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Possession: A Romance

A.S. Byatt

3.87 · Rating details · 75,483 ratings · 4,475 reviews

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets. As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany— ...more

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Hardcover, 605 pages

Published July 30th 2002 by Modern Library (first published October 17th 1990)

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Jun 04, 2007 Kelly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people searching for beauty, academics

Shelves: fiction, favorites, grande-dames, victorian-wannabes, its-the-quiet-ones, brit-lit, 21st-century, grand-opera, po-mo

That was.. not what I was expecting this time.

I have to admit, I did not approach this book this time around with what I would consider pure motives. I wasn’t in it to find things I had never found before, to revisit a personal classic to explore ideas that I had left behind for the time when I was ready to connect with them in the way that they deserved. I wasn’t even in it to re-approach situations and characters with a new perspective of age and experience.

No, I needed something from this boo ...more

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Oct 12, 2007 Paul Bryant rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: my enemies

Shelves: novels

A honking great piece of literary self gratification, a novel about writers (all novels about writers should be given a concrete overcoat), a grand excuse for A S Byatt to dazzle us with some fancy ventriloquism, and yes you can feel the throb of the author's perfervid intelligence like a lawnmower hacking away at the tough grass at the edge of the lawn but after all of that you have to come clean and say that Possession isn't worth the thinnest novelette written by Raymond Chandler or the most ...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Warwick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, london, france, victorian, lincolnshire, mythology-and-legend, brittany, poetry, england

OK I have to say something. People keep writing reviews of this book and talking about how it was great except for all the boring poems which they skipped through.

READ THE POETRY, PEOPLE! What's the matter with everyone?? They're actually rather good, they are full of plot clues, and, duh, they're a key part of the novel you're reading. I mean what is going on here? Do people really hate poetry so much that they're skipping a few pages of it in the middle of a story? If you try that shit with Ha ...more

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Jun 25, 2014 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, man-booker

"Literary critics make natural detectives."

I loved this novel. I know there are plenty of arguments against it, but to me, it summed up my life in the grey zone between reality lived and consumed in fiction. Whoever was caught by the passion of reading - a love story that is inexhausible, lifelong, passionate, and thus unlike most love stories between people - will recognise the thoughts that accompany the lovers on the tracks of fiction past. Whoever considers their library their most important ...more

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Apr 27, 2008 Marjorie Hakala rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A while ago I said to myself, "I'm going to pay more attention to doing things that make me happy. So I'm going to cook more creatively and read more fantasy, because I keep forgetting I like those things."

Then I started reading Possession. The happiness project got put on the back burner until I was ready to emerge from the Victorian melancholia, which placed demands on my time too great to allow for preparing meals. I never cried at this book, exactly, but I frequently wept the way a lemon mer A while ago I said to myself, "I'm going to pay more attention to doing things that make me happy. So I'm going to cook more creatively and read more fantasy, because I keep forgetting I like those things."

Then I started reading Possession. The happiness project got put on the back burner until I was ready to emerge from the Victorian melancholia, which placed demands on my time too great to allow for preparing meals. I never cried at this book, exactly, but I frequently wept the way a lemon meringue pie weeps when you leave it out and come back to find dots of moisture on the surface.

Oh, it was beautiful, though, a book of such tangible substance that sometimes, when I was reading it while standing, I would feel as if the book were holding me up instead of the other way around. I've read and loved a couple of A.S. Byatt's short-story collections, so I knew she had a fine control of language, but Possession is on a different plane, telling the story with a multitude of voices through letters, poems, criticism, biography, and journal entries as well as the prose of the main narrative. Byatt didn't just write some poems to go in her novel, she created two major Victorian poets from whole cloth, fitted them exactly into a time and a place, and made so bold as to have a character say about one of them, "You can't understand the twentieth century without understanding him." Does that mean we can't understand the twentieth century fully, in a world where there was never a Randolph Henry Ash? This poet isn't a fictionalized Tennyson or Browning, he's a completely invented eminent Victorian. Christabel LaMotte, likewise, is something entirely new; her poems have a dash of Emily-Dickinsonian diction but with French-English, devout Christian, determinedly feminist sensibilities. I don't know if anyone calls this book a work of alternate history, but it was poignant to think about what would be different in a world that included this poetry. I wish I could visit that world, just to read the rest of Ragnarok and Melusina.

