A S Byatt's agent

[Bekah]

I just wrote to Ms. Jackson and thanked her for these books -  I stuck  
most of the info from these prior posts in there.   Also put it on my  
bloggish thingie.

Bekah


On Feb 27, 2010, at 11:57 AM, Bekah wrote:

> Omg!    I read The Children's Book last month and yes,  for sure,  I  
> saw the connection between AtD and Byatt.   I posted the following  
> to another group - there are  5 different posts starting after I  
> mentioned the similarity. (They know I'm a Pynchon fan):
>
> *********************
> Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:20 pm
> Also I keep comparing Byatt's work to Pynchon's Against the Day -  
> there are many parallels.
>
> *********************
> (someone politely asks "like what?")
>
> ****************
> Sat Feb 13, 2010 3:19 pm
>
> Well, first off there's the time-frame, TCB takes place between  
> 1894-1914(?) while ATD goes from 1893 some time after 1917. They  
> both include scenes from a World's Fair (AtD opens in Chicago 1893  
> and TCB has Paris Expo.)
>
> Both are very dense and highly allusive using historical names and  
> ideas from that time setting. But where Pynchon used the sciences  
> (from mining to the occult) as a backdrop, Byatt uses the arts, so  
> the historical names and events are different (although Oscar Wilde  
> does feature in both). Anarchists seem to be popular with both  
> authors and there is a decided political edge to the narratives  
> (Pynchon moreso - what with the Ludlow massacre and all). Pynchon  
> and Byatt have both been accused of intellectual posturing.
>
> The books are both doorstoppers with AtD's 1085 pages out-hefting  
> TCB's 688. There are no internal stories about hot air balloons in  
> Byatt, but there are caves and forests and missing shadows in her  
> stories within the story. And there's not quite as much interesting  
> sex in Byatt although it's certainly there. Still, I'm only half-way  
> through and time will tell.
>
> More - Both Pynchon and Byatt love creating characters and they do  
> it over and over and over in these books. Pynchon goes for the  
> really "telling" names (Scarsdale Vibe) while Byatt is a bit less  
> dramatic (Olive Wellwood). I think there might be an equal number of  
> characters in the books. (lol)
>
> Imo, these character names could have come right out of a Pynchon  
> novel - might as well name them "Rev. Cherrycoke."
>
> Olive and Humphrey Wellwood
> Seraphita and Benedict Fludd
> Prosper Cain
> Marian Oakeshott
>
> There are also major differences between the books and authors -  
> like Byatt focuses on the character development. It seems like she  
> developed the characters through and through and then plopped them  
> down in these settings to see how they'd react. Pynchon, otoh, seems  
> to let the setting develop his characters - robber baron times need  
> a robber baron bad guy - so they're a bit stereotyped or  
> caricaturized or at least very flat. Pynchon focuses on conspiracies  
> and uses some pretty heavy symbolism in his books - (the Church  
> calendar, the sex in Spain at the time of the Ascension.) Byatt  
> doesn't do that - she's developing some more changes in her  
> characters.
>
> ****************
> (other person doesn't really agree but he'll go along with me)
>
> ***************
> Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:36 pm
> Oh I know that on the surface they look really, really different -  
> they have very different themes. (And I had a feeling you'd ask - I  
> was almost baiting you - sorry.)
>
> Byatt's theme in TCB has something to do with creativity and running  
> away (escape, freedom - whatever - bear with me, I'm not done with  
> it). Pynchon's main theme in AtD is revenge and big bad capitalism  
> (I guess) - although Grace is a biggie. Byatt is terribly British -  
> Pynchon is as American as apple pie. I may be the only reader to  
> connect them.
>
> ***********************
> (someone else disagreed -  a true-blue Byatt fan)
>
> ********************
>
> Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:16 pm
> I'm getting ready to curl up with the Kindle and Byatt and realize  
> that the differences between AtD and TCB are way, way more than the  
> pitiful similarities I mentioned. Pynchon wrote an incredibly angry  
> - funny satire with a redemptive ending - Byatt's work is serious  
> biz all the way through. I'm rather partial to AtD but TCB is really  
> excellent.
>
>
> ******************
> (and when we got off on Umberto Eco and Foucault's Pendulum)
>
> ******************
> Thu Feb 25, 2010 5:36 pm
>
> The one I think of when I think of heavily researched novels is  
> Thomas Pynchon and his Mason & Dixon and Against the Day - the thing  
> is that Pynchon frequently gets the facts a bit off in order to keep  
> the plot on his own track - I don't care in this case - he's too  
> good for me to care about that.
>
> I enjoy these excursions into esoterica and history if it doesn't  
> get too digressive and labored. I enjoyed The Children's Book  
> although toward the end there got to be a bit too much in the way of  
> heavily researched historical connections. It felt like a history  
> book sometimes. Byatt gets away from her plot and character  
> development when she does this and sometimes she stays gone a long  
> time. Eco didn't indulge in pages and pages of socio-historical  
> digression and neither does Pynchon - rather they piece it in more  
> tightly.
>
> ******************
>
>
> Comments from the Pynchies?
>
> Bekah
>
>
>
> On Feb 27, 2010, at 2:04 AM, Toby Levy wrote:
>
>> I stayed up late last night to finish AS Byatt's wonderful new  
>> book, "The Children's Book."  The last two pages of the book are  
>> "acknowledgements," and in the next to last paragraph she includes  
>> this sentence: "My agent in the States, Melanie Jackson, has been  
>> both wise about the novel, and precise about practical matters."
>>
>> This begs the question as to how much Pynchon and ATD influenced  
>> The Children's Book.  Byatt's book bears more than a passing  
>> resemblence to Pynchon's.
>>
>> I highly reccomend this book to all Pynchon fans.  Byatt is one  
>> heck of a writer!
>>
>> Toby
>
> Bekah
> http://tinyurl.com/my-bloggish-thing
>
> Bekah
> http://tinyurl.com/my-bloggish-thing
>

Bekah
http://tinyurl.com/my-bloggish-thing