[.ca] The Matisse Stories (ISBN 0099472716)

Write what you know?:
A.S. Byatt is a spectacular writer, and her novels are some of the best English writing in the 20th century. And as pieces of literature, these stories are good, rich and coherent. But when she talks about art, she is way out of her depth. Truth to tell, out of the three stories in this collection, two are good. In the second one, though, she gets technical. This story deals with the mechanics of making art and the workings of the art world, and she just does not know her material. She talks about fine points of color theory and she gets it so wrong that her descriptions are just goofy. It's not like she describes an off-beat approach to color; she uses technical terms like "complimentary colors" without really understanding what they mean. In the second and third stories she second-guesses art politics but really she has no idea what the prejudices and rules are in the art world, or how galleries really function, or the relationship between the demographics of the collectors and what a dealer will show. She talks about academic art politics and makes the mistaken assumption that academia values representational competance over modernism and the avant garde. I love A.S. Byatt and will read anything she has written, but she shouldn't write about art. She hasn't done enough research.

The perfect short story collection:
Beautiful, concise, intelligent and moving. One of my favourite books of recent years.

Gentle stories of admirable detail:
This tiny collection of three short stories by A. S. Byatt is a very light reading to be completed within one hour, preferably while taking a sun-bath with an ice-cream ready for casual consumption. Snip: (...)

Engaging:
Matisse paintings are more or less the inspiration for this short but insightful collection of stories. A.S. Byatt has done a wonderful job of incorporating insight and art into three compelling short stories. In "Medusa's Ankles" a middle-aged woman in a beauty salon reflects on her life and appearance while searching for a look that will allow her to recapture a small piece of her youth. "Art Work" is an insightful look into the lives of three different people and their personalities. We learn about a kind hearted and open minded woman, her stodgy and fussy husband and their frumpy but dignified housekeeper. Finally in "The Chinese Lobster" we are treated to an elaborate Chinese lunch where we hear two professors discuss Matisse's nude paintings while at the same time expounding the troubles of a suicidal student suffering from anorexia. A.S. Byatt does a wonderful job of capturing the feelings of self-loathing, insecurity and frustration to create a rich work of literary fiction. The stories are very atmospheric and filled with vivid imagery. This is a good introduction to the talents of A.S. Byatt.

A doubtless contribution to the annuls of literary history.:
I read this somewhat as a prelude to "Posession", more as an introduction to Byatt's style than as an undertaking of itself. I was pleasantly surprised. In all I've read spanning the ages from classical philosophies to post-modernist contemporary fiction, I found this novella higly satisfying. It is brief, concise, yet wants for nothing in either style or quality of thematic content. Using controversial impressionist paintings as a backdrop for finely-crafted fictional shorts is a grand idea and it has been executed in a true literary artist's fashion here. I must strongly suggest this book to almost any reader of literature or fiction.