ELEMENTALS

by A.S. Byatt

Spine faded. Orders received by 3pm Sent from the UK that weekday.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Fairy Tales

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

A.S. Byatt (Antonia Susan Byatt) is internationally known for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize winner Possession, The Biographer’s Tale and the quartet, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman, and her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, Elementals and her most recent book Little Black Book of Stories. A distinguished critic as well as a writer of fiction, A S Byatt was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999.

BYATT, Dame Antonia (Susan), (Dame Antonia Duffy), DBE 1999 (CBE 1990); FRSL 1983; Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), 2003 , writer; born 24 Aug. 1936;

Daughter of His Honour John Frederick Drabble, QC and late Kathleen Marie Bloor

Byatt has famously been engaged in a long-running feud with her novelist sister, Margaret Drabble, over the alleged appropriation of a family tea-set in one of her novels. The pair seldom see each other and each does not read the books of the other.

Married
1st, 1959, Ian Charles Rayner Byatt (Sir I. C. R. Byatt) marriage dissolved. 1969; one daughter (one son deceased)
2nd, 1969, Peter John Duffy; two daughters.

Education
Sheffield High School; The Mount School, York; Newnham College, Cambridge (BA Hons; Hon. Fellow 1999); Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, USA; Somerville College, Oxford.

Academic Honours:
Hon. Fellow, London Inst., 2000; Fellow UCL, 2004
Hon. DLitt: Bradford, 1987; DUniv York, 1991; Durham, 1991; Nottingham, 1992; Liverpool, 1993; Portsmouth, 1994; London, 1995; Sheffield, 2000; Kent 2004; Hon. LittD Cambridge, 1999

Prizes
The PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Of Fiction prize, 1986 for STILL LIFE
The Booker Prize, 1990, for POSSESSION
Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize, 1990 for POSSESSION
The Eurasian section of Best Book in Commonwealth Prize, 1991 for POSSESSION
Premio Malaparte, Capri, 1995;
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, California, 1998 for THE DJINN IN THE NIGHTINGALE''S EYE
Shakespeare Prize, Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, 2002;

Publications:
The Shadow of the Sun, 1964;
Degrees of Freedom, 1965 (reprinted as Degrees of Freedom: the early novels of Iris Murdoch, 1994);
The Game, 1967;
Wordsworth and Coleridge in their Time, 1970 (reprinted as Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge in their Time, 1989);
Iris Murdoch 1976
The Virgin in the Garden, 1978;
GEORGE ELIOT Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings , 1979 (editor);
Still Life, 1985
Sugar and Other Stories, 1987;
George Eliot: selected essays, 1989 (editor)
Possession: a romance, 1990
Robert Browning''s Dramatic Monologues, 1990 (editor);
Passions of the Mind, (essays), 1991;
Angels and Insects (novellas),1992
The Matisse Stories (short stories),1993;
The Djinn in the Nightingale''s Eye: five fairy stories, 1994
Imagining Characters, 1995 (joint editor);
New Writing 4, 1995 (joint editor);
Babel Tower, 1996;
New Writing 6, 1997 (joint editor);
The Oxford Book of English Short Stories, 1998 (editor);
Elementals: Stories of fire and ice (short stories), 1998;
The Biographer''s Tale, 2000;
On Histories and Stories (essays), 2000;
Portraits in Fiction, 2001;
The Bird Hand Book, 2001 (Photographs by Victor Schrager Text By AS Byatt);
A Whistling Woman, 2002
Little

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fine collection of stories, as Byatt's always are. This collection is dominated by the two longer stories Crocodile Tears and Cold - the latter is a fairytale like those in The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye, and Byatt's fairytales match those of Angela Carter. As always there is plenty of erudition and wisdom thrown in along with a little arcane vocabulary. A pleasure to read.

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming. Delightful. Wise.

I choose this collection because I have long been eyeing Possession by A.S. Byatt, but have been unwilling to work very hard to read and understand such a complex work. When a GR friend suggested reading A. S. Byatt's short story collections, I found this one easily available to me.

