A fantastic interweaving of the present with the past. Two contemporary scholars fall in love while researching Victorian poets. Well done. ( )

A beautiful love story in Victorian England parallelled with a love story in the 1990´s. Clever and imaginative, it depicts a secret romance between two Victorian authors and a budding reletionship between two academics of today. Beautifully written and captivating. ( )

Possession is a many-layered story, cutting back and forth between the past and the present, of two modern scholars who find a set of lost letters between two Victorian poets and go on a quest to discover the truth of their affair. I love its richness of voice: the modern-day narrative focusing on the two scholars, Roland and Maud; the poetry and letters of the poets; diaries, biographies, letters, journals of many other characters. On my latest readthrough, I found myself thinking a lot about the levels of meaning of the title, of how many things "possession" can mean; Roland and Maud are possessed by Ash and LaMotte and their search for them, while themselves seeking to possess their secrets; each pair of lovers negotiates their terms of possession of each other; and there's a very pragmatic question of who is the true possessor of the letters. It's a marvelous mix of academia, mystery, romance, and fantasy, written in lovely, rich prose. ( )

I have had this book on the shelf for several years, and finally decided to read it, in support of my recent interest in understanding romance. It was somewhat tedious. The protagonist, Roland Michell, an English lit PhD without many job prospects, finds letters of a fictional poet (Henry Randolph Ash) that suggest he might have had an affair. In the course of researching the affair, Roland has a love affair of his own, with a professor of literature who is an expert, and possible descendent, of the woman Ash had loved. The book is built on long Victorian letters, poetry by Ash and his lover LaMotte, journals by others who knew them, and by imagined scenes from the life of the poets. There is a sub-plot concerning the antics of an aggressive American collector of Ash material, and arguments about copyright ownership of the letters. I skipped much of the endless poetry, enjoyed some of the fantasy tales, could not care much about the antics of the literature professors in the book. ( )

I loved this book. It's been a long time since I read a book that kept me this involved. I definitely want to read it again, but this time with the Oxford Companion to English Literature. I'm sure there are all sorts of telling things in the poetry that would make the story that much richer, if I only got the references. ( )

Now and then there are readings that make the hairs on our neck, the non-existent pelt, stand on end and tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the dark... -Possession, Pg. 512

How do I write a review worthy of such a breathtaking book? How do I write a review explaining the beauty of this book without giving anything away?

I will try.

For NaNoWriMo last November, I wrote a story about a man who moves into an old house. While renovating, he discovers old letters and journals from a time long ago. These documents provided leads into old, mysterious deaths and a disappearance of a family.

My point: I love stories like these. Huge secrets that leave small clues scattered into various places. Long-lost letters; famous poems. It's like a puzzle or maze. Turn the right corner and you will be rewarded beyond anything you could have comprehended.

Possession started out slow. The first hundred pages or so were basically a set-up for what was to come. Afterward, the story moved slow, but not in a boring way. It was like each beautiful secret was being slowly, graciously unveiled, as if hesitant to show us. We were met with poems and short stories, which some readers seem to skip, as if it hinders the flow of the story. These documents are the story. It gives us the thought that these two fictional poets were actually real. These writings give them life, breath, a voice. Why skip a part of a book? What's the rush?

If you're someone who easily gets impatient and just wants to 'get to the point', then do not waste your eyes here. If you can't sit and watch a beautiful story slowly unfold, Possession is not for you, and that is sad.

Example: For one chapter all there is is the correspondence between these two poets: Ash and LaMotte. It's over forty-five pages of letters. This was my favorite part. To see a relationship grow in words. The early letters starting out with civility moving slowly towards friendship and then slowly to love when we see sentiments like 'My dear' and 'Yours always'. It was gorgeous. It was exquisite. It makes me miss the beauty of letter writing. A great art form that has slowly died out.

