Fiction: The Children’s Book

FICTION

In a 2003 piece for The New York Times, Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt questioned the merit of the Harry Potter series. Her basic argument: Young-adult novels like these are safe, comfortable, and lacking in what she refers to as "a compensating seriousness . . . a real sense of mystery, powerful forces, dangerous creatures in dark forests."

Given this, it's not hard to read Byatt's latest novel, "The Children's Book," as a veiled response to the supposed "faults" of literature that addresses the trials of adolescence and young adulthood in a light-hearted and adventuresome manner. For a novel so entrenched in the subject of fairy tales, "The Children's Book" is consumed by seriousness -- the kind of deadly seriousness that, we sometimes forget, is an essential part of growing up.

Byatt's writing, with its captivating sense of language and narrative, continually evokes traditional 19th-century English storytelling. This latest work is no different. It begins, fittingly, in the Victorian era with an introduction to a series of families whose lives and children we follow over the course of almost 700 pages. There are the Wellwoods, whose materfamilias is the children's author Olive Wellwood; the Fludds, a family of artists and artisans; the Cains, whose patriarch Prosper heads up a division of the British Museum; as well as their various associates and acquaintances.

But the early years of midsummer festivals soon segue into more serious business, as the children of these clans spiral outward into the world and embark on their own captivating journeys. We witness Philip Warren evolve from a stowaway in the British Museum into a master potter; Dorothy Wellwood stumble upon family secrets that call into question her entire existence; Charles/Karl Wellwood become interested in late-19th-century socialism and anarchy; Julian Cain endure the rigors of British academic life; and more. Then there's Tom Wellwood, Olive's beloved son, whose descent into melancholy, aimlessness, and apathy serve to remind us that adolescence isn't always a magical and thrilling adventure.

As with most fairy tales, there's darkness in these pages. Except the "powerful forces" and "dangerous creatures" turn out to be not the stuff of fantasy but the all-too-destructive threats of the real world: illicit desires, physical and emotional abuse, sweeping political and social movements; and World War I -- whose mechanized slaughter acts as a horrible final gantlet for these children in their mad dash through life.

The realities of growing up, of fleshing out one's place in the world, of realizing not only who one is but who one's parents really are -- these are the themes at work in "The Children's Book." And they're what make it not only a fascinating literary achievement, but a more genuine look at young adulthood than any teenage wizards could hope to provide.

Zak M. Salih is a freelance writer who lives in Washington.