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Loading... Possession : A Romance (Vintage International) (original 1990; edition 1991)by A.S. Byatt
Work detailsPossession by A. S. Byatt (1990)
In many ways, this story completely fits the profile of books that I love to read. Modern day story, with a parallel Victorian mystery in the past - what is there not to love? I thoroughly enjoyed the main story - Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey, 2 academics who studied Victorian poets Roland Mitchell and Cristobel LaMott, discover a possible secret liason between these 2 authors. What I didn't enjoy or found a bit distracting was the way that the story was told. Roland and Maud make their discoveries through letters written by Mitchell and Bailey or through their epic poems. The writing is a bit formal and flowery. Although beautifully written, I just wanted to get back to the main story. And if I was reading this in print, I would probably have skimmed some of the poems or letters, but much harder to do in audio. But, overall an enjoyable romance. (  ) jmoncton | Jun 3, 2013 |  This was a very ambitious work and I appreciate that. It's too wordy. But the story is great. ( ) Mortybanks | May 20, 2013 | Two 20th century Victorian literature scholars research the works and complex relationship of two Victorian writers. This was my world. It's my favourite book. Nuff said. (  )1  Angela.Kingston | May 1, 2013 | Recommended to me as a literary detective story across the centuries - I sort of assumed it would have some supernatural elements - ghost story style - but it has not. Nevertheless I was completely drawn in to the story and characters despite a little apprehension at the start at the thought of dusty academics studying Victorian poets. I even read (most of) the poetry! Thoroughly recommended. ( ) SChant | Apr 26, 2013 | I have to figure out what the deal is with this book. beabatllori | Apr 2, 2013 |
 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. Is contained inHas as a student's study guide
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Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize--the U.K.'s highest literary award--Possession is a gripping and compulsively readable novel. A.S. Byatt exquisitely renders a setting rich in detail and texture. Her lush imagery weaves together the dual worlds that appear throughout the novel--the worlds of the mind and the senses, of male and female, of darkness and light, of truth and imagination--into an enchanted and unforgettable tale of love and intrigue. --Lisa Whipple
(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:31:02 -0400)
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. Annotation. 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.… (more)
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