The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 7 December 2005
by A. S. Byatt
In this little book are collected three short stories by A. S. Byatt, each of which relates directly or indirectly to the art of Henri Matisse. These aren't, however, in the vein of recent books that dramatize the life of a painter or even of a painting. Rather, these stories are contemporary tales in which the art of Matisse takes up a supporting role. In the opening story, Medusa's Ankles, we meet a middle-aged woman going into her favorite hair salon where a Matisse print is on display in the window and whose colors are echoed throughout the salon. Any change in that somehow reflects the woman's aging, and she takes it out, violently, on the offending flat grey colors. In the second story, Art Work, we enter the lives of an artist's family and their quirky housekeeper. The story relates the differences between friendship and merely the appearance of friendship between employer and employee. Byatt captures the feeling of a frustrated artist, and the broken edges of his life. In the final story, The Chinese Lobster, an art history professor is confronted by an unhinged student who has dark theories about Matisse and his vision of women. The story unexpectedly twists into the minds of the professor and the dean of women students. Through all three stories, Byatt has an acute perception of the mood and color of Matisse's work. She applies this perception to the stories themselves, casting the feeling in a light of vivid color. Her language has a British sensibility, and these stories are like nugget fragments of her longer work.
Also by Byatt: [Babel Tower] [A Whistling Woman]