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Book Review: Possession by A.S. Byatt
Title: Possession
Author: A.S. Byatt
Published: New York: Vintage International, 1991 (1990)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 555
Total Page Count: 147,546
Text Number: 434
Read Because: personal enjoyment, from my personal library
Review: Two scholars are drawn together when they discover evidence of a secret love-affair between their objects of study, famous Victorian poets. Possession is self-aware and -congratulatory, redundant and transparent; it's also lush, smart, heartfelt, and utterly effective. A book this aware of its own limitations and crutches could do more to correct them, but no matter how many caveats I provide, the truth is that I loved Possession. For all its imperfections, it's utterly successful; for all its contrivances, it has a contagious, unshakable faith in what it does. I wish that some of what remains in the margins (such as Christabel's relationship with Blanche) were more explicit, and that the heavy-handed parallels between the Victorian lovers and their modern-day scholars were less explicit; ironic, given the palimpsest of a narrative, but the book would benefit from more subtlety—the conclusion is particularly heavy-handed. But this is a book of love, self-aware and self-deprecating but fueled by love, love for history and women and writing and academia, love for its post-modernism and its message, and, no matter how tritely, love for love itself. I adored it, and I know I'll reread it some day.
Author: A.S. Byatt
Published: New York: Vintage International, 1991 (1990)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 555
Total Page Count: 147,546
Text Number: 434
Read Because: personal enjoyment, from my personal library
Review: Two scholars are drawn together when they discover evidence of a secret love-affair between their objects of study, famous Victorian poets. Possession is self-aware and -congratulatory, redundant and transparent; it's also lush, smart, heartfelt, and utterly effective. A book this aware of its own limitations and crutches could do more to correct them, but no matter how many caveats I provide, the truth is that I loved Possession. For all its imperfections, it's utterly successful; for all its contrivances, it has a contagious, unshakable faith in what it does. I wish that some of what remains in the margins (such as Christabel's relationship with Blanche) were more explicit, and that the heavy-handed parallels between the Victorian lovers and their modern-day scholars were less explicit; ironic, given the palimpsest of a narrative, but the book would benefit from more subtlety—the conclusion is particularly heavy-handed. But this is a book of love, self-aware and self-deprecating but fueled by love, love for history and women and writing and academia, love for its post-modernism and its message, and, no matter how tritely, love for love itself. I adored it, and I know I'll reread it some day.
I would not for the whole world diminish you. I know it is usual in these circumstances to protest—"I love you for yourself alone"—"I love you essentially"—and as you imply, my dearest, to mean by "you essentially"—lips hands and eyes. But you must know—we do know—that it is not so—dearest, I love your soul and with that your poetry—the grammar and stopping and hurrying syntax of your quick thought—quite as much essentially you as Cleopatra's hopping was essentially hers to delight Antony—more essentially, in that while all lips hands and eyes resemble each other somewhat (though yours are enchanting and also magnetic)—your thought clothed with your words is uniquely you, came with you, would vanish if you vanished—
—Possession, 218-9