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Such comparisons are not really very useful 'any. way. Except, perhaps, to make clear that these novâ€" els are not like Danielle Steele‘s or Jeffrey Archer‘s. Byatt‘s work is finely detailed, and it follows the movement of the emotions, rather than car chases or elaborate plot lines. Byatt‘s latest book is A Private View. That private view is of the emotional life of a man, George Bland. The novel follows closely his internal life and his difficulties as he retires from his job. His best friendâ€"with whom he had planned to travel in their retirementâ€"has just died, and he is at loose People often compare A.S. Byatt‘s novels to Jane Austen‘s. The comparison puzzles me. Jane Austen writes with a great deal of wit and clever observaâ€" tion of the people in her closed social circle. Byatt, it is true, writes the "novel of manners." She too writes about a small social circleâ€"and she observes it in close detail. She is more compassionâ€" ate than Austen, though, and not nearly as witty. Tmh hard work and selfâ€"denial, Bland has chi a respectability and financial security in ondon, England, which were not part of his early ife and expectations. He is beginning to feel, hough, that these have been earned at the expense f "living." To be or not to beâ€"flamboyant? When he looks back on his life, he regrets never aving risked anythingâ€"never having been swept way by anything. He has lived carefullyâ€"and he inds that he now bitterly regrets the adventures he as not had. He is profoundly weary of being dutiâ€" ul. Bland has constructed an orderly life, with occaâ€" ional small treats (like sweet food and strong tea) ind with occasional affairs which are not to be poken of. The woman he loved finally went off ind married someone else because he never could make up his mind to marry her. Bland longs for a more colorful life, for someâ€" hing to test himself against. He aches to live, in the ace of his slowly deteriorating strength and in the iftermath of his friend‘s death. SERVICE! RESULTS! SATISFACTION! He sounds as interesting as drying paint, doesn‘t e? And yet he is endearing. We do care about his truggles and about what will happen to him. We isten to what he says about himself and about ther people. For instance, he decides that he espects the aging women around him who work ard to keep up appearances. Bland realizes that he was "cast in an ancient ind no doubt false mould" where women are defâ€" rential to men and grateful for attention, where omen smile and are sweetly polite. AWN CARE Bland struggles with her bad manners, her casual dress, her extravagance, even her liesâ€"and preâ€" dictablyâ€"falls in love with her. Time after time, we watch him make a fool of himself, What makes him interesting is that he knows he is making a fool of himself, but he cannot seem to help it. The clash between New Age flamboyance and the old ways of dignity and decency teeters on the edge of tragedy for everyoneâ€"but catches itself in the last sentence of the novel. We are left with a question: what matters most? Living a colorful and exaggerated existence or preâ€" serving dignity, decency and politeness? Byatt‘s thoughtful portrait of this man is a refreshing change from the television sitcom "psychology" where a person‘s life problems all get solved neatly in half an hour! Into his life and into the middle of those ideas about women comes a young woman named Katy Gibb. She simply appears in his building, needing a place «w stay, and he lets her use the flat across the hall which he is looking after while the tenants are away. And that is only his first breach of discreâ€" tion. Bland . . . reflected that the girl possessed an unusual gift: she brought everyone to the brink of bad behavior, simply by dint of behaving rather badly herself. One vied for her attention; one raised one‘s voice; one exaggerated one‘s own presence. However much one longed to maintain one‘s usual standards, within a few minutesâ€"half an hour at the mostâ€"this was mysteriously no longer possible. Those standards make up an elaborate code of behavior, and they matter to Bland and to the peoâ€" ple around him. Katy Gibb flaunts that code. She has been in America, in California, where she has worked with a New Age counsellor. She insists that a person must live "openly," must tell everyone everything, must brag about accomplishmentsâ€" that is the way to freedom and to full life. Judith Miller is Associate Professor of English at Renison College at University of Waterloo. o 0 0 a a a a 0 0 e e a 0 o o e 0 0 6 0 6 0 6 0 6 0 6 0 o o o o o n o o Includes Chorce of Mashed Potatoes. Fnes or Rice: Nege of the Day. 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