The prose itself bordered on poetry, to such an extent that sometimes I had to stop to savor a rhythm. Like here: "But he had known immediately that she was for him, she was to do with him, as she really was or could be, or in freedom might have been." (I would quote more, but I've already loaned out the copy I read.)

In addition to the new-old poetry, Possession has packed inside it a meditation on the arts of scholarship and biography; the most moving writing about celibacy I've ever come across; a critical work on the erotics of reading; and a half-lament, half-ode to the powers of time and memory and forgetting. And, as the cover proclaims, it is a romance--a set of entwined love stories written with impossible precision and believability. It is a book about books, but in such a generous way that nearly everything books can be about is in here. Reading something like this makes me glad that there is such a thing as literary fiction. ...more

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Aug 03, 2008 Jennifer (aka EM) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Grad students &/or those seeking confirmation that academia is a poor career choice

Shelves: abandoned-forever

Too much work for too little reward.

I read somewhere that if you pick up a book, and you're not enjoying it by either: a) your age (if you are under 50); or b) 100 minus your age (if you are over 50), you should abandon it and move on. There is too much to read and life is too short to be spent reading bad books.

I think this applies particularly to books in that grey zone, where you can tell the writer is winding up to something, and the style and story has enough ooomph in it to keep you poweri Too much work for too little reward.

I read somewhere that if you pick up a book, and you're not enjoying it by either: a) your age (if you are under 50); or b) 100 minus your age (if you are over 50), you should abandon it and move on. There is too much to read and life is too short to be spent reading bad books.

I think this applies particularly to books in that grey zone, where you can tell the writer is winding up to something, and the style and story has enough ooomph in it to keep you powering on, despite perhaps your better judgement.

A.S. Byatt's Possession: A Romance is definitely in that zone.

It's not that Byatt is not a good writer: she is. I am enjoying her eviscerating attack on the insular, political world of academia, with its serpent-eating-its-tail kind of irrelevance. The set-up of the grad student/teaching assistant/temp couple, living in a dank basement, banned from the garden, and feeding off of each other in passive-aggressive co-dependency was ... well, pretty much perfect (and hit a little close to home!) The send-up of feminist scholarship is priceless.

But it's all a little too much to wade through for just a taste of these morsels. It's too clever, and too complicated, by half. So far, I've got two major characters, two minor characters, a slew of tertiary characters including some that we see only through the eyes of the two major ones; two poets--who are two more major characters--from each of whom I am getting internal monologue, dialogue, and painstakingly-fabricated Victorian-era poems, letters, and academic research papers reflecting all of that. And these are rife with references, allusions and imagery from Victorian and classical times, both faux and likely real, but I just can't sort it all out and right now, I don't really want to. Oh, and we're on two continents, one convincingly, and one much less so.

I've given it to p. 108, and I'm still not sure that I won't come back to it. Perhaps a different season, a different frame of mind. This novel is likely, for me, like drinking single-malt scotch in the summer: sometimes I do, but I rarely enjoy it. I need a bracing cool autumn evening, or a blizzardy night, woodfire blazing, my faithful companion, Sutcliffe, the Beagle, by my side. In other words, I need to get into a rarified connoisseur's headspace and let the experience wash over me while I noodle away at it like a crossword.

I will put this one back on the shelf and maybe try again in January. ...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Dolors rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Possessors, possessed and skeptics

Shelves: best-ever, dost, read-in-2015

Stolen snapshots that defy the laws of space and time:

Past.
A poet observes a mystical creature, half woman half mermaid, scouting cliffs and creeks, bathing in unruly seas and still ponds, getting drenched in the cascade of his flowing words. The ache of losing God is not so acute when intellect is met with incandescent creativity. Or with unrestrained love. His gentle curiosity breathes life into inert things, making them shine with an inner glow of their own, because he doesn’t aspire to posse ...more

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Oct 03, 2013 Duane rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-books, rated-books, booker-prize, mystery-crime, historical-fiction, guardian-1000, romance

Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1990.

