{"id":7054,"date":"2007-09-20T08:55:45","date_gmt":"2007-09-20T12:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7054"},"modified":"2015-05-30T13:20:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-30T17:20:56","slug":"experiments-in-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7054","title":{"rendered":"A.S. Byatt: “experiments in life”"},"content":{"rendered":"

AS Byatt’s must-read essay<\/a> on George Eliot’s Middlemarch<\/a>\"\"<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Excerpt:<\/p>\n

When I was younger it was fashionable to criticise Eliot for writing from a god’s eye view, as though she were omniscient. Her authorial commenting voice appeared old-fashioned. It was felt she should have chosen a limited viewpoint, or written from inside her characters only. I came to see that this is nonsense. If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work – as a novelist. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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