An act of betrayal

Byatt’s latest novel is an ambitious work that relives the end of the Victorian era in search of an explanation for World War I. What it finds, as well as delivers, is betrayal.

The Children’s Book by AS Byatt
Publisher: Chatto & Windus / ISBN: 9780701183905 / Price: R300.00

The Children’s Book, as indicated by the title, is about children and childhood. It begins when two boys, Tom Wellwood and Julian Cain, find a third boy, Philip Warren, squatting in the South Kensington Museum. This sets the scene for an intricate exploration of British society, and in particular the family unit, in the years leading up to World War I.

As one might expect, with this epic vision behind it, Byatt’s latest novel is nothing if not ambitious. It begins in 1895 as Philip is introduced to the Wellwood family and then apprenticed to volatile master craftsman Benedict Fludd. It follows these characters, their families and their acquaintances until 1915, when the war has decimated the British male population.

There is a common theme of children betrayed by the adults who love them and are supposed to protect them. These betrayals are sometimes inadvertent and unforeseen, sometimes the product of the passions and, most often, the result of pure selfishness. This theme is set against the cascade of events which led up to World War I, which, it is implied, was the selfish betrayal of one generation by another, too.

Its vision is its downfall. The Booker Prize-shortlisted The Children’s Book is perhaps too ambitious. It boasts what Publisher’s Weekly describes as an “unaccountably large cast”, and a web of plots and sub-plots interwoven with historical fact. This web and the characters caught in it could have filled out four or five different novels, in which the author might have paid more attention to the themes, the characters and the intricacies of plot.

Yet, The Children’s Book remains undeniably intriguing. Each of Byatt’s novels possesses the same compelling mix of intellect, empathy and insight, tracing themes such as the distinction between art and reality from one work to the other. In her latest work, the author’s preoccupations are thankfully not drowned by the scope of the task, only diluted. There can be no question why the novel was shortlisted for the Commonwealth’s most prestigious literary award, just as there can be no question why it lost.

If you enjoyed this book, you should read: other books by A.S. Byatt, including Bable Tower and The Biographer’s Tale, but not Possession; as well as other Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novels, particularly Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (the winner) and Summertime by J.M. Coetzee.