Giving this book 5 stars was not ever in doubt for me. This is one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. I'm a romantic, I admit. I love art and art history. I love good historical fiction. But all that combined still does not make a good book. A.S. Byatt pulls all this together with the most important aspect of any book, great writing. But she adds something else also, something that's hard to put your finger on, a uniqueness, an edge, if you will, ...more

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Jun 10, 2016 Cecily rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fict-20th-cent, biog-and-autobiog, historical-fict-pre-20th-c, epistolary-and-letters, lit-crit, postmodern-meta

“Like many biographies... this was as much about its author as its subject.”

AS Byatt has characters describing biography as “a form of religion… a form of ancestor worship”. She is a novelist who loves the academic approach to biography, applied to fiction and semi-fiction, creating po-mo metafiction that is rich in texture and research, but which can be a little hard for mortals to digest.

There are two main timelines here: a pair of Victorian poets (Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, ...more

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Jul 02, 2009 Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, british-literature, historical-fiction, neo-victorian-literature, victorian-literature, read-in-2009, my-western-canon, favorites, mystery

I just finished reading A.S. Byatt’s novel, Possession, again for about the fourth time. It has been several years since I last read it, and I have to say that I saw it in a completely new light. It is a literary masterpiece that is exquisitely plotted and written.

This time around I very carefully studied the epigraphs leading off most of the chapters and all of the beautiful poetry included in the text. I don’t know that I gave much more than a cursory glance to the poetry during previous read ...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Fabian rated it liked it · review of another edition

Basically, "Possession" is a (n outstanding, albeit old-fashioned) poet's "showcase." I firmly believe that poetry books are not worthy of sharing the same shelf space as works of fiction-- this is a merger of two arts, surely. The plot and the prose is only a pretext for getting all these snippets of poetry in a book! Byatt's possession of her characters is the novelty here: she has done something pretty outstanding, mainly giving both fictional historical poets true, clear voices. The poetry s ...more

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Nov 11, 2017 Maxwell rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

I did it! I conquered the beast. That's a tad dramatic, but this book wasn't always the most fun to read even though I do appreciate everything Byatt accomplished. Creating this story about fictional Victorian poets, including their writings, letters, diaries, etc. is extremely impressive. But I did find it slow at times and she tends to digress a lot into descriptions that add very little to the story. I assume her own writing style was trying to mimic the poets' own writing styles, but I thoug ...more

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Dec 23, 2010 Sarah Mac rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: grammatical-yodeling, zzz-2012, reviewed, zzz-2012-leftovers-completed, tedious-lint-picking, read-regifted, reviewed-snarky, dnf-rubbish-flounce-goodbye, curse-my-small-brain, drank-the-haterade

"With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report?" -Calvin & Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

Indeed, Calvin. You speak the truth. And thanks to slogging through a sample portion of that intimidating & impenetrable fog known as Possession, I've learned an important lesson. Lend me your ears, gentle reader -- I'm about to whisper another truth that's been missing from your day-to-day literary drudgery.

A.S. Byatt is smart.

Oh, yes. A.S. Byatt is smar ...more

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Jan 13, 2014 Adina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: booker, historical-fiction, 1001, british

This was mainly my fault. What went through my mind when I decided to read a book about a love story between two poets when I do not like poetry? Didn’t it cross my mind that there was going to be poetry in this novel? The answer is, not really. I read in the synopsis that there were going to be letters and a literary investigation. It sounded intriguing and it was a Booker winner, among which I found a few gems.

After skipping quite a bit I have the following observations:
1. WARNING! Do not at ...more

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May 27, 2011 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, historical-fiction

I am a Romantic, in Wordsworth's sense of the word. I love the details of 19th Century life, the language of that time, poetry, a mystery and human tragedy and struggle. Above all, I love a good story. A.S. Byatt has given me all of this and more. She is an intelligent and multi-talented author, and I was delighted to accompany her through the throes of Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte's love story to the last riveting moment.

I have pushed this book to the back of the shelf for years, simply I am a Romantic, in Wordsworth's sense of the word. I love the details of 19th Century life, the language of that time, poetry, a mystery and human tragedy and struggle. Above all, I love a good story. A.S. Byatt has given me all of this and more. She is an intelligent and multi-talented author, and I was delighted to accompany her through the throes of Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte's love story to the last riveting moment.