The interplay of fire and ice/hot and cold reveal much of the characters in these stories, showing where more wise and less wise in decisions and actions.

My favorite of these stories is "A Lamia in the Cévennes," A story about a mermaid/siren-type creature in a backyard pool. I wonder how many many years she has been trying out her wiles. In many stories/all the stories I have read about mermaids and sirens, the men are cannot/will not resist the women's charms. Here the story tells a more balanced truth: What some men find irresistible, others can. Some men are like ice toward Lamias while others are hot.

The stories that I also enjoyed and that are often cited in other reviews here and elsewhere are "Crocodile Tears" and "Cold." In "Crocodile Tears," A new cold widow meets a warm friend who helps her come to new understanding about her life. In the fairytale-like "Cold," a cold young woman finds love with a warm man who loves her enough to enchant and accommodate her.

Overall the collection charms with its interplay between cold and hot. I will be looking for other short story collections by A. S. Byatt among the e service and library services I use.

[Deea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complex, intriguing, charming, but having one great fault: only good and definitely not as brilliant as the other books of stories by Byatt I've read. I've enjoyed the story of the wife who leaves the scene of the death of her husband and the story of the maiden of ice who marries a prince of the desert.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Byatt, and it's the kind of writing I absolutely adore. There's something about the fairytale format that always makes me a little giddy-headed, perhaps because it simultaneously sates my craving for fancy and my craving for structure. It's non-reality that isn't altogether nebulous. And, is that not the very essence of art?

I've heard that Byatt's books, including this one, require extensive knowledge of folklore and history, but I didn't find that to be the case. For all I (surely) missed, there was enough basic, human truth to carry me through. As you can probably surmise from the title, these stories are steeped in sensation. She blends mythological elements with the tangible present in ways that will resonate with most any reader. I was reminded of the shivers of recognition I sometimes feel reading Woolf. Sometimes the book felt a little too close and unsettled me. But, I can hardly fault her for that!

All in all, love, love, love.

*montage of me and this book, frolicking in a field, splashing in the waves, watching a late-night movie, clicking off the lamp and cuddling to sleep*

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Byatt is an exceptionally creative short story writer. This is my third collection of her short stories and, although not my favourite, it is still definitely worthy of 5 stars. The fairytale feel of the stories was nice, and her descriptions of the simplest of things are unparalleled and very magical to read.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A.S. Byatt does a masterful turn at the folklore-fairytale inspired short story. Her deft erudition woven together with her willingness to embrace a maximal story telling style create tales where I am happy to willingly suspend belief to just allow myself to get lost in the story.

[hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this collection of six short stories by A.S. Byatt 🙂

most were set in contemporary this world locations, tho often with a fairytale element, and/or a surreal turn. and one - 💙❄️ Cold ❄️💙 - was set within well constructed fictional lands and kingdoms.

all contained nice detail, and language and turns of phrase... and were quite delicately understated in alot of places. really nicely balanced.


4.5 🌟🌟🌟🌟


accessed as an RNIB audiobook, well read by Antonia Beamish 🙂

[Zanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was the first really adult book I read outside the 'classics'. These tales draw on the form and style of fairy tales. They are aesthetic and pared down to survival and sensuous pleasure found in yellow suits and soft bathrobes and copper crocodiles and dancing in the snow and fluted music and blown glass and fish and eggs.

I tend to feel this aestheticism stands against the sense-deadening effects of onslaughts of advertising. Yet in 'Jael' the narrator is a creator of advertising: sometimes layers of delight (in memory, sense memory and memory imagined) are pressed into service to sell to us. So advertising does not numb us, so much as exploit our sensitivity to derail desires towards envy and aspiration, the semiotics of status. The denouement of the story hints at this. In 'Christ in the House of Martha and Mary' status is given another poke and shake, and art rises to the top again.

