Possession by AS Byatt REVIEW

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[@mark-jensbarton8363]

One of the my favorite novels ever. It's actually tied with Ulysses by James Joyce for me, believe it or not. If you're not familiar with Victorian poetry, you may not realize just how impressive it is how she "imitated" Robert Browning and Emily Dickinson's poetics. The ending, to this day, rips my mother fucking heart out, and the use of alluding to John Milton with the line "fresh woods and pastures new" cements the passing of Ash and LaMotte. Great novel. Very glad you read it!

[@DebMcDonald]

Possession is one of my very favourite novels. It’s everything I love: mystery, campus novels, Victorian literature, letters, diaries, a fairy tale, a storm, a fistfight ...just perfection! I’ve read it several times. The movie is mediocre but will do when you don’t have time for a reread.

[@juliohenriquebaltazar3275]

Here in Brazil this book was printed a long time ago and never more again, what a pity! I loved the novel so much, there are a few books about academic literary life and literary theory is the main goal of my life, so I was ecstatic to discover that such a work existed!

[@colmflanagan5933]

Think the questions raised in the postscript about how Ash knew about May’s existence and whereabouts is intentional. We find ourselves, like Maud & Roland, thinking we have all the pieces of the puzzle, only to discover that there’s another mystery to ponder on. We will never get to the absolute truth of history.

[@hannahm.3606]

Haha the first half of the book had me really thinking Ash and Lamotte were real poets! Was let down but also impressed that they were fictional

[@gaildoughty6799]

Oh, me too! Felt so dim when I looked up Ash and thought “dang!” Glad it wast just m.

[@mark-jensbarton8363]

And another note! If you liked Possession, check out Waterland by Graham Swift and The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowels. They're all working with notions of history in some way or another

[@Christina-kc4fw]

I read the poems a loud and I feel it really heightened my experience reading it. Great review! This book is amazing on so many levels.

[@troytradup]

I second the viewer who recommended The French Lieutenant's Woman. I should read that again myself -- as well as Possession. Also, a sideways note: I never saw the movie version of Possession, but I remember liking another film based on Byatt a hundred years ago -- Angels & Insects.

[@mark-jensbarton8363]

"A. S. Byatt, in part, wrote Possession in response to John Fowles' novel The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969). In an essay in Byatt's nonfiction book, On Histories and Stories, she wrote: Fowles has said that the nineteenth-century narrator was assuming the omniscience of a god. I think rather the opposite is the case-this kind of fictive narrator can creep closer to the feelings and inner life of characters-as well as providing a Greek chorus-than any first-person mimicry. In 'Possession' I used this kind of narrator deliberately three times in the historical narrative-always to tell what the historians and biographers of my fiction never discovered, always to heighten the reader's imaginative entry into the world of the text."

[@i-r_9-18]

One of the best novels I've ever read

[@jacqo4426]

You've been around on KZbin for so long. Finally this book! Yay!

[@gaildoughty6799]

Thank you for a wonderfully thoughtful review of one of my favorite books ever.

[@k.e.1760]

Great review! You should definitely check out Stoner by John Williams

[@danlinder2249]

I read this brilliant novel in the spring of 2013... and I want to revisit it now! Thanks for this review!

[@Notizhefte]

I love this novel very much, that I first read when it came out and several times afterwards.

[@prodomango712]

Secondo te quali sono i migliori romanzi italiani moderni/contemporanei? Non sono italiano ma mi piace molto leggere in italiano. Qualsiasi consiglio dell'autore sarebbe molto apprezzato. Grazie tante!:)

[@ramzizzle]

please read and review beelzebubs tales to his grandson, its the first sci fi book and no one ever talks about it

[@mark-jensbarton8363]

Also the length of the poems, your "petty complaint" haha, is in itself, a funny representation of Victorian poetry because the Victorian poets wrote extremely long poems

[@hayward022]

Do you keep track of the books you read and how?

[@kendellrobles9301]

@thebookchemist do you read multiple books at once? If so, how do you balance them?

[@timkjazz]

Excellent book, dismal movie, great choice, sir.

[@rashmigawade2011]

Hi I just want to know if as byatt has herself written all the poetry in this book..anyone?

[@dv1649]

Yes, I know this for sure. She wrote all Ash and LaMotte poems (not Shakespeare or Milton quoted). At first she was going to engage a poet she knew to do it, but when she showed him some of the sketchy drafts she had by then, he told her she was doing it just brillliantly. Go ahead and write them all yourself, he said. Which she did. She told this at a lecture where I was present.

[@severalgecko]

I read this earlier in the year and thought it was excellent. I had a couple of minor complaints about the book: the timeline swapping kind of put the brakes on some of the narrative momentum (which you mention in your review) and some of the fictional literary criticism was a little tiresome. Overall though, I was kind of in awe at how someone could write such a book. It seems to span so many different genres of writing and it's all really well done. The postscript is such a perfect bittersweet ending.

[@bharathkrishnavp9224]

Wooww ......IAM BA English language and literature student