Anyhew, Both Byatt and her sister, Margaret Drabble, seem to write a lot about solipsism and love - how all love is self-love on some level. (I am not jazzed about what Drabble I have read, because she makes this statement too emphatically, and I just do not buy it.) I think, maybe, at it is core, BT is about love, about some love other than romantic love.