The story 'Cold' first struck me strongest. It does ride (though lightly) on essentialism and patriarchal tropes, but art cannot do all world-righting work at once, I tell myself. Byatt's skilful rendering of the sensual delights of ice and cold is convincing, and the happy ending in which the princess is enabled (by her love and male action unfortunately) to live against her (essential) grain is pleasing.

The first story 'Crocodile Tears' is possibly the most complex. It's interesting that Byatt/Patricia relates differently to Patricia's body when she is free of her husband. From noting her 'good breasts' and figure-watching food choices, after the metaphorical avalanche that kills her husband, Patricia is free to take sensual pleasure in food and her clothes. The author voice has a strange presence in this story; it wants to make itself felt, by using the present tense when talking about the city of Nimes it insists on an external world, pulling at the stitches binding third person truth and author truth (Nils and Patricia disagree about her suicidal impulse; the author withholds judgement). The new man in her life impinges, he returns her to obligations. It is not clear whether he precipitates or only ameliorates her near-breakdown. Relationships are dangerous.

[Danica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVE THIS.

If you guys love me or have even a paltry shred of affection left for me in your hearts, you will read the following excerpt:

"And she appealed to the painter, should Dolores not learn to be content, to be patient? Hot tears sprang in Dolores's eyes. The painter said:

'By no means. It is not a question of accepting our station in the world as men have ordered it, but of learning not to be careful and troubled. Dolores here has her way to that better part, even as I have, and, like mine, it begins in attention to loaves and fishes. What matters is not that silly girls push her work about their plates with a fork, but that the work is good, that she understands what the wise understand, the nature of garlic and onions, butter and oil, eggs and fish, peppers, aubergines, pumpkins and corn. The cook, as much as the painter, looks into the essence of the creation, not, as I do, in light and on surfaces, but with all the other senses, with taste and smell, and touch, which God also made in us for purposes. You may come at the better part by understanding emulsions, Dolores, by studying freshness and the edges of decay in leaves and flesh, by mixing wine and blood and sugar into sauces, as well as I may, and likely better than fine ladies twisting their pretty necks so that the light may catch their pretty pearls. You are very young, Dolores, and very strong, and very angry. You must learn now, that the important lesson - as long as you have your health - is that the divide is not between the servants and the served, between the leisured and the workers, but between those who are interested in the world and its multiplicity of forms and forces, and those who merely subsist, worrying and yawning. When I paint eggs and fishes and onions, I am painting the godhead - not only because eggs have been taken as an emblem of the Resurrection, as have dormant roots with green shoots, not only because the letters of Christ's name make up the Greek word for fish, but because the world is full of life and light, and the true crime is not to be interested in it. You have a way in. Take it. It may incidentally be a way out, too, as all skills are. The Church teaches that Mary is the contemplative life, which is higher than Martha's way, which is the active way. But any painter must question, which is which? And a cook also contemplates mysteries.

'I don't know,' said Dolores, frowning. He tilted his head the other way. Her head was briefly full of images of the skeletons of fishes, of the whirlpool of golden egg-and-oil in the bowl, of the pattern of muscles in the shoulder of a goat. She said, 'It is nothing, what I know. It is past in a flash. It is cooked and eaten, or it is gone bad and fed to the dogs, or thrown out.'

'Like life,' said the painter. 'We eat and are eaten, and we are very lucky if we reach our three score years and ten, which is less than a flash in the eyes of an angel. The understanding persists, for a time. In your craft and mine.'"

-- from "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary"

Fuck yes. A.S. Byatt, I am ever your adoring disciple.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I rarely dislike books this much, and I'm afraid this short story collection has coloured my perspective of Byatt for the future. I'm surprised so many people enjoyed it, but I guess to each his or her own.

This collection starts with what I think is the weakest story of all, Crocodile Tears, a boring 75 page-long story about a woman who escapes her life and ends up in a small town. There really is no plot, and I felt no connection to the main characters; it just drags on and on. Byatt does do some good parts of writing with descriptions, but ultimately the story flails around without much purpose. There are 6 stories in the collection, and I somewhat enjoyed Cold, a rather fairy-tale-like story. Baglady stood out for its style, and was a much-needed short burst of energy. The concluding story, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary is also a somewhat enjoyable read, but I wouldn't say I really liked any of the stories.

