Book Review

SHERIDAN GRISWOLD | Thursday April 1, 2010 00:00

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt is a long novel, the kind that stays with you as a beautiful friend and when you get to the end you regret it concluding. It is the story of four families: the Cains, Wellwoods, the Fludds and Warrens. It takes place before the turn of the 19th century and goes on to the end of World War I (from 1895 to 1918). Olive Wellwood is central; she has come from a poor family into a marriage with a banker who was a member of the Fabian Society, Humphry Wellwood. She has written many tales for children and adults, often filled with fairy lore. Each of her five children has his or her own story, which she keeps on developing as they grow older-their response to this is varied. The Wellwoods' home becomes a place that artists, socialists, anarchists, Quakers, Fabians, writers and free thinkers frequent.

 The Cains had two children. The mother who was Italian, died when they lived in Florence (the name of their daughter). Julian is the first character we meet, at the South Kensington museum where his father, Prosper Cain is special keeper of precious metals. He and Tom Wellwood discover a boy, a working-class runaway, Philip Warren, drawing the famous Gloucester Candlestick with its dragons and helmeted gnome-men in the basement and a long friendship began. They take him to Kent where he becomes part of the big Wellwood family. With them lives Violet Grimwith, Olive's sister, who makes the place run while Olive is writing her moneymaking fairytales. After Tom comes Dorothy, then Hedda, Florian and Robin. Basil Wellwood, Humphry's brother, also at the bank has a German wife, Katharina, a son Charles and daughter Griselda.

A friend, Arthur Dobbin, helps the Fludd family, mother, son and two daughters, to know the genius of Benedict Fludd. He brings Philip to assist in the pottery at Purchase House, which is in a state of decay with its outbuildings, but the great man, who has terrible mood swings, continually abuses him.

Frank Mallet is the young pastor who has the dubious honour of receiving Benedict's terrible confessions about his life of passion. Miss Patty Dace is a friend and they discuss theosophy and Christianity, Madam Blavatsky and her writings about the Church Fathers' view of women 'as the organ of the devil, the hissing serpent, the most dangerous of wild beasts, a scorpion, an asp, a dragon, a daughter of falsehood, a sentinel of hell, the enemy of peace'. She is the custodian of the Fabian book boxes and arranges lectures both for the Fabians and the Theosophists and other societies.

'She was in her forties and made of bone and muscle, with a fierce face, hooked nose, high cheek-bones and deep-set eyes under brows like bristling caterpillars. Her hair looked as though it had undergone intense applications of the curling-tongs, but in fact coiled itself naturally, as though she had African ancestors' (page 178).

There are many characters in this book - it is advisable to take a few notes about who is related to whom, to build your own list of characters. We are given a sense of the countryside of southern England and of the times, the early twentieth century, when the Liberal party has fallen, the Fabian Society was strong, the women's suffrage movement is ascendant, and the impact on young women who want to study, but know they cannot. Dorothy Wellwood, especially, has strong drives to be a doctor and carries it off with perseverance.

In those days the class distinctions forced people into ruts. Tom and Julian become friends again and take long walks together. Julian, ever passionate, is attracted to him, but Tom is too ethereal and unresponsive.

The novel presents several enjoyable dalliances. The Wellwood children discover that two of them were actually mothered by Violet-whom they thought of as an aunt. Dorothy discovers that a German guest, Anselm Stern, who came to the annual theatre productions of the family, actually fathered her. One production is the fairy tale Aschenputtel or Cinderella (a passion of Byatt's, going by some of her other books). August has done the German version of the Brothers Grimm tale. It frightened some of the children because of its ruthlessness, as they were used to the more soothing French version by Perrault. The discussion of fairy tales is Toby Youlgreave's specialty.

Dorothy and Griselda have tutors who encourage them to study in Germany. In Munich, Anselm Stern, the puppet show producer, introduces them to German cultural and political issues, making connections with her newly discovered brothers who enter into the fray. This allows them to get away from a troubling relationship.

Toby Youlgreave is one of the tutors; later he will be asked to speak on the relation between modern folklore and the ancient fairy faiths of our ancestors. Benedict is asked to speak on the ancient quest of the single potter to find the lost red glazes, the Turkish Isnik, the Chinese sang-de-boef.

'The Society for Psychical Research had rediscovered an old sprit world, and lost primitive powers of human communication. Old superstitions might furnish new spiritual understanding. Even the New Woman, he said, venturing a half-joke, sought freedom from whalebone and laces in Rational Dress, but also in free-flowing medieval gowns. ... in the old times abbesses had wielded power and governed communities, as principals of colleges now did' (page 118)

Humphry Wellwood, writer of the Pagan Papers-a tribute to the goat-god Pan-had fathered a child, which Olive and her published works helped to support. She herself was kept happy by her knight errant, Toby Youlgreave, collaborating on stories. Philip's sister, Elsie, having become the mainstay of the Fludd household, finds a way of escaping her enslavement and enjoying her good looks through the help of some of the local women; this is a beautiful development.

Byatt has ever so skilfully wound the various characters around her fingers and carries them along into the 20th century. As they mature, the people all become friends to the reader and yet, in the end we feel a bit too much has been attempted. Still, it was a captivating, historically backed story. Sometimes the full length of Olive's tales seemed to drag on, but things like the visits to the world exhibition, the concerns about the Boer War and the concentration camps, bring these characters to life. I think her dialogue is brilliant, as is her inclusion of issues of social concern and cultural ideas of the time, such as Charles' fascination with the anarchist ideals current in Germany, where he leads a secret life as Karl. Hedda gets involved in the suffragettes' violent acts under the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst. World War One takes its toll on our friends and drowns out our heroine's joy in mystical children's stories. The survivors of the trenches in the Somme are brought together in this vast canvas ... a wonderful read!

Children's Book is Byatt's 28th publication. She is most famous for Possession: A Romance (1990) which won the Booker Prize that year. Her 6th book, The Virgin in the Garden (1978) announced her to the world. Her first novel was A Shadow of the Sun (1964).  E-mail sheridangriswold@yahoo.com