Synopsis
In this witty, Borges-like novel, A.S. Byatt weaves a dazzling fiction out of one man's search for fact. Fed up with stultifying criticism, Phineas G. decides to study the messiness of 'real life'. Doing nothing by halves he sets out to write a biography of a great biographer. But a 'whole life' is hard to find. How do we put the idea of a person together? Everywhere he looks he finds fragments and gaps: disconnected typescripts, bones and husks, boxes of marbles, collections of photographs. Trials run cold and mysteries are unsolved. Phineas feels he is hunting shadows. Like a shaman flying across he globe, his mind tracks the journeys of his subjects to the desert of Africa and the maelstroms of the Arctic, where the shapes of myth meet the patterns of science. He meets others building wholes from bits and pieces: taxonomists, ecologists, even travel agents offering the trip of your dreams. In the process he also puzzles out his own future - but which woman will guide him out of the labyrinth?
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The Biographer's Tale
Published by
Chatto & Windus, London, 2000
ISBN 10: 0701171456
ISBN 13: 9780701171452
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: A Good Read, Toronto, ON, Canada
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. A Good Read ships from Toronto and Niagara Falls, NY - customers outside of North America please allow two to three weeks for delivery. ; Remainder mark on bottom edge. First impression.; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" Tall. Seller Inventory # 46709