The collection as a whole does nothing for me; Byatt writes mostly to meditate on the flickering of light in glass or in a swimming pool or some other sort of irrelevant detail, in a fanciful way more suited for poetry; in a short story, that style of writing is good to describe a small thing or a few small things of significance, but to make it the point of the entire story utterly ignores the medium. The characters, therefore,lose their appeal along the way and do not live up to their potential.

[Melanti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elementals explores the ideas of fire and ice in several different ways.

It varies from "Cold", a fairy tale story with literal fire and ice in the form of an ice princess who marries a fire oriented prince, to "Crocodile Tears", a modern story with no magic where the ice manifests as a motif symbolizing guilt and grief.

With such a short collection - just six stories- I was disappointed that there was one that fell completely flat for me ("Baglady"), but as it was very short, just ten pages or so, it was over quickly.

My two favorites are the aforementioned "Cold" and "A Lamia in the Cevennes", a story which contrasts an artists obsession with perfection and a Lamia's desire to be human. It's given an added layer if you've read the source poem, Keat's "Lamia".

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, varied, intriguing, subtle - similar format to her Matisse short stories. Probably worth 3.5*.

[Luke McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A.S. Byatt is a genius. Prose as sumptuous as it is prickly.

[Ярослава · Rating 5 out of 5]

Антонія Баєтт - одна з моїх найулюбленіших письменниць, люблю шалено - за прекрасні екфрастичні описи (вона часто пише про художників, історію кольорів, світло: скажімо, в цій збірці одна героїня позує для картини за приготуванням їжі, кришить овочі, "reduced onions to fine specks of translucent light. She felt herself to be a heavy space of unregarded darkness" - "дрібні крихти прозорого світла" це чудовий опис дрібно накришенох цибульки, хіба ні?), за увагу до інтелектуальної біографії героїв, не менш важливої, ніж подієва сторона, за химерні описи емоцій і демонстрацію ненадійності знань про себе.
Конкретно ця збірка - магічний реалізм на тему всякого жіночого досвіду (компроміси, заганяння себе виключно у сферу побутово-обслуговувальної роботи, оце от усе), про тонку межу між "a picture of lassitude and boredom, or, just possibly, of despair".
Стиль, як завжди, чарівний, отут от монтаж сподобався:
“Patches of time can be recalled under hypnosis. Not only suppressed terrors but those flickering frames of the continuum that, even at the time, seem certain to be forgotten, pleasantly doomed to nonentity. So they have sunk into our brains after all, are part of us. Patches of time is a mild metaphor, mixing time and space, mildly appropriate in art galleries, where time is difficult to deal with. How do you decide when to stop looking at something? It is not like a book, page after page, page after page, end. You give it your attention, or you don’t. The Nimmos spent their Sundays in those art galleries that had the common sense to open on that dead day.” - і далі вже про історію цього подружжя Німмо.

[Dottie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read April 2003.

I think this is my favorite Byatt -- because I love the story Cold -- in spite of being a reluctant fantasy, magical realism and so on reader, I was absolutely bowled over by Cold -- it was like reading all the fairy tales in childhood fairytale books but this was an adult reading a book written for an adult and experiencing a fairytale. It still amazes me that I responded to this story as I did -- and Ire-read it every now and again. It's absolutely lovely. I do like the rest of the stories but obviously they can't compare to my favorite.

[Joey-Joey-Jo-Jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a complete disappointment. It doesn't have an index, the chapter headings are entirely obscure, and I can never find the stat blocs when I try to use this during play. The basic problem is that they devoted far too much space to flavor text, and not nearly enough to the crunchy bits and the supporting infrastructure needed to make the crunchy bits useful. While an original and creative effort, I would not recommend this book to anyone but collectors and completists.

