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This book was absolutely fascinating! I loved how the experiences of the characters were woven together through excerpts from poems, letters, and journals. The story was complex with layers of development as the secrets were revealed through a combination of events in the past and present. It took me a while to get into the story, and I had to combine the audio with text so that I could look at the poems and reread sections as needed, but once I became invested in the story, I didn't want to put it down.

Rating: 4 stars


This is my favorite by Byatt, so far. A PhD student does his dissertation about a 19th century poet and finds a couple of letters to another poet tucked in a book owned by the author. He meets up with a scholar researching the other poet and they both set out to discover if an affair took place between the two poets.

Cool story, both in the past and in the present day.

I also gave this 4 stars. I loved the references to the Romantic poets era, the original poetry that was written by Byatt as the work of the poets from the story, the meta textual element of the mirrored English academic affairs.

I really liked the bit too about how the modern couple fret about whether to release this info or not partly based on the fact that Cristabel (the female poet from the past) is largely interpreted by modern scholars to be a lesbian feminist poet, and revealing that she had a great affair and even secret child with a male poet would not only ruin the works of the scholars who make a living on studying her but also if knowing that takes away something positive from people who needed that. But, am I just thick or does it not really ever confirm in the past segments that Christabel and her long time roommate are lovers or not? I felt it was a could have been/might have been romantic friendship sitch where it wasn't confirmed? (unless I glazed over a crucial part, because I'm usually good at gay subtext).

Anyway, really liked the book overall, only gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I did find the "and then the modern couple slept together" ending just quite underwhelming.

Reason Read: TBR takedown, Reading 1001, Booker
This is extremely difficult to read. I liked that it was about academics doing research. I found it interesting. Byatt creates not only a story about academic research into works by fiction poets of the Victorian age. She writes poetry, letters, journals that the researchers are discovering and reading and tracks these Victorians and the mystery of their lives. It was so hard to engage and stay engaged. Perhaps if you love Victorian poetry maybe it would be easier. I can't say. I can see why she won the Booker because it took a lot of work to write this 555 page book but it was soooo hard to read. I gave it 3.8 stars but unfortunately that does not reflect how very hard this was to read.

Pre-2016 review:

***

This Booker Prize winner could be labelled a literary Da Vinci Code or Foucault's Pendulum. Two literary scholars, after the discovery of unpublished correspondence, embark on a search to discover the links between two Victorian poets, on a background of academic bickering, greed and manifold love intricacies. The intrigue underlying each discovery is somewhat burdened by the insertion of complete extracts for journals, correspondence and poems. While I understand this was done to replicate a more genuine, scholarly investigative approach, some journal passages are borderline boring and do not add much to the plot. Besides, if you don't like free verse poetry, you will hate this (I am not a big fan). Despite this, it is still an enjoyable read that didn't put me off reading her other novels on the list. If you look for a better erudite quest, Foucault's Pendulum by Eco is much, much better.

Sometimes a book is just the right book at the right time. After struggling with the beginning of the book, I proceeded to find myself thoroughly invested and loved the rest. In the beginning, I was saying to myself: "maybe I can skip over the poetry", "maybe I can skim" the journals, however, the story is in the poetry and in the journals and the layers of reveal and you simply have to read the recreation of pedantic old victorian poetry (unfortunately). I came to love the two romantic lines: the modern day lovers who lusted for a clean white narrow bed where they could sleep alone, and the poets from the past who were so fixated on keeping their protective bubbles and then each other.
The story is about literary scholars and therefore the drama is not truly adventurous but I marveled at Byatt's ability to give us a story told in letters, journals, poetry and a few delightful glimpses at human beings attempting to understand a literary mystery.

Amanda, (spoiler) I definitely thought that Christabel and Blanche were lovers and that Blanche killed herself because Christabel became obsessed with Ash. I don't think this was ever spelled out specifically except that Christabel felt herself to be the murderer of Blanche when Blanche felt that she had lost Christabel's love.

Is this group active? I've just joined because I've started reading Possession and I wanted to share any thoughts with fellow readers, but to be honest, I haven't a clue what I'm doing. I have never tried using Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ groups or contacting 'friends' before because they don't work on my mobile phone app.

Somebody, please respond, and if there's anybody else reading the same book, I'll fire off a few questions to get things going.

A book of two halves for me. I found the beginning very slow and painfully dull, I’ve abandoned it twice before and it took me at least 300 pages before I began to engage with the story. The second half was more enjoyable. Although the story was quite predictable, I still wanted to find out what happened and liked how it was revealed.

I liked the poetry as a device for revealing the story and the feelings of the characters, and I also enjoyed how the myths were refashioned and adapted within the different eras. The satire on academia and academics was a bit niche, but quite clever and sometimes very funny.

Unfortunately I couldn’t warm to any of the four main characters, they were deliberately made secretive and reserved to serve the story but that keeps the reader at the distance. I found secondary characters such as Val, Sir George, Cropper & Blackadder, Blanche and Ellen more interesting. This is a skilful and multi layered novel, but not one I personally cared for.

Mike wrote: "Is this group active? I've just joined because I've started reading Possession and I wanted to share any thoughts with fellow readers, but to be honest, I haven't a clue what I'm doing. I have neve..."

Yes, Mike, the group is active, but we have a way of functioning which is detailed here: /topic/show/... . If you feel that this group would suit your needs, I would encourage to introduce yourself here: /topic/show/....