My reaction when I was finished was me staring straight ahead, focusing on nothing, breathless and fighting back small tears. The last two chapters were hauntingly sad. I can't even form words to describe it.

The modern day story was good. It wasn't paper thin or unsatisfying, but of course, my mind was eager for the story of the past.

Read Possession if you're looking for a story that when you reach the end, you will be rewarded. You will feel that your journey was not in vain.

If I could, I would give this novel 10 stars. Five stars just does not seem like enough. ( )

Re-reading, probably for the third or fourth time, I realised that I'd forgotten what a funny book this is. I remembered, of course, the tremendous technical achievement involved in producing enough pastiche Victorian poetry and miscellaneous documents to convince us of the existence of the two invented poets, and the obviously doomed Victorian love affair, but I was surprised by just how much fun Byatt has in the contemporary story in mocking the idiocies of the world of Eng Lit in which she has her own professional existence.

The story is explicitly presented as a romance: we are not asked to take either the modern story or the Victorian one seriously. Roland and Maud are conscious of being characters caught up in a plot, and of knowing how such plots are supposed to end, but also knowing that endings are a literary device. Byatt reminds us that the poetry is all pastiche, and that writing in the styles of other times is a common literary device: we get a bit of genuine Browning at the beginning, Cropper's awful biography calls Ash "the great ventriloquist", and there is the lovely vignette of Blackadder as a student in an F.R. Leavis dating class (which must surely be autobiographical).

There's quite a bit of discussion of the role of women (modern as well as Victorian) in the book, some of it playful and some more serious. We also get a certain amount on Victorian views of science and religion, usually contrasted with the Breton folk tradition and Norse mythology that La Motte and Ash mine for themes for their poetry. It's all very cleverly presented: as a reader, you never have the feeling you are being lectured at, or spoon-fed with necessary information, yet this is clearly a book that you can enjoy without being any sort of expert on mid-Victorian literature. You could read it as a didactic work, if you wanted to: it does illustrate in a clear, painless way some of the classic debates of literary criticism (How far should biographical knowledge influence our reading of the text? Can we ever know enough about the author's life? What if we know too much...?). But it is primarily an entertainment. Better to read it for pleasure than to poke around too much in the mechanism, otherwise we risk turning into Mortimer Cropper ourselves. ( )

This was my second time of reading and I did enjoy it (again) but - rather guiltily - I also skipped across some of the small print stories-within-the-story and poems (again). I really like the main story but not so interested in her obviously very well done Victoriana that pads round it. ( )

This is an epistolary novel about two Victorian poets embedded in a standard narrative about two late 20th century academics, with imitation period poetry and traditional fairy tales embedded in the embedded tale. You might think this would be difficult to follow or annoying to read, but I did not find it so. I found reading it a rich, rewarding and happy-making experience. Almost like a desert one should not have eaten all of, but did.

Possession contains a rich complexity of allusions, layers of them, with shifting implications, that are fun to watch play out through both stories. I was genuinely impressed with Byatt’s technique without being alienated by it. Among the themes and ideas I believe I recognized were that of the dangerous capacity of women to transform from something a man thought was submissive and safe to something that is neither; the concept of intellectual sexual seduction; the essential parity of all tales in the final analysis; the role of the artist as creator and the nature of the life of the created. Not to mention the somewhat satirical representation of academic life.

Oh yes, and I rather liked the main characters and wished them well. I will absolutely read this book again. I rated it as 5 Stars ( )

Beautiful,want to keep reading it... ( )

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 ( )

23 March 2009 – 23 April 2009 : Possession by A. S. Byatt

Byatt and her works were previously unknown to me.
Last Winter however, as I was reading several “Booker” winners one after the other, Possession appeared in the 2009 Folio Society catalogue. It was a beautiful edition, illustrated by Rowena Dugdale and I just ticked this choice on the order form.

