A.S.Byatt has died, and — as a result — I’ve just read this quote from her (c/o @DrJamesJBailey on X):
I remember sitting down and thinking: I am terribly depressed and this cannot go on. And then I thought: You can kill yourself or you can get interested in absolutely everything. I read the newspaper every day; I read scientific books and geographical books and historical books and books in other languages, as well as the books that professionally I had to read, and suddenly the world became wonderful. There are two bits of it — one of it is one’s bad memories and the other is all the amazing things — and there are amazing things.
What a truth.
Worth rereading a few times.
My memories of Antonia are of her curiosity — about the person she was speaking to, about what they knew about the world that she didn’t. I met her perhaps six or eight times, each delightful. She was the person you wanted to be seated next to, at the literary dinner. She was the centre of proper, informed conversation, at the launch party.
A few months ago, I wrote her a thank you card. I’m not sure why. I saw a beautiful card I thought she’d like, bought it, wrote it, sent it. All in a day. I think I had the suspicion she might be unwell. I was aware of other people — writers — I felt indebted to that I’d failed to thank, before they died.
Because of her curiosity, and maybe just because she was a good sort, A.S.Byatt was more concerned with, and more helpful towards, younger writers and artists than the majority of her generation. Quite a few of them made a false virtue out of not really looking around, not ever looking down.
One of them, on a shared taxi ride through King’s Lynn, once said to me, ‘I’m sorry, Toby, but I’m never going to read your books — you’re too young.’ Subsequently, their publicist sent me proof copies of their next four book, hoping for a quote. I was always tempted to return them with, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m never going to read your books — you’re too old.’
Of course, I never did.
Because I have no prejudice against reading those older or younger than me. I feel equally guilty whenever I meet a writer, junior or senior, whose work I haven’t read. I even feel guilty about not reading taxi-writer’s books.
I haven’t been sufficiently curious.
(Possession is a wonderful book, and I wrote at least one novel in the self-delusion I wasn’t copying it.)
There are amazing things.