Sugar and Other Stories

by A.S. Byatt, Jenny Funnell (Narrator)

The constant theme running through this collection of short stories, the first collection by A. S. Byatt, is that of repetition, taking the form of family patterns recurring across generations, the return of the past in the form of ghosts and the disruptive force of family stories.

A. S. Byatt was the winner of the Silver Pen Award for her novel Still Life (1986). Her other novels include Shadow of a Sun, The Game (1983) and The Virgin in the Garden (1981).

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, British Literature, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Anthologies

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1987

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]

It is always a little sad to reach the point where there is no more fiction to read by a favourite writer - let's hope she still has more to come. This was Byatt's first collection of stories, the last book she published before Possession, and although it lacks the thematic unity of most of her later story collections, it still contains some fine writing. There are some recurring themes - death (two of the stories involve ghosts) and how real life inspires the writing process.

The first story Racine and the Tablecloth is a moving tale of a clever girl who is bullied at school and feels antagonised by her teacher. Like some of the other stories here this one is a little elliptical.

For me the least convincing piece was The Dried Witch, a rather macabre story set in a primitive village, which is interesting because its style presages some of her later fairy stories.

On the Day that E.M. Forster Died is a story of a writer that must be at least partly autobiographical - she has a number of disparate ideas for her next novel and while sitting in the British Library she sees that they would be more powerful as part of a single larger work, and feels that the shadow cast by Forster has been lifted - those who have read the Frederica quartet (The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman) might recognise this description. For me this quartet and Possession are Byatt's most complex and rewarding works. The story then moves off on a tangent to a decidedly odd encounter with an old acquaintance who tries to involve her in a bizarre conspiracy.

The penultimate story Precipice Uncurled is a curious story of a talented young painter falling in love with a friend of Robert Browning, and his death in a fall from a mountain in the Apennines where he is trying to capture the light. I suspect my ignorance led me to miss some of the resonances and context for this one, but it is interesting because it was probably written when she was already thinking about Possession.

The final story Sugar gives the collection its title. Sugar is about family history and the way stories are filtered and changed by the teller - the narrator compares her parents' conflicting memories of her grandfather, the owner of a boiled sweet factory, and the stories of her aunts and uncles.

As always with Byatt there are plenty of ideas here and this is a rewarding read, but perhaps not the best starting point for someone new to her work.

[hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this collection of short stories by A S Byatt. I tried to take my time with it, not reading the stories too close together, giving each time and space to settle and experience more fully


👩‍👩‍👧 Racine and the Tablecloth.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
what a young girl and woman should (and should not) aspire to, especially academically. academic desire being undermined by school authority. tho hopefully we have space in our imagination to think that the next generation of young women did achieve what they wanted academically and in life :)


🏡🫖 Rose-Coloured Tea Cups.
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a cottage and it's gardens. family, women, generations. a really nice exploration of generational opportunities, differences, how the next will view and behave compared to the previous, that it's unrealistic to expect them to carry the same values, aspirations, aptitudes.

I really related to stuff as history, memory and connection with parents and grandparents.


🏡👻 The July Ghost.
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a man moves into a house as a lodger after his wife leaves him, the house of a woman whose husband is maybe in the process of leaving.
while relaxing in the garden, the man sees a child in a tree... the ghost of the woman's son. loss and grief and complex emotions. being separate in each others presence. delicately written.
alongside the story, there are references to it being a story he is later recounting to an American woman at a party, a story within a story.

to live after loss... rather than live in it.


🏡🪴 The Next Room.
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the story opens with the close of a funeral/cremation... and a woman reflecting on her and her mother's (and father's) life, and death. the house, the garden, shades of pink. the plants - beautifully described and approached.
work, relationships and toothache... a waiting room conversation about near death experiences (with Mrs Root. some really nice word choices carry some of the themes thru the book). great description of the immediate after of having a tooth extracted - the feelings and memories stirred.

while at the house, the voices of her parents in the titular next room...

a move with work to County Durham. nice descriptions of the area, it's industrial (mining) history, and earlier history. and of enjoying the comfortable anonymity/indifference of the hotel. whose guests are "rootless passengers on the earth" (as Joanna wished to be).
Joanna notices the dead - under the heather, haunting the mills.

some nice commentary on global economic development, standards of living, (un)employment, the lack of need of skilled labour and the lack of future of the men with those skills).

so many threads musing on life and death, and what's after death, in various ways.
at times a sad story, and a sensitive one.

only marred in occasional places by some out of date racialised language (probably considered appropriate at the time), and a stereotypical reference to Gypsy children.