I have pushed this book to the back of the shelf for years, simply because I saw the movie first (a practice I try very hard to avoid) and felt I might not be so captivated knowing the basic story already. I loved the movie, but as is so often the case, the book exceeds and fleshes out the characters in ways that only brilliant writing can do. I am so happy to have overcome my scruples and finally embraced Byatt in print.

I think it is quite difficult to maintain a story within a story, span different ages, and have all the characters seems real and interesting. This book is a double story: it is the story of Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte, two 19th century poets who defy their circumstances and the times to have an affair of the heart, the mind and the body. Their love is transcendent, and like most love of this kind, it demands a high price from them both. Running in parallel to this story is the story of Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey, a couple of academics who study the lives of Ash and LaMotte respectively, who come upon a series of clues that tie the poets to one another and eventually reveal the depths of their true relationship. Roland and Maud come across as real (if not as enthralling) as the poets and their story drives the mystery forward to its solution.

As to the poetry that Byatt includes in the book, it is both quite good and interesting in its own right and serves to furnish clues and press the unveiling of the mystery itself. The story could have been told without it, but I do think it would have lessened the impact to have had the poems discussed so frequently and never have seen any of them. I can find no flaw in Byatt's telling and I think it is kind of laziness not to want to put in any hard work yourself for the pleasure of such a tale. ...more

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Jun 08, 2016 Perry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Poets Possessed by Passion Puissante pour les Mots et la Romance

"[A]ll great poetry asks us to be possessed by it ." Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language, 2003.

“I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so.” John Donne

_____________________________

My initial reaction here is 5 stars for pulling off a complicated structure surrounding romantic stories of 2 pairs of poets. Prior to the last 10 or so pages, I might have said 4 stars. The last 5 pages, in particular, are ap ...more

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Feb 10, 2020 Emer (A Little Haze) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, adult-fiction, 5stars, romance, books-owned-all-formats, read2020, reviewed

Oh this is such a well written book.

The intricacies of plot which marry poetry, letters and traditional narrative in a glorious symphony of carefully chosen words. Everything has meaning. Every snippet of a letter, stanza of a poem...so much subtle metaphor and mirroring.
The timelines which were at times duelling but also richly echoed each other with parallel sensibilities.
The intoxication of what it is to possess and be possessed in all interpretations of the word. Does love mean you possess ...more

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Aug 13, 2010 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, academia, books-about-books, fiction, historical-fiction, 1001-books, england

A fun ride that wavers between the competitive/collaborative work of two literary contemporary scholars in England and their subjects, fictive Victorian poets who had a secret love affair. The latter slowly comes out through letters, close reading of poems, and other clues pieced together by creative sleuthing. I liked how the story contrasts the cultures of the two eras and its accounting for why literary scholars often become obsessed with the personal lives of their favorite writers in order ...more

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May 22, 2016 Roman Clodia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A marvellously layered book and a masterclass in ventriloquism: I don’t think I’ve ever read a book so full of alternative voices, all pulled off so perfectly – from a contemporary 3rd person narrative, to the poetry of two quite different authors, to letters written by three individuals (four if you include a suicide note), and journals penned by two separate women; even a pastiche of academic feminist criticism from the 80s which is hilarious. Through it all emerge two love stories, triangulat ...more

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Jun 14, 2016 Amalia Gkavea rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, classics, crossover, contemporary, british-literature, britain, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, united-kingdom

“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.”

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Mar 28, 2013 Jaidee rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-stars-books

Mount Olympus of Books Award

One of three books given this award. On my next reread will write a full review.

read for the fourth time....one of my favorite books of all time...exquisitely rich romantic....incredible

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Oct 09, 2008 Christine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: asbyatt, lgbt, literature-english

Re-read 2018 - Focused more on Beatrice Nest in this re-read. I love this book so much, everyone is treated so well by Byatt.

For me, Possession is like a bottle of wine or a box of really good chocolate (the really, expensive and sinfully good kind). There is an aboluste beauty in this book, and it seems to lie in the details. How all the characters still in character, the resolution to both romances at the end, all the touches about criticism - all these ring true.

Over the years I have read thi ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Simona B rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1900, in-english

4.5

“Tell your aunt,” he said, “that you met a poet.”