A short investigation on the web presented Byatt as a “party pooper” and “fun spoiler” because in an article in the New York Times she dared to say that the JK Rowling books were 'for people with stunted imaginations'. She adds and I quote the article: “Ms Rowling's magic world has no place for the numinous. It is written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip." And even better : “Byatt believed adults had become fans ( of HP ) because the books allowed them to regress into the comfort zone of childhood”.

Ok, now that Byatt has all my sympathy, what is her book Possession about?

It is her best known novel, winner of the Booker Prize in 1990 and listed by Time magazine as part of the top 100 Best English-language Novels.

While researching the Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash in the British Library, a young, unknown scholar, Dr. Roland Michell, discovers two drafts of a letter written by the poet , which indicates that the married Ash had a unknown romance with a mysterious lady.
Such a discovery could make Roland’s reputation in the academic world. He steals the letters and begins to investigate the identity of the young mysterious woman. He soon finds out that the letters are adressed to Christabel LaMotte, a minor poet and contemporary of Ash.
With the help of Dr. Maud Bailey, a modern LaMotte scholar and relative of LaMotte's family, Roland works himself trough more letters, diaries, poems, notes in order to unfold the details of this mysterious relationship.
While Roland and Maud are investigating together the amourous relationship between Ash and LaMotte, their own involvment because more personal and they are drawn to each other. Their emerging relationship parallels strangely the love of the two (fictional) nineteenth century poets in to whom they are researching,.
Their investigation draws soon attention from rival colleagues and the academic investigation becomes quiet fast a rac of the different Academic factions to discover the truth. This truth is finally disclosed in a grand Gothic scenery, in an opened grave , in an old churchyard in the middle of an Apocalyptic storm.
Byatt knows her subject well.

The story of the Victorian lovers is told through letters, poems, classic third-person narration, diaries, epigraphs, biographies, studies and even academic footnotes. The author switches convincingly between past and present-day literary styles, rhythms and word-use. She actually creates the art of the fictional Victorian poets who are investigated.
A real “tour de force” but it makes difficult reading as the pace of narration constantly changes.
I felt often like in a traffic jam, which advances slowly, then speeds up to come to a full stop 100 m further.

Besides being a literary detective story and a moving love story there are other topics too.
The rat race for the lost letters and diaries for example is actually quiet funny.
Byatt is satirizing the competitive atmosphere of the academic world. The different factions chasing the truth are caricatures of different currents of critical approaches of literature. There are the Feminists, the Formalists, the Biographers and even the obsessive Collectors who would rob a grave to get what they want.

Finally there is the concept of possession, which makes up the title of the book. The book brings us to think about ownership and independence between the lover and the beloved, between the biographer and his subject and between the academic and his study topic. Who possesses whom?

Unfortunately, I find the book lacks “life”. At practically no moment are the present day characters coming “off the paper”. Like their study subjects they remain two-dimensional.
Besides that, Possession is a good read and a sure recommendation for bookish people.

Finally for a more detailed review see:
Unearthing the Secret Lover: by Jay PariniBooks of The Times; When There Was Such a Thing as Romantic Love: review by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

I can't say that I loved this book like I expected to. I just can't love a book that glorifies adultery, lesbianism and dishonesty. But I was really impressed with the writing and the degree of work that went into creating this tale.

What really got me was the poetry and fairy tales throughout. Byatt created two poets that differ from each other as much as two characters can in their personalities and work, but they love each other and influence each others work in ways that are hidden at first but brought to light once their affair is made known. Wow. I appreciated the work that took to be convincing.

I was surprised, repeatedly, by the turns in the story. Maybe I should have seen them coming but I didn't. As a lover of mystery I am not easily surprised by anything anymore. This, to me, is a sign of good storytelling.