🌞🌞 The Dried Witch.
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beautifully described, desiccation, darkness and light.
it's unclear where it's set. a plain by mountains. a village reduced by war.
the woman's name, Aoa. trying to see herself - reflected in the water, how she might be viewed by a man, her own image/sense of herself.
her previous loss of her children, and later/subsequent loss of her husband.
once respected/feared and in demand for her skills... now??
Aoa continues in her purpose to seek out an old woman. again beautifully described, the woman's appearance in age. the details of their conversation and transaction. ♥
the life a single woman with no sons to care for her, can expect... 💔
back at the village, how she develops a reputation for being a healer, people coming to her, and gaining respect, and in confidence.
an asked for spell does its work and takes its toll, and Aoa is accused of witchcraft... and the villagers decide that she is to be 'sunned' for three days. again beautifully described.


🛣📚 Loss of Face.
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"they travelled every day, three sides of a rectangle". two towers, either side of a motorway, connected by a tunnel underneath. the people that live and travel between them. another brown tower with a lighted red number on it, decreasing by one each day.
lecturers in English literature. who have come half way around the world.
Celia Quest, one of the lecturers, gives a lecture on Milton (Paradise Lost). her students in the English Midlands reject Milton, the oriental scholars (authors use of language) listen politely.
an American guide book describes the country and it's people. Celia has learned their alphabet on the plane over, and wonders how Milton would sound to its speakers.
some of the difference between the two cultures is explored in Celia's musings.
Celia's other lecture is about George Elliot.

a discussion of literature, it's role. 'first world' and 'third world' literature. cultural complexities, their navigation, and missteps.
the colonialist error of the 'universal'.


💬📝 On The Day That EM Forster Died.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 +
a story about writing, and about a writer who believed the time for writing about writing was past.
1970. art and life.
Mrs Smith, whose life meant no sense without art, but doesn't see it as more than it is. she goes to the London Library to write. not the first thing, but the longest thing she's written. making links. how the breaks between writing are an important part of her process. the vibrancy of life being able to describe it.
while out walking between writing, she learns that EM Forster has died, aged 92.
a chance meeting with an old friend Conrad, they go for coffee, and catch up abit.
middle age, health, time...
Mrs Smith ends up in a story constructed by Conrad that she wants to get out of.
it would take more than Conrad's madness to deter Mrs Smith from her work.
a lump, a surgery, deferred a few weeks - and in that time Mrs Smith thinks more about short fictions, incase there isn't time (for her longer novel).

an interesting mix of a story - art, writing, authors, life, time, health, death...


😯 The Changeling.
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Josephine, who makes space in her house for lost boys. boys a friend (Max) recommends could benefit from her particular care and environment.
Henry Smee, who reminds her of another boy (Simon Val, a character in one of her stories. modelled on herself - he represents her own fear), and prompts fear in her.
she's a writer, and writes stories about fear, featuring boys as main characters. having long dealt with her own fear by writing the stories.

a sad and creepy conclusion.


🌳🦮 In The Air.
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the talking weather forecast you can phone. she preferred the women, esp the school mistress 😉 a nice description of the companionship television provides.
Mrs Sugden, a retired school teacher. aging. fear. Wolfgang the beautiful collie dog, who could not understand her delays caused by her fear of going out ♥🙂

a really interesting story of changing times, the greater discussion and awareness of sexual assault and rape making it seem more frequent whether or not it is. the fear that creates in a single older woman, in many women. the knowledge of possibilities being a sense of preparedness, a way to deal with the fear.
such beautiful detail.

in the park, Miss Tilletson and her guide dog Elsie, Barry who's unemployed. a palpable sense of tension and potential menace.


🏔🎨 Precipice Encurled.
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a woman, in Venice, described.
a poet researched and pieced together by a scholar.
a man in a hotel room, writing and/or contemplating Descartes.
the Fishwicks awaiting Robert Browning.

a feeling that the characters and vignettes are linked, in literary ways involving Robert Browning, but my knowledge is too sketchy to make all the connections. and/or it's there in the text, but abit too vast to hold it all in my head. (easier on paper?)

an artist. his sketching in the mountains and sudden death
the news reaching the poet, him remembering another death.. not knowing the artist, but using his imagination.

musings on life and death and art.
constantly on that precipice?


