Still Life
Frederica goes up to Cambridge in the mid-fifties, into examinations, parties and men, while her sister Stephanie keeps house for a curate in a Yorkshire parish with an infant, a mother-in-law and no hour of her own. Van Gogh's letters from Arles run underneath, and with them Byatt's declared experiment: to name things plainly, without metaphor. The second panel of the quartet, and the one where the experiment visibly breaks down, which the narration stops to admit.
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Lineage
- continues ↑ The Virgin in the Garden
- ↓ Babel Tower
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Closest analogues
- 57% · 14 shared
- 57% · 13 shared
- 57% · 13 shared
- 57% · 12 shared
- 53% · 11 shared
- 51% · 11 shared