Possession

Rating:
Summary: A finely crafted masterpiece from a tapestry of subgenres
Review: A S Byatt's Booker Prize winning novel, "Possession", isn't just the literary sourcebook for the current movie of the same name. It is SERIOUS LITERATURE for SERIOUS READERS, so Movie Tie-In fans expecting a compactly written synopsis of the film are well advised to stay away. But if you're a literature aficionado, and wading knee deep in long flowery poems, obscure verses, beautifully but wordily written letters and journal entries isn't a problem or better still, your cup of tea, there's much in "Possession" that will delight and enthrall you.

Subtitled "A Romance", "Possession" is more than the coupling of an ancient with a contemporary love story, though the movie adaptation may have you believe that. Victorian poet Randolph Ash didn't just have a dirty weekend with fairy poetess Christabel LaMotte. Their secret liason did however result in an awkward outcome that should not surprise readers. In Byatt's hands, their love affair is cloaked in mystery and cerebral splendour and though it may be hard to fathom the foundation of their mutual attraction, its credibility doesn't suffer because the affair isn't played out in real time but reconstructed and deduced from fragments of evidence from the past. It's like examining a black and white print through frosted glass. As for the coupling of modern day academics Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell, those who have read the novel but not seen the film may be surprised that their relationship has been characterised as a romance. That to me is surely the crudest way of depicting Maud's and Roland's journey of self discovery as they collaborate in their research into the murky past of Ash & LaMotte and then join up in their undertaking to secure ownership of the invaluable evidence they have uncovered.

The flowing poems and verses may be the novel's styling, the romance its subject, but "Possession" is above all a thriller and a breathtakingly exhilarating one at that. No violence, bloodletting or shootouts, only treachery of the kind practised by learned men of letters. They're all so civilised yet undeniably vicious in their scheming and stalking of one another, it's like having one's throat slit by paper. So fine and fatal. Byatt's enactment of the final scene at the graveyard, where she calls upon the elements to unleash their destructive power, is a dramatic coup de grace that would translate perfectly on screen.

A S Byatt is a difficult novelist. Not surprisingly, "Possession" - her grand opus - doesn't make easy reading but a more finely crafted entity drawing upon a tapestry of subgenres you will not find. Truly a modern masterpiece. It'll be a tragedy if younger readers remember it as the book that inspired the film. Don't let that happen. Go read the real thing !

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, the second, third and fourth time around
Review: I read this book years ago when it first came out. It was incredibly well written. Very much a contemporary romance novel (not the 18th century term of the word), but so well written that it defies those trashy paperbacks that line the grocery store checkout aisles. If you are looking for clever writing, intelligent adult dialogue, and a romance that makes you believe such a thing still can exist then read this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Modern Masterpiece
Review: There is little to say about this novel that hasn't already been said considering the praise that critics and readers have heaped on to it over the past decade. Byatt's Romance (this is less of a novel than an imaginative fairy tale of people coming together) takes readers through a nearly detective like adventure featuring two young literary scholars unearthing a love affair in letters between a famous Victorian poet (very similar to Robert Browning) and a more obscure one that has been embraced by gender studies and feminist scholars (reminiscent of Christina Rossetti).

Possession is constructed of letters from the Victorian poets, their actual poetic work and stories, diary entries, and narrative featuring the modern scholars coming together and the poets coming together. The Victorians begin to act as a mirror world for the modern lovers. At times the narrative surprises you making you think it is describing the Victorian period when in reality it is modern London. Byatt does an amazing job impersonating the form and style of the two Victorian poets, mimicking writers like Pater, Robert Browning, and Christian Rossetti with such accuracy that it is a brilliant achievement that she has invented the verse for her characters herself.

While the work is quite lengthy its pace is fast as the scholars (and you as the reader) discover more clues in the detective/mystery style adventure, and the length allows Byatt to throughly develop her themes. Readers should watch out for the theme of possession and ownership itself. In the novel words on a page become debated over who they belong to: a nation, the writer, the writer's descendants, the readers, or the world as a whole? Also the various types of scholarship are mocked as well: silly and ridiculous Freudian and gender readings of sexual landscapes, professors more interested in collecting souveneirs than studying text, and fierce, reckless competition among people that at first glance may seem dull and stale.

For readers approaching the text after seeing the movie be advised- the novel features different characters and builds ideas and concepts more than the film does, and it is not just a straight objective narrative since it is filled with poems and letters and other discourse. However, the read is exciting and lavish and presents you with ideas about our relationship to history and language that the film, because of its medium, was not able to put across as well. I recommend this book whole heartedly and if I wasn't a poor lowly literature grad student I would reimburse everyone with complaints. Can you give a better recommendation than that?

Rating:
Summary: READ WITH UNDERSTANDING AND DRAMA
Review: Virginia Leishman imbues her reading of this Booker Prize-winning novel with understanding and dramatic emphasis as she performs Byatt's fascinating multi level tale of literary scholarship.