🍭🍬 Sugar.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 +
more musings on life and death, family stories, and what is the truth?

a complex exploration of memory, emotions, family life, a childhood recounted and her childhood impressions of the adults (parents and grandparents) around her, and the environment - emotional, social, class. illness. the war.
and the pots of boiling coloured sugar! 🙂


🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟


accessed as a RNIB audiobook, donated by audible, and read by Jennie Funnel.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storie a colori

La sensazione è che questa collection di Antonia Byatt sia piuttosto disomogenea rispetto alle altre che ho letto in precedenza, probabilmente a causa della scelta, abituale fra gli editori italiani, di assemblare racconti di diversa provenienza in una raccolta che non esiste in quanto tale in edizione originale inglese (tuttavia nella postfazione l’autrice sembra avere avallato tale selezione...)

Abbiamo così un insieme di storie di esplicita impronta autobiografica (“Zucchero”), altre che riprendono l’ispirazione fiabesca e mitologica propria dell’autrice (“Freddo”), altre ancora che narrano di viaggi nel torrido Sud d’Europa alla ricerca di sé stessi o di un mondo diverso, contrapposto al gelido habitat di provenienza (“Lacrime di coccodrillo”). Ho citato i tre racconti che, occupando tre quarti dell’intero volume, restano più impressi nella memoria, forniscono il carattere alla raccolta e riproducono le principali fonti ispirative della Byatt: la mitologia, l’autobiografia, la ricerca nel viaggio con eventuale e imprevista implicazione erotica (e, per inciso, c’è anche molta Francia in questi racconti inglesi...)

Ma un aspetto a parte che mi ha colpito e che ritenevo prerogativa, fin dal titolo, della raccolta “Le storie di Matisse” è l’arcobaleno di colori che l’autrice utilizza nelle sue storie (inimmaginabili in bianco e nero) e che talora rappresenta l’oggetto stesso della narrazione, elemento che forse per mia distrazione non avevo notato o non ricordavo nei suoi romanzi lunghi.

Qui invece è tutto un profluvio cromatico e, se vi si presta attenzione, non c’è ambiente, panorama, sfondo alle vicende narrate che non ostenti una puntigliosa rappresentazione pittorica degli elementi naturali ma anche degli abiti o dei manufatti, degli esterni così come degli arredamenti fino ai tratti del volto dei personaggi. Non si tratta mai di colori primari ed elementari ma di sfumature (“un rosa argenteo”, ”il blu elettrico delle libellule”, “un sabbia cremoso”) che culminano nel racconto “Una lamia nelle Cevenne” dove il protagonista si isola in una casetta di pietra al solo scopo di dedicarsi alla contemplazione ed alla pittura.

Su tutto regna lo stile arabescato e minuzioso, talora un po’ barocco, della grande autrice, con l’interporsi di riflessioni che attingono alla storia, alla botanica e soprattutto alla mitologia che, anche in un’opera che complessivamente mi è sembrata “minore” rispetto ad altri lavori della Byatt, rendono così evocativo, suggestivo e peculiare l’impatto della sua limpida prosa.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leggere la Byatt è quasi rilassante. Lo stile raffinato, ricco ma allo stesso tempo delicato, è un accompagnatore fedele e sicuro.

Il titolo della raccolta viene dal primo racconto, Zucchero, dove Byatt riflette in prima persona sulla morte del padre e sulla figura della madre, che faceva da filtro alla scrittrice bambina sugli avvenimenti della famiglia.

Gli altri sei racconti presentano tutti i segni distintivi dell’autrice: l’elemento fiabesco, quello mitologico, donne forti gelose della propria indipendenza e modo di essere, il legame con il passato e il ricordo, i riferimenti artistici e letterari. E su tutto la luce della grande intelligenza e grande cultura proprie di Antonia S. Byatt.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although clearly a brilliant writer, this collection continually frustrated me from beginning to end. Most of the stories meandered along, verbosely digressing until finally arriving at dissatisfying conclusions. I found myself repeatedly having to re-read sections to figure out where I lost the path. Wandering isn’t bad if the characters engage the reader enough to follow. This time that just didn’t happen for me. “In the Air” was the one exception; tense and foreboding and well worth the effort.

[Moira · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt very conflicted about this book. The majority of stories in it were extremely unpleasant, and several -- "The Dried Witch," "In the Air" -- so painful I couldn't read them in full. Byatt is not at all in her best in the realistic short story medium; her plots stop short in that maddening manner so common to modern short story authors, so it's as if the last third of the story itself remains unwritten, and only a few times (at the end of "On the Day that E.M. Forster Died," in parts of "Racine and the Tablecloth") does she achieve that true compression of theme and time which is necessary in the form of good short stories. She also seems very preoccupied with death and the impossibility of an afterlife, to a distressing extent (for the reader, if not for her). The stories themselves lack the fine observation of characters over years which give depth to novels like Still Life and the rich varied intellectual tapestry of dozens of different ideas that enlivens Babel Tower and Possession. (In this she is interestingly unlike her bête noire, D. H. Lawrence, whose short stories are far finer than his novels. I also confess my interest in this collection was stirred by her supposedly handing the book to an interviewer to use for personal background.)

