Word: morpho
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Byatt's recent book, Angels and Insects, is a somewhat uneven pairing of two novellas. The first, "Morpho Eugenia," is a feast for naturalists. This story's butterflies and ants provide the insects of the book's title, while "The Conjugial Angel," the second and weaker novella, is organized around seances, and of course provides the title's angels. Both stories are set against the backdrop of Victorian England's exploration of the natural and supernatural world; shipwreck and return play important roles in both stories; and both shift between two lines of narration: in "Morpho Eugenia" it is between...
...Morpho Eugenia" will satisfy readers of Possession, Byatt's prize-winning last novel. It is the story of William Adamson, a naturalist back from a decade of butterfly collecting in the Amazon who marries into the family of his aristocratic patron. Detailed accounts of ant colonies benefit from Byatt's richly detailed descriptive style, and the life of the ants provides a strong counterpoint to the life of her human characters. Indeed, she is often at her strongest when describing the ants...
...friend and her fiance, and the subject of the poet's In Memoriam) move through Byatt's pages alongside the mediums Sophy Sheekhy and Lilias Papagay (the latter being the widow of the briefly-glimpsed Captain Papagay who sails William Adamson off to the Amazon at the end of "Morpho Eugenia"). The passage concerning the Tennysons and Hallam seem little more than recitations of literary history, the passages from In Memoriam are poorly integrated into the body of the text, and Emily and Alfred seem less alive than their fictional companions, seeming to have no existence outside of their mourning...
Throughout the book, Byatt immerses her readers in the social mores and concerns of the mid-nineteenth century, resembling her nineteenth century predecessors perhaps more than she does other twentieth-century authors. Despite the frustrations of "The Conjugial Angel," "Morpho Eugenia" makes Byatt's latest effort worth reading, and a welcome respite from the pressures of post-modernity...