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Loading... Possession: A Romance (original 1990; edition 1991)by A.S. Byatt
Work InformationPossession by A.S. Byatt (1990)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This was a difficult read but I'm glad I made it through. I would characterize it as a literary romantic mystery. Two literature scholars work together to determine if two Victorian poets had an otherwise unknown romance, using letters, journals and poems to discover the truth. Some of what made it difficult for me included the poems (many quite long, covering multiple pages), which included some clues (and to be completely honest I did not completely read every poem...) and also the fact that while the scholars lived in the 80's, the way they talked made me think they were also from the Victorian era. The mystery was worth it though, and the author managed to include some suspense by arranging a bit of UK/US competition over the rights to the discovery. Just couldn't make it through this one. Felt a bit like mental masturbation to start with. I just couldn't get a feel for the characters and the plot seemed to be stagnating. I made it more than half way through, so it isn't like I didn't give it a chance. I have too many other books to read to waste my time with this one. I loved this book when I read it, but it did not hold up to a reread (for me at least). Byatt's evocation of nineteenth-century literature is genius, and the epistolary passages at the heart of the book were very enjoyable to reread. However, the mystery / satire / melodrama, while fun and engaging the first time through, wasn't meaty enough to capture my attention this time around. As a novel of ideas, it may have more going on than I give it credit for; I wasn't in the mood to think deeply about literary criticism and cultural paradigms. Instead I wanted complex characters and that's really not what this book is trying to do.
This is a romance, as the subtitle suggests, but it's a romance of ideas — darkly intricate Victorian ideas and modern academic assembly-line ideas. The Victorian ideas get the better of it. Shrewd, even cutting in its satire about how literary values become as obsessive as romantic love, in the end, “Possession” celebrates the variety of ways the books we possess come to possess us as readers. I won't be so churlish as to give away the end, but a plenitude of surprises awaits the reader of this gorgeously written novel. A. S. Byatt is a writer in mid-career whose time has certainly come, because ''Possession'' is a tour de force that opens every narrative device of English fiction to inspection without, for a moment, ceasing to delight. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inHas the adaptationHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
As a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets uncover their letters, journals, & poems, & trace their movements from London to Yorkshire-and from spiritualist seances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany-an extraordinary counterpoint of passions & ideas emerges. An exhilarating novel of wit and romance, an intellectual mystery, and a triumphant love story. This tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets became a huge bookseller favorite, and then on to national bestellerdom. Winner of England's Booker Prize, a coast-to-coast bestseller, and the literary sensation of the year, Possession is a novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and a triumphant love story. Revolving around a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets, Byatt creates a haunting counterpoint of passion and ideas. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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What my compulsion could not have been due to is any kind of stakes, which I felt were practically non-existent. True, the main characters have minor personal issues to work out but it does seem as if they could carry on as-is without great harm. It also seems as though their discoveries will be preserved and shared for posterity no matter whose hands they fall into, so there's no threat there. I was forced to face the fact that I was being drawn in by the same snoopy eagerness as the modern characters have to see what they'd tripped across and what it might contain, nosing into others' private secrets. Byatt addresses this directly, challenging the reader to wonder why this is so compelling and what it says about people. From this, the stakes do emerge - and they were there all along, Byatt was only waiting for me to see it.
In retrospect, I can see that it is brilliantly constructed. It is also a romance without any of the tropes that annoy me in that genre; a romance for the non-romantically-inclined. With every page I loved it more and more, and became more and more sorry about A.S. Byatt's death last autumn. She's left us an enormous treasure. ( )