This is not a proper review. This is just a list of the thoughts that at one point or another, during or after the reading of the book, struck me and got stuck in my head, of the peculiarities of this book that enchanted me, and of a couple things more. This list is not supposed to make sense to anyone but me, but I hope you will still be able to draw from it inspiration or motivation to rush to the nearest bookshop or library and get a copy of ...more

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Sep 01, 2007 Alison rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: literature nerds, romantics, people who have some spare time

Shelves: alltime100novel

O.K., I finally finished Possession! Here goes.

Possession is a highly celebrated novel by A.S. Byatt that contains two story threads. The first story could be categorized as historical fiction. We learn about the relationship of fictional poets Christabel LaMotte and R.H. Ashe through old journal entries, letters, and their "poetry" (the poems were actually created by Byatt, since the two authors never actually existed). Ashe was married, and LaMotte was in a relationship with a woman. But we co O.K., I finally finished Possession! Here goes.

Possession is a highly celebrated novel by A.S. Byatt that contains two story threads. The first story could be categorized as historical fiction. We learn about the relationship of fictional poets Christabel LaMotte and R.H. Ashe through old journal entries, letters, and their "poetry" (the poems were actually created by Byatt, since the two authors never actually existed). Ashe was married, and LaMotte was in a relationship with a woman. But we come to find out that the two poets had a romantic affair.

The second part of the story is a contemporary romance slash literary detective novel (think high-brow chic lit meets The Da Vinci Code). Maud & Roland are literary scholars. Maud's life's work has been dedicated to the study of her ancestor, LaMotte, and Roland, naturally, is an Ashe expert. Roland accidentally stumbles upon a letter from Ashe to LaMotte, and this sets off Maud & Roland's journey to the unraveling of the romance between the two historical poets. And, of course, a romance of their own (Yea!)

This book is a masterpiece at 555 densely worded pages. The title and the theme of Possession run throughout the book. What can we truly know about the past? Because we read letters and journals and are able to piece together what people's daily lives may have been like, are we able to actually possess their souls, read their minds and know their secrets? What do historical biographies really tell us about people? How well can you really know someone? Won't there always be a disconnect between reality & our perception of the past when it's tainted with our personal assumptions, emotions, and biases?

Maud was unclear on her emotions regarding being in a relationship. How much does our partner aim to possess us? Are we able to be a part of a relationship, yet remain free? In marriage, are there parts of our partner's souls that we'll never possess unless they choose to reveal them to us? Does being in a relationship mean that you own the other person? Is that person still a person, independent of the relationship?

The two poets dabbled in the spirit world--at one time attending a mutual seance. Are the spirits of the ones who've gone on before us capable of possessing the ones who remain behind? What of demons? Can they own us and alter our destinies when our worst nightmares have come true for us?

Also, literally and lawfully speaking, these letters and journals...who has the right to read private thoughts? What if the owners took pains to make sure things were kept hidden? Do we have the right to know? Because we stumble upon things, or they are left to us via a legacy, do we own them because we possess them? Is it our lawful right to know things that were intended to be hidden, or buried away? Does celebrity negate the right for privacy?

All of these themes make up "Possession", and so much much more. This book is for literary junkies. It's for soulful, passionate people, and people who appreciate brilliant poetry and prose. ...more

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Nov 26, 2008 Manny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: why-not-call-it-poetry

Brilliant literary puzzle-book, including a well-realised fictitious author loosely based on Tennyson... one of the best attempts of this kind since Pale Fire. Some people think the book is too clever by half, but what do you expect? Just as constructive to criticise Powell for including too many characters who are upper-class twits, or Proust for not making his sentences short and punchy...

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Aug 16, 2020 Lisa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020-tbr-shelf

[3+] After hearing so much praise for so many years, I thought I might love Possession. This novel is for readers who have the patience to linger over long stanzas of Romantic poetry, lush descriptive passages and academic esoterica. Alas, I am not that reader. At least not now. Clearly, Byatt is brilliant. I did enjoy Roland and Maude’s quest.

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Jan 09, 2012 Cindy Newton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, to-read-in-2016

There have been so many reviews written about this book, by so many people much more articulate than I am, that I really don't feel I have anything new and/or brilliant to add. I will, therefore, just record my thoughts about it.