But I didn't enjoy any of the characters at all. The adultery is glossed over as if it really didn't matter. The dishonesty was dealt with in a "ends justify the means" way. And the ending, at least of the modern story, was cheap. I am grateful for the ending of the Victorian story. I was afraid it was going to end on a completely bitter note. ( )

I'm not giving this a star rating because I think that would be unfair as I didn't finish it. I'm a quarter of the way through and I'm so bored! To this point, Possession has been uneven. The first chapter was boring, then things started to get a little interesting, but now they've ground to a halt again. In fact, this book is starting to remind me why I changed my mind about being an English professor; the main characters care more about some dead poets than they do themselves! There's a healthy interest in a topic, whether it be a person, place or thing, and then there's sad obsession, which is what these characters suffer from. I've been trying to force myself to continue, but I honestly think they're all beyond hope; even if they unravel the mystery of Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte, they'll probably never get a grip on their own reality, and that's just tragic. Life's too short and I have other books to read.

Beautifully written. AS Byatt is a marvel, and she handles the back and forth between the two stories with aplomb. If you've not read her work, do so. Her "Little Black Book" is also tremendous. ( )

I loved this book.

Maud and Roland are literary critics/students that discover two poets, Richard Ash and Christabel LaMotte, had kept a correspondence in the Victorian era. Previously, there was no indication that these two poets had ever met or had any interest in each other or each other's work. They begin researching more connections, trying to find the depth and type of the connection.

In the beginning of the book, Maud and Roland are mostly just a frame for the story of the poets. Gradually, the literary search becomes its own story, too.

The novel reads as a story, plus there are letters from the poets, journal entries from various other characters, poems, and other evidence that the reader sees just as Maud and Roland do. Having the plot unfold in so many forms is very engaging, and I was always excited when there was new evidence to read along with the Maud and Roland.

The novel was a bit slow to start out. For the first 200 pages or so, I was enjoying it, but it was a slow read for me. I found myself more and more engaged as I read. I found myself liking the novel, then loving it, and the last 100 pages I read in one go, unable to put Possession down.

Byatt's writing style reminds me a lot of Iris Murdoch, who I saw in the author bio is someone that Byatt has studied and published about. I can't quite put my finger on what the similarities are, but was often reminded of Murdoch as I read.

This story is a Romance, as the subtitle says, but not in a heaving-bosom, heavy-breathing kind of way. It is subtle and passionate and intense. It's a tragedy, too. This is one of my newest favourites. ( )

It is not hard to see why this book was considered one of the best novels of its time. It is densely complex, yet without being inaccessible, and I enjoyed it very much.

Possession is subtitled "A Romance", but actually it is two romances, as well as a mystery and (in a quiet, academic sort of a way) an adventure story. For the first part of the book, the 19th-century romance is told indirectly through letters and diaries, forming a kind of epistolary novel-within-a-novel which is gradually discovered by the 20th-century characters, as they also gradually discover the nature of their own relationships. The effectiveness of this indirectness is such that, when the narrative viewpoint shifted at the beginning of chapter 15, I was initially disappointed. However, the author's narrative led me on, and persuaded me that there is a benefit to the reader in knowing the tale as the later characters cannot know it. By the time I was about 60 pages from the end, I was tempted to abandon my measured reading in short instalments and simply gallop to the end. The final climax is quite exciting, and the resolution satisfying.

This is a book that will undoubtedly need reading again and again. Not least among the reasons for this is the need to assimilate the embedded poetry (which, probably like most readers on a first reading, I rather skimmed over). It is an extraordinary feat of almost Tolkienian magnitude to feign the work of not one but two fictional Victorian poets (one almost Tennysonian in grandeur, the other bringing echoes of Emily Dickinson), and to do so at considerable length, with verse which makes symbolic and thematic allusion to the novel's plot as well as to relevant strands of 19th-century philosophy and mythography. (Incidentally, Byatt has made me want to investigate the writings of Vico.) This exploration of the 19th-century mind is is accompanied by (partly but not wholly) satirical references to the similar obsessions of the 20th-century intellectual world, especially feminist thought and its attempts to grapple with the assumptions and prejudices of 19th-century literature. As I write, it also occurs to me that a reading of the letters of Abelard and Heloise might usefully inform a re-reading of the novel. I look forward to revisiting this book.

