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lucilfer's review
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
muuske's review
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.0
deegee24's review
4.0
The Game is about a difficult relationship between two sisters, one a successful fiction writer and the other an academic scholar at Oxford. Their mutual hostility escalates when a man from their past reenters their lives. He is the host of a nature show on TV, a David Attenborough type. The main characters are all intellectuals and they care very deeply about metaphysics, altruism and the ethics of literary and artistic representation. It's kind of like Margaret Atwood but with less sex. The book is clearly modelled on Byatt's own relationship with her sister, Margaret Drabble, who had earlier written another novel about two rival sisters, A Summer Bird-Cage. It's also notable for Byatt's description of a fantasy role playing game using maps and figurines, years before Dungeons & Dragons came out.
maenad_wordsmith's review
My students are reading a short excerpt from A.S. Byatt's Possession, which I read and loved five years ago. I thought I might check out another book by Byatt instead of rereading all of Possession. While I did like The Game--it offered insights into relationships between women, some beautiful sections of prose ("I keep chasing metaphors. Out of a desire for an impossible unity"), and a great love of Arthurian Romance--it wasn't as good as Possession. So, I may reread Possession after all.
camilleisreading24's review
3.0
I was looking forward to reading this book for over a year, but I found it to be the least enjoyable book I've read from Byatt. Some of the same themes that arise in the later 'Angels and Insects' are apparent here since the central characters are two sisters in rivalry for the attention of naturalist and herpetologist, Simon. I was hoping the tale would be more of a fantasy concerning the titular Game and the imaginative realm. However, the tale deals only with the rather upsetting side effects of spending too much time obsessing over the imaginary. The prison of women in the domestic sphere is at the forefront here. The thesis for this book is certainly interesting and resonant, but I didn't particularly like Cassandra or Julia, which made their enmity more obscure.
batbones's review against another edition
4.0
A strange novel that encircles and returns again and again to its themes before closing in slowly on an unexpected conclusion. Repeated obsession, derangement, estrangement, the separation of bodies from other earthly attachments run through the minds of characters which may seem different at first glance but who are ultimately concerned with how they (and in abstraction, people) connect with and relate to each other, and who and what they are attached to. Proximity proves the capacity for both intimacy and harm. This double-edged promise-threat is intermittently expressed, withheld, embraced, recoiled from but it never loses its fatal attraction. (This may seem like a striking observation at first, but then one becomes reminded that life experience itself is sufficient for us to know that.) I think it is that very thing which drives the characters finally to their own endings.
While the tone of the story and its characters didn't interest me as much as I had liked to be interested in them, one feels obligated to credit and admire Byatt's psychological acumen as she exhibits and explores them in their tortured complexity. She differentiates and pins down their yearnings, doubts, fears and shortcomings in the manner of a vivisectionist. The effect - sympathetic yet merciless - is reminiscent of Iris Murdoch's examination of her characters' morality, actions and culpability in her own novels.
Her capacity for psychological intensity is wonderfully matched with her intelligence. As in many of her novels, a certain subject/topic is evoked (medieval literature and iconography is this one's), which is then explored in considerable depth, and slowly expanded in ripples until the whole novel feels like a web of ideas, each point delicately and discernibly linked to another, trembling in their resonance. One anticipates to be educated by her works, and I have yet to be disappointed. The only dissatisfaction I felt was that, as reader, I was unable to meet the story at the level it deserved, since many of its references went over my head. That lack, however, always seems to be a promise rather than a reprimand, an olive branch held there for the reader willing to do what it takes to grasp it, the proffering of a reward yet to be attained, something there waiting to be known.
While the tone of the story and its characters didn't interest me as much as I had liked to be interested in them, one feels obligated to credit and admire Byatt's psychological acumen as she exhibits and explores them in their tortured complexity. She differentiates and pins down their yearnings, doubts, fears and shortcomings in the manner of a vivisectionist. The effect - sympathetic yet merciless - is reminiscent of Iris Murdoch's examination of her characters' morality, actions and culpability in her own novels.
Her capacity for psychological intensity is wonderfully matched with her intelligence. As in many of her novels, a certain subject/topic is evoked (medieval literature and iconography is this one's), which is then explored in considerable depth, and slowly expanded in ripples until the whole novel feels like a web of ideas, each point delicately and discernibly linked to another, trembling in their resonance. One anticipates to be educated by her works, and I have yet to be disappointed. The only dissatisfaction I felt was that, as reader, I was unable to meet the story at the level it deserved, since many of its references went over my head. That lack, however, always seems to be a promise rather than a reprimand, an olive branch held there for the reader willing to do what it takes to grasp it, the proffering of a reward yet to be attained, something there waiting to be known.
mkinne's review
4.0
Byatt's 2nd novel and while it has some of her signature moves, it lacks her later mastery & finesse. I wanted to hear more about the game itself and I felt like the relationship triangle and the deep connection between Cassandra and Julia both could have been ... clearer, I guess; I suppose there was more telling than showing with both. Still, an interesting read!
cluelesspixie's review
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I expected more from this book. There are so many interesting elements and backstory hints that are not elaborated on at all. Also this book expects that you have a fairly deep knowledge of the Arthurian legend, which is unfortunate. Same with literature, but I expect that from a book by Byatt. I'd have happily foregone half of the allusions in exchange for some fleshing out of the characters. Still, it's thought-provoking and it will grab your attention. I hated the characters but then that's their point.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Rape, and Suicide
charlottesometimes's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
pbandgee's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5