I thought it was lovely. The language flows beautifully, both in the prose and the poetry sections. The story itself is intriguing, the flowering illicit romance between the poet and his poetess, and the more muted one between the scholars obsessed by them. Byatt does a There have been so many reviews written about this book, by so many people much more articulate than I am, that I really don't feel I have anything new and/or brilliant to add. I will, therefore, just record my thoughts about it.

I thought it was lovely. The language flows beautifully, both in the prose and the poetry sections. The story itself is intriguing, the flowering illicit romance between the poet and his poetess, and the more muted one between the scholars obsessed by them. Byatt does an excellent job of leading us into the ever-deepening waters of the mystery. It starts off as mild curiosity, and she carefully feeds the fire until it is a blazing inferno and you just HAVE to know what happens! I love how the letters reveal so much about both the characters and their deepening relationship. I did find some parts of them tedious--especially the parts about Ash's gathering of marine samples, and some of the more exhaustive description of the countryside. I daresay my impatience to find out what happens played a part in this. I thought she tied everything up wonderfully well at the end--especially the very last section, which laid to rest the anguished heartburnings I felt on behalf of Ash.

I have to think that she was satirizing the world of literary criticism and academic focus on authors. It's a strange career, when you think of it. Your entire life is spent studying every detail of someone else's life. Your only achievement is your depth of knowledge about someone else's achievements. It seems rather preposterous when you really think about it. Every one of the professors whose focus of study was Ash or Christabel were (with the exception of Roland and Maud) pretty obnoxious and unlikeable in some way. They are definitely possessed by their callings, to the point where lying, cheating, and stealing become worthwhile. The title of the book was examined in a myriad of ways in the book: by the scholars, by the relationship between the poet and poetess, by the relationship between Roland and Maud, and a variety of others.

I did enjoy this book, but think I may enjoy it a bit more on a second reading. I was also possessed while reading this time--by the desire to know how the mystery ends. Another reading can be a bit less feverish, perhaps. ...more

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Sep 17, 2016 Roya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Roya by: Jaidee

Shelves: quite-good

It took me three attempts to get this one right. Something about the premise drew me in from the get go. I was destined to love this book. No way around it. I was in for an unpleasant surprise. It didn't take long before I found myself bored to tears. The language was so outmoded. Everything about it was plain difficult. I put it aside for a couple months in the hopes that it would get easier. It was still the same. I was still the same.

A couple years passed. It was always in the back of my mind ...more

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Oct 16, 2007 Kim rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: disheartening

I picked up this book because I had seen it in a recommended reading site and then a friend said that it was really good. But...
Yes, there's a but... it took me 3 tries to get past page 10. I should have known then... but (again with the 'but') I persevered... thinking that I would eventually get into it, that I would get to the meat of it. By, page 300 I felt like I was trapped. I had already invested this much time into it and felt, at that point, that I had to finish it. I'm not saying tha ...more

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May 12, 2020 Krista rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: man-booker-nod, 2020, mustich-1000-to-read-before-you-die

He knew her, he believed. He would teach her that she was not his possession, he would show her she was free, he would see her flash her wings.

Possession: A Romance was an engagingly fun read – concerning an over-the-top literary quest that often strained credulity, I had the persistent feeling that A. S. Byatt was parodying her format while somehow keeping me 100% invested – and while I ended the book feeling like I could take issue with so many of the plot points, this sense of a non-mocking parody, or po-mo irony, made me feel like I was in on the joke, and therefore more amused by it than annoyed. Interweaving two timelines, I will note that I believed in and related more to the Victorian characters than those from the present, but as the point of Possession is the interplay between them all, it seems like it could have only been written precisely as it was. For sheer entertainment value, I'm rounding up to four stars.

All scholars are a bit mad. All obsessions are dangerous.