And yet, the final two stories -- "Precipice-Encurled," serving perhaps as a kind of mini-Possession or rough sketch for Angels and Insects, and "Sugar," which is explicitly, openly a story about the storytelling novelist (and her fabricating mother) herself -- are amazing, well worth the price of the book, redeeming and rescuing everything else. So I don't really know how to rate his book. I greatly disliked over nine-tenths of it. But that final tenth was fantastic.

[William Leight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Racine and the Tablecloth: This is such a deeply felt story that it’s hard to avoid wondering if the central conflict, between Emily, an awkward, unpopular, bookish girl who writes brilliantly, and the headmistress of her school, who patronizingly distrusts Emily’s narrow focus on writing to the exclusion of traditional feminine virtues, is drawn at least in part from Byatt’s own childhood. Be that as it may, it’s a story about women raging against all the things that trammel them in: the tablecloth, in particular, represents the embroidery that Emily’s aunt, who dreamed of traveling and learning, took refuge in towards the end of a life that turned out to be entirely devoted to caring for others, and included none of what she wanted. Racine, on the other hand, is the teenage Emily’s favorite playwright, and “Phedre” represents a similar struggle of passion and desire against limits. The ending makes it clear that Byatt does not want you to regard this as a tale from a bygone era, describing a problem that no longer exists. A rare story in which writing a brilliant essay on a French play is a blow for the rights of women.
The July Ghost: Manages to achieve a kind of ghostliness itself by not naming its main characters, who are only “the man” and the “the woman”. The woman, still traumatized by the death of her son some years ago, takes the man as a lodger, and he starts seeing her son’s ghost. The ghost assumes an increasingly large role in their household, in a rather inimical way: the ending leaves it unclear not only what path the story will take next, but also what path it should take. The woman is another female character whose family obligations have kept her from achieving her desires, even though in this case the obligation is to a dead family member.
The Next Room: A vicious jab at people who conceive of the afterlife as a sort of suburban paradise, where you will be reunited with your beloved family members. Joanna, the main character, has spent twenty years nursing her mother, suppressing her career, her tastes, and her personality to adjust for her mother’s imperious and abrasive nature. Now that her mother is dead, she hopes to finally escape from the fetters of her family: even at the age of 59, it may still be possible for her to revive her career, which is the main thing she cares about. Instead, she starts hearing her dead parents quarreling, as if in the titular location. The implication that there is no escape from the family-related oppression of women, even in the afterlife, is fairly grim.
The Dried Witch: A sudden left turn, abandoning modern Britain for a small village in an unnamed and probably imaginary Asian country at an unspecified time that’s probably at least a millennium ago. Even grimmer than “The Next Room”, it presents a childless and now probably widowed (the husband of A-Oa, the titular witch, was taken away to be a soldier years ago and never returned) middle-aged woman’s decision to become a witch not as an act of rebellion, a la “Lolly Willowes”, but instead as part of a process by which her village, and by extension the larger society, rids itself of unnecessary women. The whole process has the air of a ritual in which everybody, including A-Oa, is simply playing a part, and the outcome, A-Oa’s death, is never in doubt. The only part that rings a bit false is the ending, in which A-Oa is granted some measure of revenge.
Loss of Face: This takes place in, I think we are meant to understand, a modern version of the country from “The Dried Witch”. Set in a conference on English literature happening in this imaginary Asian country, it implies that while Asians have carefully studied the English, as represented by their expert knowledge of their literature — when our protagonist, Celia, gives a lecture on Milton, one of the host professors presents a learned response — the English know almost nothing about the Asians and are mystified by all aspects of the host country. The title ends up becoming a rather clever pun, flipping a stereotype about Asians into one about how Westerners perceive them. However, using a made-up country naturally encourages the reader (the Western reader, at least) to see it as a stand-in for all of Asia, which seems a bit counterproductive — isn’t Byatt arguing that Westerners should know more about the specificity of Asian countries? — and in general she is more heavy-handed and obvious here than she usually is.
On the Day that E.M. Forster Died: Weird story about a middle-aged female writer who has an epiphany about writing a massive epic story of her times, in the vein of Dickens or Balzac, and then runs into an old acquaintance whose somewhat similar epiphany about devoting his life to art has now degenerated into madness. And then at the end she has cancer, just because. The description of Mrs. Smith’s thoughts about her project is quite interesting, and Conrad’s madness is convincing, but the end just seems to be needlessly malicious.
The Changeling: Another middle-aged writer, this one with a deep, long-lasting fear of, well, it’s not quite clear: the world, other people, life in general, something like that. She has managed, more or less, to sublimate her fear into her writing, constructing what looks, from the outside, like an almost-perfect life for herself, until she meets a young man, a student at a school run by a friend of hers, who has similar fears. The message of the story seems to be that what she most fears is being understood, and so rather than form a bond with this young man, she finds his existence (and uncanny resemblance to the hero of one of her own stories, the one who best incarnates her own fears) to be the most fearful thing of all. He can understand her, and so he can see through her carefully constructed life and the carefully constructed stories she uses to channel her fears, stories which she is no longer able to write. Or at least, cannot write until the news of his suicide arrives: once more safe, she can write again. It’s an interesting idea but I didn’t really believe it, because of the obvious differences between Josephine and Henry: most obviously, Henry is unable to overcome his fears and kills himself, while Josephine has managed, in some fashion, to overcome hers. Her life, she thinks, is not a true expression of her self, but that’s not entirely true: she was able to build it, and Henry can’t do the same, which must mean something.
In The Air: More about fear, this time the obsessive fear of the elderly Mrs. Sugden that she will be raped, probably while out walking her dog. The whole story is suffused with an air of menace, even though nothing much happens: Mrs. Sugden meets a blind woman of a similar age and a young unemployed man who has an odd manner, and they have tea. Is this because Barry, the man in question, is really a serial predator, on the lookout for old ladies living alone, or simply because it is filtered through Mrs. Sugden’s perceptions, and she is completely convinced that a rapist is coming for her? Naturally Byatt isn’t saying. Quite effective.
Precipice-uncurled: This will be more familiar to those who came to Byatt via “Possession” or her other, more historically-minded works. The story proceeds through layers, first a present-day scholar who is studying Robert Browning’s relationship with a woman who lived in Venice, then the woman, then Browning, and then the actual story of the story. However, Browning’s musings about the way he makes puppets of the people (most of them real) he writes about, in a story in which Byatt is doing the same thing to him (even better, doing it via another, imaginary, person, the scholar we start with), make the whole thing seem more like a story-writing exercise than a real story. It’s a well-executed exercise, however.
Sugar: the title story is an autobiographical one, I believe, and again a little too self-consciously self-reflective, as a meditation about the fallibility of memory in reconstructing the past, written by somebody who is using memory to reconstruct the past. Byatt/the narrator’s mother in particular, we are told, invented many of the stories that she used to tell her children about the family’s past, and now Byatt/the narrator, a fiction writer, is writing a story about it! The parallels are a bit too forceful, I feel. Still, even though the story doesn’t have anything new to say on the question of memory, it does give a good sketch of both of Byatt/the narrator’s parents, who are its main subject.

