Today I am recycling a post from 2 years ago today, featuring two British writers. The reasons are various: on the pragmatic side I had to finish two articles yesterday and was wiped out after that. On the substantive side my thoughts were drawn to Great Britain – never mind Trump’s visit. I had been reading about instances of expressed anti-semitism in England and was reminded of a rather unsettling experience there. We spent a sabbatical in Cambridge, UK, when the boys were little, 5 and 2 respectively. We rented a flat from a Jewish couple, rather well to do, who invited us for afternoon tea on their estate, my towheads in tow. Watching them play, our hostess remarked “Good, they’re blonde, you won’t have any trouble.”  I leave it at that.

Here are Byatt and Drabble:

We can be short today: there will be no meeting with the women I’d like to talk to. They are beyond mediation – not that I’d be daring to offer that given the depth of the abyss between them. You have probably heard of each of them, after all they are both famous, justly prize winning writers, and some of their books have been made in to successful movies. (Possession – see review here http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/possession-2002 for one, The Waterfall for the other.)

Yes, I am talking of A.S. Byatt and Margaret Drabble, sisters known as much for their incredible gift as their unending feud. I just don’t get it  – yes, there was favoritism of one at home, yes there was a pushy mother making achievement into a competitive sport, yes, they both chose the same métier. But going to war over the use of a familial tea-set as a prop in one of your novels? Depriving yourself of the shared memories of childhood that bring such comfort in later years? Condemning each other for unfair reckoning with your parents in your novels?  Their loss. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8632911/Margaret-Drabble-Its-sad-but-our-feud-is-beyond-repair.html

I like to read them both, but am partial to Drabble, since she got to me early and in formative years when it came to feminism. Where Byatt seduces with a vivid, colorful narrative explosion, Drabble goes sparse but deep into psychological exploration. I still consider The Millstone a seminal book. Motherhood was never described more accurately within a feminist context.

(Review here:https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/15/the-millstone-the-crucial-1960s-feminist-novel)