[Faizan · Rating 3 out of 5]

One story was good, rest were okayish,, but whatever,, I will write the review on my blog.

[Katie Balchin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an absolutely beautiful collection of stories, it felt like poetry to read and so richly immersive that I think even aphantasia sufferers would see colours and characters in their heads throughout the book xx

For me the stories were definitely on different levels with some holding my interest more than others, but it was a wonderful read I’d reccomend to anyone to break up heavier books and fill your head with painted fairytales again 🫧

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was consumed by the characters in this collection of masterful short stories: British runaway Patricia Nimmo who finds similarly troubled ice-blond Nordic Nils Isaksen at the hottest point in southern France; British artist Bernard Lycett-Kean who's obsessed with beautiful monsters/monstrous beauties in his French swimming pool; Fiammarosa the fairy tale princess born of ice, in love with a prince of fire. My favorite story is Baglady, a 10-page romp of terror that takes place in an Asian shopping mall.

[Ally Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect bedtime book. Fable-esque short stories that feel like dreams.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update, 2011 reading

Happened to accidentally re-read this one, having been stuck at a coffeeshop for a few hours with a friend who only had this book to spare me. Consumed it incredibly swiftly, much like I had upon my first reading, and remembered why I found this collection of tales (six total) so intriguing, shimmering, and powerful. Each story is organized loosely around extremes of heat and cold; in some cases this is an atmospheric or environmental theme ("Lamia" and "Crocodile Tears"), in others it's temperamental or visual ("Baglady," "Christ in the House" and "Jael"), and in one, it's a fairytale or fable-esque literalization ("Cold").

Every story wields it own particular personality, though as I say, the general theme functions to connect them all as a collection. The prose itself is positively spectacular (see esp. "Cold"), and Byatt's ability to briefly outline characterization works here in a way it sometimes doesn't in her other short stories. Though I think in general, Byatt has a kind of very traditional (stereotypical?) British dryness, these stories should pull in almost any sort of reader. This is always my recommendation for the non-initiated, as her novels tend towards slow-pacing and high literary or academic allusions and textures (which admittedly is not for everyone). The settings range from the fantastical to the dystopic or hallucinatory, and Byatt's obsession with art is often on display here.

In short, if "Cold" doesn't absolutely engross you, I'd say you may wish to seek out another author. These stories remain among my very favorites in the form.

**

This was my first experience with Byatt, and what a wonderful ride. I'm so glad to have discovered a new author to obsess over, and in fact, just purchased The Virgin in the Garden, Babel Tower, and Imagining Characters (as well as having Possession on my bookshelf just waiting to be adored) to fuel this new passion.

Her style is fluid, magical, and strangely heart-wrenching at times, though in a way that you don't notice until you're already in the depths of emotion. Every story of this collection had something to set it apart, something to mark it as absolutely lovely, and perhaps the most exciting thing is that while her writing style itself is consistent, the stories crossed many 'genres,' for lack of a better word--which was highly entertaining to read, and felt like picking up a new book each time I went to a new story.

"Baglady" is vaguely futuristic, dystopian, and is perhaps the most ambiguous story of the book inasmuch as you come to what seems a fairly simple conclusion by the end, but as soon as you hit on that, you begin questioning your own understandings in addition to the reliability of the hopeless woman at the center of the short. "Cold" is a fairy tale in the most wonderful of senses, in that it really toys with the childhood you think you've left behind, but then turns around and becomes this amazingly adult story dealing with love and loss, the formation of the self, and compromise when it comes to enjoying meaningful relationships. Plus, it has some of the most beautiful images I think I've read, with fire and ice being quite explicit, but in strikingly unexpected ways--the resolution of the conflict in the story left me breathless. "Lamia in the Cevennes" has the element of the fairy tale/myth in it too, but plays much more to the darker yearnings and possessions of erotic (or other) desire. "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" plays more explicitly with food, with art, and with class and its markers--how it makes you conceptualize your own positioning as a person in a divided society. "Crocodile Tears" is a lovely story, and seems to be a popular favorite, but I actually think of all the stories here, it was the least engaging for me. Perhaps it went on a bit too long, and seemed to hit you over the heard just a bit with the juxtaposition of violence and emotional detachment. But saying it was the weakest really doesn't discount it, because it was still incredible. I know there's one more, but I can't remember the title or the biblical story is centers on--I loved it, though, enough so to actually look into the biblical myth it was based on (if you knew me, you'd know that's a shocker). The discussion of envy and how far we are able to go when deprived of things we desire--well, let's just say it hits rather hard.

