The Matisse Stories

Acclaim for A. S. BYATT’S

The Matisse Stories

“Brilliant. … Byatt’s fiction, like Matisse’s art, pays close attention to colors and contours of surfaces, then probes beneath them to reveal further surprises.” — Newsday “Wonderful. … Like the best of Matisse’s works, these stories are luminous and illuminating.” — Miami Herald “A. S. Byatt’s three-tale sequence hits the imagination’s retina with all the vibrant splatter of an exploding paintbox. … Everywhere, scenes sizzle with chromatic intensity.” — The Sunday Times (London) “A writer of dazzling inventiveness.” — Time “These stories are multi-layered … and thought-provoking. … Byatt has achieved the result she wanted—a book that is every bit as rich and sensual as a painting by Matisse.” — San Diego Union-Tribune “Exquisite triptych. … The Matisse Stories is richly drawn and touches upon things that matter to people.” — People “Byatt exuberantly plays with the language of color, using it to establish a mood and, like a painter, to draw the reader into a carefully arranged scene.” — L.A. Reader

BOOKS BY A. S. BYATT

FICTIONThe Shadow of the Sun

The Game The Virgin in the Garden

Still Life

Sugar and Other Stories

Possession: A Romance

Angels and Insects

The Matisse Stories

Babel Tower

The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye

Elementals

The Biographer’s TaleCRITICISMDegrees of Freedom:

The Novels of Iris MurdochUnruly Times:

Wordsworth and Coleridge in Their TimePassions of the Mind:

Selected WritingsImagining Characters (with Ignês Sodré)

A. S. BYATT’S

The Matisse Stories

A. S. Byatt is the author of the novels Possession (winner of the Booker Prize in 1990), The Game, and the sequence The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, and Babel Tower. She has also written two novellas, published together as Angels and Insects, and four collections of shorter works, including The Matisse Stories and The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. Educated at Cambridge, she was a senior lecturer in English at University College, London, before becoming a full-time writer in 1983. A distinguished critic as well as a novelist, she lives in London.

For Peter

Who taught me to look at things slowly.

With love.

Contents

Medusa’s AnklesArt WorkThe Chinese Lobster

Lachevelure, 1931-32

Medusa ’s Ankles