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Che scriva complessi ed esaltanti romanzi vittoriani, che scriva delicati racconti, la Byatt è una scrittrice che rasenta la perfezione.
Nell'uso del linguaggio, dove ogni parola è non solo al suo posto, ma assolutamente necessaria; nella delicata complessità delle trame, perfettamente equilibrate, vere, commoventi; nella descrizione dei personaggi che sono a tutto tondo anche nei racconti più brevi.
Una splendida lettura.

[Rowizyx · Rating 4 out of 5]

La Byatt è una delle mie autrici preferite ed è mancata qualche settimana fa, notizia che mi ha lasciato molta tristezza, anche per come hanno riportato la notizia i giornali italiani (la cosa più eclatante per loro è che dal suo romanzo più premiato, Possessione, avessero tratto un film con Gwyneth Paltrow. AH BEH). Mi è sembrata particolarmente crudele tanta superficialità nel linguaggio o nella stesura degli articoli con un'autrice che tanto si è spesa nella ricercatezza dell'uso delle parole per ricreare l'inglese vittoriano e non solo. In Possessione ci sono così tanti diari, lettere e lunghi poemi tutti inventati di sana pianta che ti fanno dubitare che siano davvero tutti suoi... ma ci hanno fatto un film con la Paltrow, è questo che conta.

Vabbeh, rant a parte, la notizia della sua morte mi ha portato a cercare in biblioteca qualcosa che mi mancava di lei, tipo copertina calda. Questo libro in particolare si può definire un "accrocco" voluto da Einaudi, che sceglie di prendere il primo racconto da una pubblicazione precedente, Zucchero, che è autobiografico (una rarità, conoscendo l'autrice), legandolo a racconti di un'altra raccolta invece dal tono lievemente sovrannaturale o fiabesco, molto legata agli elementi naturali.