Now I'm just going on too long. In short-READ IT. A wonderful collection, dealing with art and its relation to life; with desire--often thwarted, but sometimes rewarded; with the sort of disconnect that seems to accompany modern culture; with beauty and love and passion and all those other really important things. Drawing on mythology and folklore, her style is wonderfully engaging, it's beautifully and intricately woven, and surprisingly moving by the end of it. I can only offer the highest of praise.

[Jenny Jaeckel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eerie, strange, mystical tales, each presumably a kind of metaphysical riff on a real object of art: a still life by Velazquez, a 17th century goblet from Venice, etc. I was particularly sucked in by "Cold" wherein an ancient princess discovers her nature, inherited from a forgotten ancestor, that drives her, at first, to dance naked in the snow. Later, wooed by a king from a desert kingdom, the two lovers must find an impossible solution to be able to be together. Strange drives and longings permeate these stories.

[Scot · Rating 4 out of 5]

A month or so ago a friend had recommended a book by this author to me, so while I was doing something else last week but realized I was on the appropriate floor of my public library to track down and check out that book, I stopped by its place in the stacks. It was not there, but a whole row of other books by A.S. Byatt were, patiently waiting for someone like me to come along and appreciate them. In truth, I selected this volume because of its size—I could fit it comfortably in the span of my palm, and I already had several other things to carry. I was also attracted to the simplicity of its title: Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice, and a bit intrigued by the foreboding tone of the Edvard Munch painting that graced the cover.

Byatt’s main characters in these stories tend to come from wealth or have erudite backgrounds. Considerable assumptions are made about the reader’s background knowledge of several European languages and cultures, so if you find Jeopardy way too hard and Wheel of Fortune a challenge, this might not be the book for you. For those who love words this author offers an extensive command of vocabulary that effectively moves each story along, so this is a good book both for entertainment and for keeping your language skills agile. Byatt demonstrates a deep and abiding fascination for the power of color and the ability both artists and nature have to influence us through nuance of color, as well as a mystical reverence for the magic of fairies, demons, folktales, and myths.

The collection contains six stories in total, each of them inspired by a different work of art pictured at the beginning of the tale. “Crocodile Tears” involves a journey of self-discovery following the death of a loved one; “A Lamia in the Cevennes” presents a French siren in an artist’s pool; “Cold” creates a lyrical fairy tale of elemental oppositions; “Baglady” takes us to a shopping tour Inferno; “Jael” adroitly interweaves Mean Girls’ pecking orders in school, high power advertising, and a violent Old Testament tale; and “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” ruminates upon the famous painting by Velazquez.

[K. Lutero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elementals is a study in opposing forces. Each of the six short stories is a different flavor of Byatt’s storytelling that ranges from the non-magical to true fairytale. The writing is literary, full of color and sharp, quick sentences that move the stories along at a clipped pace.

I liked Elementals. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but there are definitely some juicy themes to dig into and Byatt is obviously a master of her art.

If you want to see my more comprehensive review, look no further than here.

[Claudia Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astonishingly beautiful collection of short stories! Not much happened in a lot of them, but the prose was so lush and gorgeous, I simply didn't care. Crocodile Tears, transported to me to Nimes, a city I've never set foot in and yet now feel like I know, all thanks to Byatt's way with words. Cold was a delightfully unusual fairy tale, Baglady captured a most relatable nightmare and A Lamia in the Cevannes was my favourite of the lot -- having read Ragnarok, where the description of the World Serpent left me swooning, it was no surprise that the descriptions of the Lamia would be so entrancing, but the added musings on colour, on "solving blue", on problems like that which make humans happy, elevated this yet further. An outstanding anthology.

