, who is just as bright but lacks Frederica's ferocity, is feeling increasingly trapped by pregnancy and motherhood. There is a new post-feminist edge here: the most memorable passages for me concerned the way Stephanie's horizons, and even her vocabulary, are constricted by her domestic set-up, even with a loving husband and family support. Motherhood is always about loss as well as gain.

The third strand running through the book is the life of Vincent Van Gogh, about whom Frederica's nearly-lover Alexander Wedderburn is writing a play. Van Gogh has become such a cultural icon that this could easily have become a bit maudlin (Dame Antonia leads us in a rousing chorus of "Starry Starry Night"?), but in fact the Van Gogh elements are handled with subtlety and allow Byatt to explore her fascination with visionary experiences and different ways of "seeing".

The unifying theme is one of loss: the book closes with a shockingly random death and its aftermath. Certainly darker than the other Frederica novels; but the characters are as vivid as ever, and linger in the reader's mind long after the book is shut.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Challenging, complex, yet very readable, 30 Jun 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Still Life (Paperback)
I must disagree with the reviewer who found it ultimately "empty," perhaps because my favorite character is different. Yes, it is sad. One of the main characters dies. I knew this was going to happen, but I still mourned for her; the death affected me more than any fictional character since Alcott's Beth. Odd, since there is nothing sentimental or cloying about Byatt's writing. I would recommend this book highly, although I think readers should start with the first in the series, _The Virgin in the Garden._
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Classic Byatt story of intrigue and relationships, 24 Dec 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: Still Life (Paperback)
One thing I have to say about Byatt's books is that while I'm reading them, I do nothing else. Both this book and Possession were all-nighters for me. Still Life was fun for me because of the Van Gogh connection and seeing one of the characters fall hopelessly in love with a Cambridge don. But when it was all over, I felt empty. The ending is eerily sad, my favorite character remains ungrounded, other characters end up hanging out in strange places, and I ask myself, why bother? Having said all this, I don't hesitate recommending it to any past Byatt reader who wants more tale telling.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine evocation of the social and cultural landscape of 1950s academia in England
Following on from The Virgin in the Garden, the second volume in the `Frederica Quartet' sees Frederica Potter having left the stifling provincialism of Blesford and headed off to... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Trevor Coote

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, intriguing, masterful.
I loved this book. The characters are as complex and contradictory as real people. It's a challenging book -- Byatt never talks down to her readers. I highly recommend it.
Published on 22 Dec 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars feeling colours
Oh, Ms. Byatt, you are so fine. Your use of words for colours is truly sublime. (And, of course, the story's divine.)
Published on 25 Oct 1998

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