Il risultato tuttavia è piacevole, come riconosce sorpresa l'autrice nella postfazione, perché alcune delle immagini che lei richiama nel raccontare la storia della sua famiglia e della morte del padre, che l'ha profondamente segnata (il nonno paterno vendeva dolci e lei ricorda la procedura per fare lo zucchero fondente) sono poi richiamate nella sinuosità di strani mostri della tradizione provenzale o nelle tonalità da mille e una notte del principe soffiatore di vetro che crea un palazzo con la sua arte per dare modo alla sua sposa di ghiaccio di sopravvivere nel suo caldo paese desertico. Come sempre la Byatt richiederebbe due, tre, dieci letture per forse arrivare a fondo delle immagini oniriche che ricrea, dimostrando la sua ampia cultura senza mai essere saccente e attingendo a vari mondi immaginifici per il suo scopo.

A me piace sempre da matti e mi è scesa un po' anche la lacrimuccia pensare che non produrrà più altro, quindi dovrò centellinarmi con saggezza quello che della sua produzione ancora mi manca (ho comprato su Amazon al volo alla notizia della sua morte Pavone e rampicante: Vita e arte di Mariano Fortuny e William Morris, che dovrebbe essere il suo ultimo libro, perché ne restavano disponibili un paio di copie), o consolarmi immergendomi per l'ennesima volta in Possessione o nell'ebook di Il libro dei bambini (Einaudi, vero che lo stampi in brossura, finalmente? Vero????).

Può non essere di facilissimo accesso ma è un'autrice che a me piace sempre moltissimo, se non si è ancora capito.

[Gemma Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit to being completely in awe of AS Byatt. I am always struck by her qualities of great, luminous intelligence, her keen eye, her amazing sense for detail, especially emotional detail. I wonder what it's like to be her and just be seeing so much and understanding so much! I get the sense of this incredibly rich inner life, so complex and layered and full of possibility. Reading her makes the world seem bigger and denser and brighter and more important. This wonderful book of short stories demonstrates a wide range of styles and moods, from witty ghost stories to precise, intimate memoir, from savage fable to the terrors of daily life. Byatt invests the smallest details with so much meaning that it points at living, and experiencing, in a deeper and more completely human manner.

[Laura McNeal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dazzling and almost cruelly erudite (if what you aspire to do is write stories), roaming over a great many subjects and places and times with equal confidence and stunning precision. My favorite story is the one that has, at its heart, a brief and piercing incident like the one in Chekhov's "The Kiss." When I staggered from that tour-de-force ("Precipice-Encurled") to "Racine and the Tablecloth," convinced she could not do it again in the same volume, I found I was wrong. Short stories are thought to be like cocktail parties, where you're always having to start over again, too soon, with a stranger, but if the writer is A.S. Byatt (or Chekhov or William Trevor) it's more like getting to have ten love affairs in a single week.

[Lisa Findley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every time I read Byatt, I find myself choosing my words more carefully for the hour or two after I put the book down. Her word choice is always so precise, and her tone so controlled yet revealing. I especially loved the title story, and the line "None of these words, none of these things recall him. The gold-winged, fire-haired figure in the doorway is and was myth, though he did come back, he was there, at that time, and I did make that leap." Perhaps my favorite description of the futility and necessity of words.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3616386.html

Stories from early in Byatt's career; I have previously read Possession, which I loved, and Babel Tower, which I did not. Two of these are ghost stories, most of them demonstrate a talent still coming together. I particularly liked the first one, “Racine and the Tablecloth”, about feminist liberation through boarding-school essays, and the last two, “Precipice-Encurled”, an exploration of Robert Browning à la Possession, and the clearly autobiographical “Sugar”. All very digestible.

[Dwheeler11 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories contains the underlying themes of fear, futility, and the uncertainty of life. As always, Byatt's prose is beautiful to read, but this collection leaves one with a sense of unease.

[Sara Engdall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved “In The Air”. I liked “Racine and The Tablecloth” and “The July Ghost”…..and basically hated the rest of them. Oh well.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complex and beautifully worded, this was a very uneven read for me. I enjoyed the first, "Racine and the Tablecloth," and last, "Sugar," most, with "On the Day that E.M. Forster Died" coming in third. I loathed "The Dried Witch." I prefer her long narratives much more, and look forward to getting to those I've missed.