[Suanne Laqueur · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got hooked on A.S. Byatt with her novel The Children's Book, but fell in love with her short stories. They are intelligent fairy tales for adults, full of her gorgeous language and imagery.

“Cold” in Elementals was by far my favorite: a tale of an ice princess who falls in love with a prince of the desert, an inventor and genius glass-blower. She leaves the environment in which she flourishes and travels to her husband’s land where she wilts in despair. But her husband designs a new palace for her, in essence creating ice with the power of fire.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

VERY Visusal short stories, nice, interesting

weird one where a woman whose husband dies in a museum (heart attack) and she just LEAVES then settles in a town in Italy or Spain and meets a man with a similar story.

8.5 of 10

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to these on tape and loved them! I'm not always crazy about short stories, but I really like A.S. Byatt and these were very fun/funny/haunting/memorable. I think this is one of the best book of short stories I've every read.

[Søren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot emphasize enough how GOOD A. S. Byatt's writing is. It carries you, colors your inner mind, and creates scenes so real--and yet so magical--you'd not believe it.
I'm in love with her writings; thankfully, she has written quite a bit.

[Jaimie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books (like this one) are meant to be read on a sunny patio in the south of France with croissant and café alongside; but some of us are stuck in Canada during the transition into Spring, so we’ll settle for beams of sunshine on indoor couches and “Tell Your Dog I Said Hi” mugs as we delve into this surprisingly delectable collection of Byatt’s short stories. She begins with a story that sets the tone in a particularly offbeat manner, where a woman’s husband dies unexpectedly in a gallery after an argument, and rather than staying and handling the fallout she chooses to run away from her life. This story is seemingly off-putting (the protagonist isn’t exactly likeable or relatable), and yet it winds through such compelling language that it becomes captivating. What are her motives for fleeing? We never really find out, even after she returns home, but the puzzle of her mind is thought-provoking and human in a strangely romantic way. Next we are treated to a softly French fable, where a painter becomes obsessed with the colours of the landscape around his home and falls into a bargain with a fantastical serpent. The story is told as completely every-day in tone, and yet Byatt manages to steep it in folklore in such a manner that believably bridges the gap between the fantastical realm and modernity. The painter’s obsession with his art seems beautifully Provençal, and we are immediately drawn into his almost-Faustian bargain with the serpent and wonder how their tale will play out to the very final pages. Even after the serpent abandons her bargain with him in lieu of more veritable targets, the themes around the never-ending artist’s “quest” continue on. Third is a more overt fairytale with “Cold,” a tale which sparkles with icy imagery while maintaining a fiery undertone that speaks to seeking one’s true path in life. Herein we see motifs around arranged marriages, the lore of royal dynasties, and the ends to which people will go for love, but unlike many traditional fairytales which pit fire and ice, this tale has a happy ending that is steeped in a realism about relationships and knowledge. This is clearly the crowning jewel of the collection, buried as it is in the central placing and bringing the tone of the set to a crescendo. We take an expected downward trajectory from here on in, even though the remaining three stories are still interesting. It is difficult to like “Baglady” as it contains far too much of the rational fear of the urban maze, or at least it does for me, since I have an unfortunate ability to get lost inside buildings with too many corridors. Byatt then turns to the Christian mythos for the final two tales, both of which trade on a certain amount of foreknowledge about the Bible stories for their success. As much as I know and recognize a selection of Biblical tales, these were two which I missed, so the major themes were largely lost on me. I can appreciate the unique structure of “Jael” and its play on memory/willful forgetfulness, as well as the carefully crafted characters parodying Martha and Mary and beautifully wrought scenery in the final tale, but without the background the impact felt a little flat. And yet, even as the collection faded into a quiet solitude by the final pages, it brought a satisfying sense of ease to the forefront.