Quotation of the day

    "The Booker is designed to make people cross with one another."

    Margaret Drabble.

She goes on, "Look what it did to Martin Amis and Julian Barnes. In the mid-eighties, I thought it was getting out of hand and how right I was. That was before my sister won [for Possession in 1990]."

The full interview with Dame Margaret (mother of lovely Joe!) is here.

Comments

[Barbara]

How interesting! You never know who might be reading this but I will still say that I much prefer Margaret Drabble's books to her sister's. I haven't liked the recent ones much but Jerusalem the Golden (which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize) is a rite of passage book which I've now read so many times I know paragraphs of it off by heart. So, people who are put off, try the early books.

[Cornflower]

I have A Summer Bird-Cage, The Realms of Gold and The Radiant Way, but I haven't read them for years so should perhaps pick them up again. I like the sound of her short story collection.

[Jane Gray]

Just read the whole article and it was fascinating; difficult to think of A.S. Byatt as Sue though. I think I might have 'accidentally' spilled my coffee on the waiter's hand after the housewife comment!
Like you, I have been inspired by her 'new' collection of short stories to dig out and re-read my Margaret Drabble books.

[Cornflower]

I agree, 'Sue' doesn't sound like ASB!

[Margaret Powling]

Put it this way ... I struggled with A S Byatt's books and gave up, and I struggled to enjoy but completed Margaret Drabble's Radian Way trilogy. Today I realize that life is too short to stuggle with books that one doesn't HAVE to read and I'd put the two sisters into that category. As for calling Antonia "Sue", it would like calling the Queen "Lizzie"!

[Sandy]

I agree with Margaret Powling here because there are so many great books still out there, so why waste time with the ones in the 'beating the head off the wall' group.

Possession was my 1st book written by either sister and I was captivated by it. I have read it several times at different speeds and concentrartion levels and still would include it in my top ten all time list.

Thereafter I tried hard with others by AS Byatt and also Margaret Drabble. But for some reason, I could not get absorbed in the same way. So I have moved on ...

[Cornflower]

I loved Possession, and enjoyed The Matisse Stories ( http://cornflower.typepad.com/domestic_arts_blog/2007/01/colour_rush.html ), but apart from The Children's Book, that's all the ASB I've read. (The Virgin in the Garden has been sitting on the shelf, unopened, for a very long time).

[Simon T]

Thanks so much for linking to this article, Karen, I really enjoyed reading it - despite not having read anything by Drabble yet. I'm accumulating them, though!