Just finished A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book. I am not sure what I can say yet, except to say things that seem banal and nonsensical next to the pure beauty and scope of this quite amazing novel. From the first page to the last, I felt that this book had been written for me. Every character seemed a character that I wanted to know and know well. Every desire and folly that they possessed seemed dictated by my own desires and follies, somehow. The setting was no small part of this sense of belonging, being the second half of a period of culture that I am utterly fascinated by, the late Victorian and Edwardian Bohemians.

Byatt portrayed them as I have always wanted to see them portrayed, flawed and beautiful, caught in a net of their art, unable to entirely mesh with the world.

I am fascinated by Bohemia of all periods, I find, because I was raised by Bohemians. I know what it is to be the child of people who value the arts and intellect and the natural world around you. I watched my parents struggle against conformity, and often lose the battle, the effect of which was damaging beyond repair. The children of Byatt's novel are also children of Bohemians, or children who wander into the milieu, and must deal with the insanity, folly, and benign neglect of their parents. I found myself relating strongly to these children's lives and decisions, as they grow and try to find their own way through the world.

Byatt's descriptions of the Bohemian lifestyle are, at first, idyllic. They drew me in and made me want to be a part of that world even more than I already do. Even as she showed that world's flaws and quagmires, I still wanted it. I want it now, as I type this. I look around me in my life and see my small attempts to clothe myself in parts of that world, the few that I can resurrect in this future age, and it is enough, it must satisfy me.

A thought occurs to me as I type this: I believe I feel now as I did the first time I read Oscar Wilde's works, that long ago time, when I was fourteen. Reading his complete works cover to cover, copying bits of his poems into a notebook, recognizing a kindred spirit in this man of another time. That was my first draw towards that Aesthetic dreamworld, full of swirling organic patterns and beautiful maidens with drooping heads like blossoms, smiling sadly. Byatt has rekindled that feeling for me, that need to be in that world, to turn a corner, walk through a door, and find myself in a whitewashed room hung in embroideries, with wooden settles and embroidered cushions and beautiful pottery everywhere.

Of course, as I say, she does draw a stick through the reflection in the pool, disturbing this perfect vision of beauty, and it is that which makes the dreamworld real, and makes me want it even more. I want to know these people, I want to live their lives, no matter how sad, how disturbed or frightening they are. The world is real and alive and sends out siren calls to me from every page.

I am posting this without editing it, I want these thoughts to be fresh and clear, not muddied by too much thought. I will at some point be ready to discuss the novel in a more precise and intellectual way, but that time is not now. Now I will simply bask and revel in the glimpse through the glass of time it has given me to a world that I love.