I tried to read this novel with Medieval Bookworm. It sounded so fun, but I'm just not that into this book. The story itself was interesting. Roland Mitchell, an American studying Randolph Henry Ash, comes upon previously unknown letters written by Ash to a minor female poet, Christabel LaMotte. In order to persue what he's found, he had to team up with Maud Bailey, an English academic who specializes in Christabel LaMotte. There is sexual tension everywhere, but I couldn't make it through all of the poetry and pedantic discussion of poetry and writing.

I can see why people might love this novel. Meghan really is. This is a novel that requires complete concentration and I don't have that available right now. I think it would make for an interesting book for a college course. Although I want to know how the story ends, I don't care enough to wade through the rest of the book - and that it is a longer book makes that task seem hurculean. I might just hold off for the movie on this one. ( )

POSSESSION is--there's no other word--an extraordinary book.

Touted as an "intelligent, literary, and ambitious thriller" by The Times (London), the story is also subtitled: "A Romance." And it is all these things and more.

The main character, Roland Mitchell, is a literary scholar working in the bowels of the London Library. He's perusing a long-undisturbed book authored by the subject of his study, poet Randolph Henry Ash, when he discovers two letters Ash started writing to a woman--one to whom the married Ash was obviously attracted. Purloining the letters in order to find out her identity (and keeping this find to himself, instead of sharing it with Professor Blackadder, for whom he works as a part-time research assistant), he learns that the woman may be a poet named Christabel LaMotte, who up until this point was thought to be a Lesbian with no connection to Ash. Roland's research inevitably leads him to Maud Bailey, who runs another university's Women's Resource Center. Maud is one of two people in the world considered to be complete experts on Christabel LaMotte. Their alliance (an uncomfortable one, at first) grows closer and more intense the more they learn about the relationship between the two poets.

Ah, but they aren't working in a vacuum. Others start to sniff around and figure out what they're up to. Including Fergus Wolff (Maud's ex-lover), Leonora Stern (the other LaMotte scholar), Beatrice Nest (custodian to Ellen Ash's papers), Blackadder and a certain Mortimer Cropper, a nefarious American (the book is nothing, if not thoroughly British) and Blackadder's arch rival when it comes to anything related to Randolph Henry Ash. So A.S. Byatt intricately and deftly weaves elements of the thriller, suspense and romance into the story. But that's not all--because the letters and manuscripts the two scholars find tell a story themselves. Another story of romance and suspense. So the story of Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey ends up being written around the story of Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. And the overall effect is--amazing.

A few caveats: the prose is rich. In fact, to merely say it's rich is like saying creme brulee topped with whipped cream has a few calories. It has the flow and feel of the 19th Century literature by the poets being studied, layered with the modern sensibilities of the scholars studying them. And poems by Ash and LaMotte are embedded throughout the text. These poems reflect part of their story as well, since they're intended to show how Ash and LaMotte's relationship affected their work. (As Roland and Maud's joint research may affect their relationship? Hmm . . .)

The entire review can be read at http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2009/... ( )

This was one of the mose phenomenal books I have ever read. I am no liteterature academic by any stretch of the imagination, but I may call myself an 'armchair' scholar. Let's just say I know enough about literature to be positively FLOORED by the brilliance that is this incredible novel. Byatt creates a beautiful variety of characters, not only through dialogue and the choices they make, but through their brilliant writing. Let's make a list, just so we can marvel at how brilliant the book is:

RH Ash - Poems (a couple epics in there), letters, journals
Christabel Lamotte - Poems (an epic), letters, journals
Blanche Glover - Journals, letters
Ellen Ash - Letters, journals
Leonora Stern - Literary criticism/analysis
Mortimer Cropper - Biography (complete with footnotes) and essays

Those are just the few. There are several more and I was amazed at how seamless and believable the writing styles were. I also love how fearlessly Byatt changed points of view throughout the novel to show us, the reader, what really happened. Byatt is an author who thinks of her readers and takes really good care of them throughout.

However, I must say that the suspense was rather a LOT. It drove me nuts to wait and find out what happened next! ( )

This is a book that is very definitely written by an academic, seemingly for other academics and in that way it shines!

Others have discussed the plot and story and characters quite enough. I will say only that every time I read it (and I re-read it frequently, it is my literary chocolate bar) I find some other reason to linger over passages and poems and theory and letters. If I had never loved epistolary novels, those letters would still hold a very special, ribbon tied place in my heart of hearts.

The novel calls itself a romance, and indeed it is. It is a romance of the written word, for other literary romantics. ( )

I am sure somebody liked this book. But not me. The story was very intriguing but oh-so-slow! I skipped through the poems which were - to me - distracting road blocks. If this story were told by Dan Brown, it would have been so much more exciting. Instead, it was bor-ing and pretentious ( )