MB 27-ii-2009 ( )

A friend of mine read a passage of this book out loud to me a few years ago and it was hilarious. In a silly way. I intend to read it sometime soon.

In Possession, A.S. Byatt powerfully creates characters so believable that I found myself assuming that the events she writes of really happened, that the feelings described were truly felt, and that the characters actually lived.

For me, Possession’s strength lies in this powerful creation. While I enjoyed the developing action (it is a literary mystery) and the powerful underlying themes, the story itself was not as fascinating to me as were the basic descriptions and the power of the characterization. They were marvelous: I am in awe of Byatt’s power with words.

Within Possession, Byatt has created two fictional Victorian writers, inserting the incredible poetry and stories, supposedly written by these writers, into the text. But the story of Possession is two-fold, focusing not just on the Victorian happenings but also on modern events. Two modern-day literary research scholars uncover evidence that the two Victorians had corresponded. Undertaking a quest to find out the truth of what happened in the 1850s, they become overwhelmed and yet intrigued with their discoveries and seek to hide it from the other scholars. As they discover more about the Victorian poets from beyond the grave, they find out about themselves.

In Possession, I think Byatt is sometimes writing about possession of one person by another. (After all, it is subtitled "A Romance"). But she’s also writing about the possession of ideas and ideals; the possession of self; the possession of information; the possession of words; and, overall, the possession of power through words.

And that last theme is, I believe, Byatt’s own purposes coming through. She’s obviously an incredibly talented writer. As she ponders writers long-since dead, she realizes the power of words, and as she creates poets through their words, she shows us how words can hold us and convince us.

A little more review on my blog

A modern scholar—a largely failed postdoc researcher—stumbles across two half-finished draft letters from a famous Victorian poet. His attempt to find out the relationship between Ash and the recipient of the letter, a lesbian poet, draws in Dr. Maud Bailey, a scholar of Christabel LaMotte, and gives the death blow to his sagging, lackluster relationship with his girlfriend. Feeling a sense of possessiveness, Maud and Roland dodge the inquiries of other scholars from England to Brittany as they not only track the love between the two poets but also trace the lifelong consequences of their affair.

I enjoyed the movie adaption; it’s a deeply compelling tale. Still, I found the book wearying at 555 densely written pages. I found myself skimming the long descriptive passages and the poetry. Another reader might enjoy devoting many hours to the novel, but for those who, like me, do not read primarily as an academic exercise, it’s simply a bit too demanding to be really engaging, at least until the last hundred pages or so. ( )

* NO Spoilers were used in the writing of this review! *

This is a book about books, and people who love them.
An engrossing, challenging read with many rewards for the intellectually adventurous reader.

Byatt presents a non-linear plot through narrative, poetry, fairy tales, letters and diaries.
This striking description of a Victorian era story applies to her own writing in "Possession":

"It is like a huge, intricately embroidered tapestry in a shadowed stone hall, on which all sorts of strange birds and beasts and elves and demons creep in and out of thickets of thorny trees and occasional blossoming glades. Fine patches of gold stand out in the gloom, sunlight and starlight, the sparkle of jewels or human hair or serpents' scales. Firelight flickers, fountains catch light. All the elements are in perpetual motion, fire consuming, water running, air alive and the earth turning..."

Major themes include the nature of being a writer, feminism, creationism vs. evolution, mythology as a reflection of human ego, literary criticism and the role of scholars and biographers, etc.
( Yes, the scope is huge and a majestic undertaking! )

There is a lot to sink your teeth into, and this is a book to be savored. Don't skip the poetry and flowery Victorian passages. They may be challenging but offer striking intellectual rewards.

My copy is full of underlined passages for further reflection or investigation. ( )