Two young academicians, Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell, are engaged in research projects involving a pair of Victorian writers. They study letters, journals, poems, and track the pair's comings and goings. Roland is hopeful that he will perhaps discover clues in the Victorian author's marginal notes.

But, it is Maud who brings to light the romance between the late authors, he who was thought to have been contentedly wed, and she who was believed to have been a rather reclusive spinster.

As the story of the romance between their research subjects surfaces, Roland and Maud begin to look more deeply within themselves.

"Possession" is an intense study, an intriguing blend of the cerebral and the physical.

- Gail Cooke

Rating:
Summary: overrated and overwritten
Review: i believe the poems were excessive and unsubstantial and the constant interpolations of other texts, diaries, memoirs, etc(one of which exceeded 30 pages, mostly a dull rendition of victorian daily life) were simply technical writing exercises posing as literature. it was a great idea for a story, with a nod to fowles, that was poorly executed. if byatt had spent more time on just simple character development and interior life, plot, etc and less time on extended writing samples for stage scenery, it could have been a great work.

Rating:
Summary: A Most Fortunate Accident
Review: All print copies of Possession were checked out of the main library; however, the 16-cassette version narrated by Virginia Leishman was on the shelves. Well, I thought, even though it's not bloody likely that I'm going to listen to 23 hours of tape, I'll check it out. Then, in my little branch library, I also found the book. On Friday night, highly skeptical of how long I would be willing to tolerate this slow, every-word process, I started reading -- and listening. I was enthralled. Amazed. Delighted. Sunday night I put in the last side of the last tape and turned the last page. What a strange way to lose a beautiful August weekend. What extraordinary talent! On Monday I bought the book.

Rating:
Summary: I want to like this, I may like it yet, but for now....
Review: I cannot quite take in hand my feelings about this peculiar novel to adequately examine them. All I know is that I've been chased by a compulsion to do just that.

The subtitle of the novel is 'A Romance' and, in order to comply with this promise in the most literal way, the reader is presented with two couples, two loves. Byatt's notion of love is, though interesting in numerous ways, so different from mine that I often found myself unable to sympathize. The idea of two Victorian poets falling in love throughout the course of written correspondence is wonderfully romantic in a very traditional sense. So then why, as I read the letters, was I frowning? Why was I left cold? There was passion for sure, but it was an intellectual passion. A passion that did not seem to truly transcend the mind. And this isn't limited to the relationship between the Victorian lovers. The intimacy between Maud and Roland was tinged with frigidity--their relationship, however, has facets that saved it from being written off. I was hardly expecting, nor did I want, a historical romance novel. But one does not need to sacrifice heat to maintain respectability. I cannot, on some level, accept the relationship between Ash and La Motte, which, no doubt, altered my reaction to more than one aspect of the novel.

I wanted to be caught up, "possessed," by Ash's and La Motte's sentiments for each other as Roland and Maud were (though I can hardly reason why they were.) I wasn't. I wanted to be taken in by the lush prose I had read so much about before even attempting to read the novel. But for such an exquisite sense of detail, I was hardly moved by Byatt's descriptive passages. There was nothing particularly lyrical about the prose, not, I would say, when compared to some other writers who have the ability to fill pages with the most beautiful observations about something as mundane as sleep. Instead it seemed stilted. All those dashes and incomplete thoughts breaking up the narrative. And at times, though I hate to admit it, it was a guessing game as to which character was speaking. It was necessary to go back to the beginning of the exchange and trace the conversation all over again.

And I'll forever wonder why the instigator, Fergus Wolf, drops out of sight. That seems unreasonable.

I also don't think it's fair to suggest that Christabel La Motte was even "loosely" based on Christina Rossetti. Similarities are sparse, limited, perhaps, to a strong religious devotion, an epic poem based on fairy tale like creatures, and that she remained unmarried. Rossetti, as far as I have found, was considered to be a meek woman with a somewhat weak constitution. It would be much more reasonable to speculate that La Motte was modeled after Dickinson. Whereas Rossetti was inclined to write religiously, Dickinson was more open with her ideas and metaphors. And La Motte's style of writing is more compatible with Dickinson as well. Plus, Dickinson's Master letters suggest a spark that Rossetti lacked but that La Motte was well aware of in herself.

What stuck most in my mind was the inability on the part of both couples to reconcile themselves to leading a life less solitary. Which is where the many layers of possession comes to the surface. I loved the image of the empty white bed that Roland and Maud needed to cling to.

Delving into the depths of this novel is not something that can be done over the period of a day nor, I doubt, even over a week. And it is certainly a novel that needs to be read more than once to appreciate. It isn't a particularly happy work. There's little enough hope for any of the characters. However, I'm happy that I read it because it does stay, it does compel you to think about it further. The more I think about it, the more it seems this novel is less "mystery," less "love story," and more the "lit theory" that it also claims to be.

Rating:
Summary: Poetry and Prose
Review: It's pretty hard not to be impressed with this thing, with its amazing scholarship and spectacular writing. In fact, I don't know that I've ever come across a novel like it, with its poems and its letters and its diaries and its fairy-tale stories. This is literature with a capital "L," so much so that you almost feel you have to genuflect before it every time you pick it up.

