Possession: A Romance (1990)

This is one of those books that's so compelling on several different levels that I got lost in it. The story weaves through letters, fairy tales, biographies, academic studies and poetry purportedly written by long-dead Victorian poets, and brings together two researchers, both possessed by their subjects. ( )

Meh... ( )

The agonizing search for old manuscripts that would eventually lead to a striking discovery, colorful characters (both the modern and the Victorian ones) including two romances - two couples, both in circumstances not exactly prone to easy relationships, as well as quite an engrossing plot with a spectacular denouement - all this should have been right up my alley, but it wasn't for some reason, not completely at least... Can't put a finger on it... It's as if there was something superfluous there, overinflated, maybe the poems that A.S.Byatt attributed to her two invented Victorian poets/lovers (?)..

There is a lot to admire, of course. I was moved by the suicide note of Christabel's lady friend, also the diaries were written in a genuinely Victorian way, among other things. But as a whole, it just didn't work for me. And yet - Byatt's effort in this novel was very ambitious, to say the least. I have to admit that. ( )

After attempting to read a few new books that I picked up on a whim and abandoned, I figured that I was due for a good old re-read. I haven't read Possession since my undergraduate degree and haven't delved into any historial fiction from my collection in a while, so I thought that this would be a good change of pace. That it definitely was, considering that it took me almost three weeks to get through it... It's definitely an interesting read and specifically appeals to me because ot the archives research and literary mystery, but the Victorian era focus and slow story pacing really slowed me down through some sections. Byatt does an excellent job of painting a clear picture of both sides of the story (contemporary and historical), but it could have used some finessing when we get into pages and pages of dense Victorian correspondence. What I liked most is that Byatt essentially created two completely new poets, who to the reader seem absolutely real, for the contemporary characters to investigate, which lends the book a surprising amount of realism, even aside from her historical accuracy. Having come back to this book after years away I find it less engaging than I originally did, but mostly because I no longer seem to have the patience for Byatt's dense and convoluted style of writing. That being said, this was still a good read and it's thusfar my favourite of her novels. ( )

Oh boy, it seems Virgin in the Garden wasn’t large enough of a stage for Byatt to perform her one-woman show of intellectual capacity. 12 years later, she’s back with Possession a Booker-winning novel about writers infatuated with writers.

There’s a story here so that Byatt has an excuse for her unabashed attempt to be clever. A mediocre scholar, languishing in the pits of academia and personal finance discovers documents about a the life of a famous poet which lead him on a trail through literature and landscape. On the way, he teams up with a female scholar of much higher standing, by which plot device, he has access to all sorts of things he otherwise wouldn’t.

Implausible hunches turn out, in pretty much every case, to be correct and of course there are some rival academics who are far less virtuous who they have to beat to the holy grail. The ending is all tied up nicely in very few pages which is entirely predictable for a novel which is after all, not really about the plot, but an opportunity for the novelist to dabble in a wide range of literary genres while parading her impressive grasp of the breadth of English literature.

The result of constructing the foundation of a thriller and then proceeding to build a metaphysical paeon to poetry was, for me, less than satisfying. The thriller is a bit of a mess with characters who are really no more than charicatures and a denouement which is extremely contrived. The life and loves of Henry Ash, the poet that Byatt creates, would have sufficed on its own even with the long-winded and tedious poetry that litters the book. But the two parts together simply get in each other’s way.

There’ll be a lot in here that the die-hard literature fan will go for. I found it overblown. ( )