The main thrust of the book is the unconventional Potter family: Bill, schoolmaster, patriarch and terror of almost everyone who crosses his path, Winifred the seemingly quiet housewife, and their three children, Stephanie, Frederica and Marcus.
The backdrop to their story is the production of a play written by a fellow master at the school where Bill teaches - the heartthrob Alexander Wedderburn, who has inspired lust in both Potter girls and the wife of another colleague.
Alexander's play is part pastiche, part homage to Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I and a host of other writers I'm sadly not as familiar with as I should be. Frederica wins the part of the young Elizabeth, and finds herself in all sorts of sexual scrapes as she tries to grow up fast enough to attract Alexander.
Frederica is 17, physically awkward and unpopular but with a belief in herself nurtured by Bill. In an attempt to be more mature, she has an unfortunate experience with a travelling dolls salesman on the moors of Goathland, and more than one seedy encounter with the patron of the play, Crowe, whose house is used for much of the rehearsing. Byatt writes these scenes beautifully, making the reader feel both sympathy and squeamishness for Frederica. It's hard to say whether she learns much from these experiences, but as this is the first book of the quartet,it will be interesting to watch her develop.
Elder sister Stephanie has returned from Cambridge to teach at her former school (where Frederica is about to sit her A-levels). Her father had hoped for more for her, and it is mostly out of spite to him that she has taken up this post. She soon becomes entangled with the local curate, which sits at odds with her own atheist beliefs and inspires fury in her father. Stephanie appears considerably less in the second half of the book. although I have read synopses of the other three books and get the impression she is deliberately relegated to the lowly position of housewife, mother and frustrated scholar.
The third Potter child, Marcus, was the one who I struggled with the most. He is 16 and not only socially inept but withdrawn, silent and brooding. Marcus has an unusual flair with mathematics, but suffers from what is probably some form of obsessive compulsive disorder, and as the story progresses becomes increasingly disturbed - he is constantly seeking patterns in nature and worrying about shifts in light. Marcus confides in (yet another) school master, the science teacher Lucas Simmonds, who sees Marcus' behaviour as an ability to sense 'other' elements in the world - spirits, God, or something darker. The parts where Lucas and Marcus conduct experiments were interesting, but I really struggled with some of the concepts and what Marcus was thinking.
A brief word on Alexander Wedderburn seems appropriate, although he was less of a character and more of an idea, in that much of what we learned about him was through other people - how he excited the females and impressed the men. He was not entirely likeable but he was interesting and his sexual exploits also made for fun reading.
I'm not going straight into the sequel, but it is the next book in my pile after a one-novel break, as I'm interested to see how the Potter family grow (or fall apart, depending on your view). I did find some of it heavy going, and the frequent literary references (as in Possession) made me feel a bit dim and inadequate, although it also encouraged me to broaden my reading matter.
It would be entirely wrong to compare AS Byatt's work to that of her sister, Margaret Drabble, who I absolutely love, but it did cross my mind that the story of Stephanie and Frederica was in some way influenced by their relationship - according to accounts, the two writers fell out quite badly some years ago and haven't spoken since. Margaret Drabble's stories are much shorter and are more concerned with day to day life - what I like about her is that she writes women who are the same age as her when she creates, so you really get a sense of her life at the time.
Anyway, I'm sure greater minds than mine have considered this, and the most important thing is that Byatt is an author I am really starting to enjoy.
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