In an Introduction to my edition, written by Byatt, she explains that the genesis for this book was her observation of “the great Coleridge scholar” Kathleen Coburn as she haunted the British Library and Byatt's wondering, after having given her entire life to Coleridge's thoughts, would Coburn now possess the poet, or would he possess her? To this end: Possession begins with a modern day scholar – the quiet and unremarkable Roland Michell – who is an assistant researcher looking into the life of the (fictional) great Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash. While examining a book that had once belonged to Ash – so sooty around the edges that it had likely never been opened since the passage of the Clean Air Acts – Roland discovers the first few drafts of a letter, written by the poet, that hint at a relationship unknown to Ash scholars. Roland is so personally galvanised by this secret knowledge that he puts the drafts into his pocket – which is completely out of character – and endeavors to investigate the mystery for a while on his own. When he discovers a chance connection and wonders if Ash's letter was written to Christabel LaMotte – a (fictional) minor Victorian poetess and writer of fairy tales, now remembered primarily by feminists and those in Women's Studies – Roland decides to visit a LaMotte scholar, the quiet and studious Maud Bailey. As Roland and Maud fill each other in on the details of their chosen subject's life and works – neither of whom had ever been of the least interest to the other – they discover connections that had never been recognised before; and as they travel together to where the clues lead them, Roland and Maud unearth evidence that will force the academic world to reevaluate the meanings of, and inspirations for, each of the poet's major works.

Early on, Byatt describes Ash's reputation for erudite and muscular poetry, quotes they who dismiss LaMotte as the spinster “fairy poetess”, but as the narrative proceeds, Byatt judiciously reveals their work through intermittent excerpts; knowledge of the poets' characters (and the true value of their work) revealed to the reader at the same pace Roland and Maud are discovering new information and explaining to one another how it all fits into what is known about their subjects. With further excerpts from letters, diaries, and biographies, the whole reads as a great detective story; Roland and Maud pursuing clues and trying to keep ahead of the other scholars, hot on their trail, who seek to possess secret evidence and knowledge for themselves. And although everyone involved does seem possessed by their research subjects – Roland and Maud represent a sort of middle point in the mania, with quiet British scholars on the one side (Beatrice and Blackadder, toiling away in the basement of the British Museum for decades) and loud, rich Americans (Leonora and Crupper dashing around the globe to pursue leads) on the other – and although Roland and Maud have no moral or legal claim to pursue their leads without informing the rest of the academic world what they've discovered, as a reader, I desperately wanted them to solve the puzzle first. Between the able “ventriloquism” shown in the poems, stories, letters and diaries, and the tension added by the literary detective story, I was consistently in admiration of Byatt's writing.

Roland thought, partly with precise postmodernist pleasure, and partly with a real element of superstitious dread, that he and Maud were being driven by a plot or fate that seemed, at least possibly, to be not their plot or fate but that of those others.

This self-awareness in the modern storyline is likely what made the historical one more real (and engaging) to me; but it is also what allows for commentary on the necessity (or mischief) of studying authors' lives alongside their work. Until everything is revealed, the major works of Ash and LaMotte cannot possibly be properly understood (and particularly the latter's epic poem on the sorceress Melusina), but how important is it for the reader to know anything more than what appears on the page? Before this discovery, the unmarried LaMotte had been a model of feminist independence – if it turns out that she had some kind of relationship with the more famous and revered Randolph Henry Ash, she not only loses her status as a (possibly) lesbian icon, but she is open to accusations of being influenced or instructed by the more forceful male voice; how does this knowledge affect the legacy of her work? There is commentary on those “vultures” who rifled through Dickens' desk after his death to collect all of his papers, commentary on the fact that George Eliot had her most personal letters buried with her, and yet each of the scholars in the modern storyline (quiet British and loud American alike) believes that a plea for privacy does not survive death; that the need to possess every fact and artefact associated with an artist is in the interests of truth and art. It's all interesting stuff, and it's not by ironic dint that I started with a biographical nugget about Byatt in this review; I, personally, love knowing what inspired books (but I'm not about to start digging up graves to get that knowledge; I am not possessed). ...more

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About A.S. Byatt

A.S. Byatt

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A.S. Byatt (Antonia Susan Byatt) is internationally known for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize winner Possession, The Biographer’s Tale and the quartet, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman, and her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Ey ...more

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“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.” — 239 likes

“They took to silence. They touched each other without comment and without progression. A hand on a hand, a clothed arm, resting on an arm. An ankle overlapping an ankle, as they sat on a beach, and not removed. One night they fell asleep, side by side... He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase.” — 159 likes

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