The Biographer's Tale by A S Byatt

The Biographer's Tale

A S Byatt

A postgraduate student chooses to change direction and search for 'facts' in the life of the obscure biographer of an obscure explorer. If you are already a fan of A S Byatt's challenging (convoluted?) novels this will be for you - but - if you haven't come across her before - this is probably not the book to try first.

Extract
I have admitted I am writing a story, a story which in a haphazard (aleatory) way has become a first-person story, and, from being a story of a search told in the first person, has become I have to recognise - a first-person story proper, an autobiography. I detest autobiography. Slippery, unreliable, and worse, imprecise.
Parallels
  • The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
  • The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher
  • Possession by A S Byatt
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Explicit sexual content