[Gael Impiazzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read the first two stories then gave up. Very wordy, wasn't in the mood.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that makes me wish it were possible to use half-stars in rating it. It's a very uneven collection--certainly not a four-star book--but the best stories in it are good enough that three stars seems a bit paltry. Byatt's command of language is, as always, excellent, and I can only admire the way she seems to ignore all rules about story-making and to write only to please herself and work out her own ideas about fiction. The narrators of these stories are almost all intensely self-conscious; sometimes this self-consciousness works, but in other stories it's tedious.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite story in this collection is "The July Ghost," a poignant ghost story. It's not a genre that one associates with A.S. Byatt, but she's superb at rendering atmosphere, so it should really come as no surprise that she succeeds so well. Someone (I forget who) once said that all ghost stories are about loss. Case in point.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

sette racconti bellissimi, in cui le storie fanno da padrone e le parole sono evocative.

[Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can remember being part of the coterie that gasped with delight at the wonderful Possession, not long after it came out. This was as difficult to get through as the Booker Prize winning classic was a pleasure. Not sure why these stories are so consistently off-putting. The spiky main characters are generally the kind of thing which appeals to me. Something about the prose was a challenge; over and over again I would find myself pages into a story and realize I had to start over as I had no clue what was going on. So this ended up being a joyless chore of a read in many ways. Still, there are some pleasures here. The opener—"Racine and the Tablecloth"—is as deft an illustration of the low-grade war between an unimaginative teacher and a gifted but odd student as I have read in some time. "The July Ghost" was an unconventional ghost tale, though it didn't have a particularly compelling conclusion. Same goes for another ghost story, of a kind: "The Next Room." Here as in the concluding title tale, a female protagonist comes to terms with the passing of parents and the competition between myth and history in the construction of memory. "The Dried Witch" is a closely observed but all-too-predictable tale of village oppression of a sensitive crone. "The Changeling" is another somewhat meandering story of an older female mentor and a young student. The story closest to the material of Possession itself would be "Precipice-Encurled" (curious title) which swirls around a romance and some travels of Robert Browning in Italy. The shifting perspectives make it really hard to determine what's really at stake here. Perhaps the most effective work, qua story, is the tight little thriller "In The Air." An older woman walks her dog, feeling ill at ease with the possibilities of violence in the world; she meets a blind woman walking with her dog. And then a menacing young man with a knife. All three end up at tea at the blind woman's house with the threat of future mayhem. It's taut and for once the irresolution of the narrative seems to serve the tale well. Overall I wanted to like these stories better than I did on the strength of warm memories of Possession. Sadly, reading this has me worried that going back to the novel eventually will reveal it to be less compelling than remembered.

[fraigee · Rating 2 out of 5]

С Антонией Байетт у меня ещё со времен "Обладать" сложные отношения. Это хороший, наверное, роман, но какой-то, хочется сказать, нишевый. Бывают вот производственные романы про юристов или металлургов, а бывают - про филологов. И нефилологу мне в какой-то момент становится невыносимо это все читать, хочется взять героев за шкирку, оторвать жопы от стульев, носы от пыльных архивных писем и как-то предложить уже, не знаю, поговорить друг с другом (не о литературе!) или потрахаться, ну что-то, в общем, сделать, имеющее вес в физическом мире и в настоящем времени.

Вот и со сборником этим похожая история. Началось всё хорошо, а закончилось на середине книги, после десятка вторых шансов, когда уже очевидно, что развод или смерть.
Первый рассказ мне как-то запал в самое сердечко, и второй тоже был трогательный и понятный, и я все продолжала читать остальные в надежде не повторение, но его не случилось. После внезапной квази-фентезиной и довльно интересной "Сушеной ведьмы" потянулись рассказы про писательницу/филологиню средних лет, которая вот решилась на роман, а вот отправилась на конференцию, а вот встретилась со своим читателем. При этом у писательницы/филологини каждый раз оказывалось исчезающе мало интереса к кому-либо, кроме себя и своих книг, и в какой-то момент эгоцентричная топкость этих рассказов сделалась настолько невыносимой, что захотелось опять вот это всё: поднять, встряхнуть, и так далее.

Была у меня одна знакомая писательница, которая очень хотела со всеми общаться, но при этом абсолютно любой разговор виртуозно переводила на себя и свои творческие искания. И ведь писательница-то была хорошая, но, господи, сколько ж можно. Так вот, читать Байетт - как говорить с этой писательницей. Читаешь и кажется иной раз, мелькнуло что-то, какая-то близкая мысль, шанс вставить свои 50 копеек в разговор. Но, нет, опять показалось.

[ShellsReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult to give an overall rating to a book of short stories as some are nearly always more enjoyable than others. This is no exception. Personal preferences in identifying with the subject matter swayed me towards several which I enjoyed the most; The July Ghost, In the Air, Precipice-encurled, and Sugar.

The level of writing skill exhibited however is sustained throughout the collection. It reminds what a superlative writer AS Byatt is and that I must read more of her novels before like her my time runs out.

My only slight criticism is that one sometimes needs to reach quite high intellectually to fully understand her erudite references, and there were numerous places where words, phrases or entire poems were not in English or translated so unless you can read French (yes) or German (no) some meaning escapes ones grasp. Not clever.

If theme there be in this varied collection it appears to be about memory and the uncertainty of reported memory and its very fluid ever changing forms through time and iteration. Many of the stories were also about death in some way, through accident (Precipice-encurled) or disease (Sugar) or self inflicted (the Changeling). Many have some element of a drab downbeat lifestyle like that in ‘The Room next door’ or ‘Racine and the tablecloth’. Though there are upbeat moments and positivity the overall tone isn’t jolly and in some there is a lingering sense of menace (In the Air, The July Ghost).

Many short story collections take their title from the first story in the collection so it is interesting that Byatt has chosen to name this one after the final story Sugar. Almost as though she is saving the best, or perhaps most significant or personal to her, until last. The icing on the cake, the sugar.

Not an easy collection of stories, either to read or to contemplate, but undoubtedly memorable and what a classy writer.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sugar and Other Stories offers eleven stories by A.S. Byatt, all different. I found a few of them truly memorable — “The July Ghost,” “The Next Room,” “Loss of Face,” and “Sugar.” I would describe some of the stories as curious, or even disturbing, but I thought two of them were downright creepy (“The Dried Witch,” and “In the Air.”) As always, Byatt’s writing is exceptionally vivid, always draws you in, into such varied worlds.

[Melissa Hills · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories orbits the topics of death, connection, memory and stories. I learned quite a few new word to me. For instance: disquisition, condign and extrications. Those words can be found in pages 11 and 14. I stopped recording the rest, because it was making for slow going. Words unknown to me were peppered throughout the texts.

[K. Fox (Cahill) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these stories were misses for me but three of them stuck with me. Byatt’s novels are a million times better—she is so descriptive that every story deserves its own novel imo. Still one of my favorite authors.
Fave stories from this book-
The Dried Witch
The Changeling
In the Air (jaw still on floor)

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me, but at least I have read some AS Byatt finally .. unlikely to be doing it again any time soon.

She has a remarkably keen eye that is razor sharp in its defining of personality and character type however the prose is too heavy to create any kind of momentum other than fear. She's extraordinary at being able to portray fear and in many ways excite that sensation in her reader

[Ashleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love Byatt's very specific style and sense of place, you'll enjoy these vintage short stories. I found the collection a little uneven; the standouts for me were Racine and the Tablecloth, On the Day that E.M Forster Died, and The Changeling.

[Veronika Steff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Další kniha, na kterou moje angličtina prostě nestačila. S většinou povídek jsem se prala, ztrácela jsem se v tom, o čem jsou kdo jsou hlavní hrdinové.

Povídka, která se mi hodně líbila, se jmenovala June Ghost a byla o jednom chlapíkovi, který se nastěhuje jako podnájemník k jedné ženě a na její zahradě začne vídat kluka, o kterém se ukáže, že je duch syna paní domácí. Celkem jednoduchý nápad je dobře rozvinut do toho, jak duch ovlivňuje vztah mezi hrdinou a jeho domácí, jestli a jak by se jí dalo pomoci.

Stejně tak titulní povídka mě zaujala, kdy vypravěčka vypráví o své rodině, nejvíc by se chtěla věnovat dědečkovi, ale nevyhnutelně hovoří i o mnoha dalších členech. Co to znamená být rodinou, jak různé povahy ovlivňují vzájemné vztahy a jak je těžké nahlédnout, co se vlastně v minulosti stalo, když jediné svědectví, co máme, je zabarveno příbuzenskými brýlemi.

Povídka Racine and the Tablecloth mi připomněla Nejlepší léta slečny Jean Brodieové nebo také Hodiny, i kdyý v téhle bylo zoufalství snad ještě větší.

Ráda si od autorky přečtu něco dalšího, ale příště rozhodně sáhnu po překladu.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy Byatt's short fiction much more than her novels. Perfectly formed, and they stick in my head for years.