What does Byatt have against her readers?

I don't mind that "The Children's Book" includes the requisite ballroom scene with all the tropes of the convention, the girl who for the first time realizes she is beautiful and can dance the night away, the wallflower unasked, the young man who ends up dancing with his mother/sister, the older man flirting with the much younger partner, the intrigue about who's written in who's "book," who will sit were during the break for "refreshments." What makes it fresh in "The Children's Book." I guess that one of the men is gay and looks longingly at one of the other guys - you don't find that in Austen, Tolstoy, et al. But what doesn't make it fresh is the incredibly stilted conversation - is there a writer with a worse ear for dialogue than A.S. Byatt? If there ever were characters who spoke as if they were "in a book," they'd be hers. Then we go to "after the ball," when the characters at home reflect on the evening, and then something strange and disturbing happens, as Humphry makes a pass at his supposed daughter Dorothy, and as she rebuffs him (biting him) he tells her she's not actually his daughter (which we've known all along). This is kind of interesting, and what will Byatt make of this? For one thing, I think it's ridiculous how solicitous Dorothy is toward his feelings. For another - instead of building on this conflict, Byatt more or less erases it, having Dorothy and others decamp for Germany. It's OK that she might want to get away from her crazy family and monster "father," but is that really good for the story of this langourous, sprawling novel? What does Byatt have against her readers? And what does she have against adult men, anyway? They're all horrible in this book, in their different ways, though the young men are all nice - what happens to them when they get older?