The story has to do with a contemporary English "Ash" scholar, who discovers while poking around in the dusty old library, what appear to be drafts of heretofore undiscovered love letters, written in the hand of Ash. Randolph Ash, by the way, is a fictionalized major English Victorian poet--probably on a par with Browning or Tennyson--and wasn't known to have had a relationship with any other woman than his wife. After a little detective work, our scholar discovers the identity of Ash's love interest, who it turns out was also a poet--fictionalized Christabel LaMotte. With the help of a female LaMotte scholar, the two then begin an odyssey of literary discovery, uncovering truths in the lives of these literary giants to whom they have spent their young lives studying. To add interest to this already interesting plot is some suspense, in that other, less-altruistic scholars appear to be on their heels, and also there is the smoldering love interest between these two.

It is an excellent story but what is truly remarkable about this novel is that Ms. Byatt has also added large chunks of these poets' literary works. There are numerous lengthy poems by both Ash and LaMotte. There are some of LaMotte's stories. There are the letters themselves, written in Victorian prose, and comprising about forty pages worth of text. There is part of the diary written by Ash's wife. And finally, there is a lengthy diary written by LaMotte's cousin, which solves one mystery and opens the door to another.

The poetry is superb, excellent on its own, and with each poet displaying a distinct style. The letters also, which begin in a somewhat dry, Victorian way, eventually become more emotional, and quite moving. On top of everything else, these literary creations add a great deal to what we know of Ash and LaMotte, illuminating their character and making them more complex. Indeed, through their works alone, we come to feel a great deal of empathy for both of them.

It is a novel which works on many different levels: there is the juxtaposition of the manners and morals of today compared with those of 150 years ago; there is the competition in the trenches of Academe; there is the suspenseful plot; there is the beauty of the poems and letters themselves; and finally, most incredibly, we see how the poems themselves function as metaphors for both the newly discovered love between Ash and Christabel, and the burgeoning love exhibited by those who followed them. It is also an interesting treatise on art, how it is created, and what in the human heart occasionally allows it to flourish.

With that said, however, be prepared to be patient. The plot stops dead, often, and the reader is suddenly confronted with forty pages of diaries, or six pages of some epic poem. Take a break if you must, but don't skip over them. Read them. Take your time doing so, and in the end you will find that it has been a very rewarding experience.

Rating:
Summary: Rich, nuanced, thought-provoking
Review: I spent a whole weekend in bed reading this book, and when I finished I started all over again. Possession has everything in it: literary detective story, epistolary love affair, 19th century epic poetry, academic intrigue, slowly simmering romance. In a nutshell, two 20th century literary scholars, Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey, uncover evidence of a previously-unknown relationship between the two 19th century poets they study, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel La Motte, respectively. Realizing their findings may overturn received wisdom on these poets and their work, Roland and Maud pull out all stops to figure out what went on between them, nasty academic rivals hot on their heels. Beyond the wonderfully suspenseful plot, Possession is a tale about knowledge: how knowledge is built through scholarship, how knowledge of the past must come through the written word, how knowledge may be only problematically related to 'truth.' To appreciate this book fully, it helps to like 19th century English poetry, as many clues are embedded in the mock poems of Ash and La Motte; however, if such poems are not to your taste, they can be fruitfully skimmed. But then, this is part of the beauty of the book: it offers a rich, nuanced story for your mind to roam over, and while the plot itself is wonderful, if you choose to read thoughtfully and delve into the nuance, Byatt gives you much, much more to pleasurably contemplate.

Rating:
Summary: Probably one of the 20 finest books I've ever read
Review: I'd never read A. S. Byatt's work before, but when a friend gave me "Possession" for Christmas, I decided to read it before the movie version came out (on August 16th, 2002). I finished it utterly in awe of Byatt's prodigious grasp of a wide range of subjects: poetry, fiction, Victorian manners and symbolism, academic jealousy, and more. She combines all these, not to mention a rollicking good mystery, in "Possession" with an assurance and ease that belie the complexity of the book.

Briefly, Byatt interweaves a modern-day academic mystery with a Victorian romance. Her modern-day main characters, Maud Bailey and Roland Michell, join forces to uncover the truth behind the many Victorian veils involved in covering up the Victorian romance between Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. The ending is supremely powerful and feels exactly right given the preceding pages. Byatt writes gorgeous, intricate poetry on the part of both Ash and LaMotte, and both poets come vividly to life via Byatt's poems and the letters she writes from their point of view. So, too, do Bailey and Michell come alive as flesh-and-blood characters here. Byatt's astonishing trick is to keep them separate, yet intertwined across the span of a century, and to make each of their wants and desires vividly real.

"Possession" is a masterful work. It gives me hope for the modern novel in a way no other book has in years. I salute Byatt for her imagination and her prose, not to mention her poetry. I stand in awe of this immensely rewarding book and recommend it highly.