ABSTRACT
It is the seriousness o f Byatt’s approach which is attractive, her conviction that one purpose o f fiction is still to teach us how to live, by refining our perceptions and deepening our understanding o f human nature and society. She is too intelligent to set up crude opposites, to find virtue exclusively in one way o f life, but, while admitting the attractions o f the new, she allows us to see where it is defective; and so sets the conditions for a criticism o f social change. She is a writer whose capacity to interest is greater than her ability to delight. She is didactic and long-winded; she has little sense o f structure and no elegance. But her novels are nevertheless im pressive,. discussible objects, invaluable to an understanding o f English life and culture.
