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I really enjoyed this story, even though it does move rather slowly. The film adaptation was a joke and did not do justice to such a complex novel. Beautiful story, and beautifully written.

I laughed pretty hard when I saw the title for this discussion. I had to walk around with the novel and a dictionary whenever I read anything by Byatt. It can be annoying, but I'm sort of in love with words, so it worked for me.

I felt frustrated with the poetry, but the prose was charming.
For me, this is the kind of book one must read at the right time.

I've read "Possession" several times, and I must admit the poetry was difficult at times to wade through. But then, Byatt set the scenes marvelously in that era of the mid-1800s. How else would she have remained true to that era in creating verse?
For me, Chapter 15 was stunning, culminating everything preceding it. Byatt's prose is remarkable, especially there. When I read the Postscript, 1868, however, with the descriptions of the flora (my God, how could we NOT see the meadow as Randolph did), his daughter engaged in wide-eyed-innocence conversation with Randolph, and the ending sentence, a tear came to my eye.
In this book at least, Byatt shows her mastery of the craft, as well as her love of the comma.

I agree with both that the book is hard to read, but also wonderful. I've read it completely twice - the first time took a lot of determination and perserverance (especially through the poetry), but I found the second time so much more enjoyable and lost myself in the poignant storylines and beauty of the words. It is a book that I now periodically pick up to read a specific passage just to capture a mood I'm seeking. Worth the investment.

I read this book when I was in college. I found it tedious and pedantic. My professor loved it, but she loved Shakespeare and Chaucer and old English things. I loved Southern literature and plain speaking. We were in two different worlds.

i was thrilled by it....until the endless and utterly uninvolving letters and poems. by the time the book returned the the narrative i had lost all sense of fascination and chucked it away.

tremendously disappointing

Loved this book. One of my all-time favorites. Granted, it was a slow start but, when I finished, I stayed home from work for the next three days to re-read it.

This is one of those books that I read over and over because there is so much to discover each time. I admit to skipping a lot of the poetry the first time I read it because I'm a plot-junkie and I really needed to get to the meat of the story proper, but the second time was different. I took the time to read the poetry and it was quite interesting, because you can tell Byatt took a lot of trouble to be pitch-perfect in her attempt at creating credible Victorian poetry.

I have two degrees in English Lit (and the desire to accrue more!) but one of the best things about the book is how satirical it is, how lovingly critical it is of universities, biographers, the study of literature, and the highly structured, extremely stratified and somewhat cynical and carefully postured nature of academic study today.

That's the point, I think. All of this world-weariness and knowingness is pitted against the Victorians' earnest preoccupation with - and genuine engagement with - the big questions on morality and myth and history and the universe and man's place in it. That's what makes this book so vibrant, in my opinion.

This is oone of those very rare alternate world novels that is about a -literary- alternate world. It's a tour de force for those who love this kind of thing.

As to the e-edition, it is possible as with amny older works that the publisher forgot to include that "we get all the rights that have not yet been invented" clause in their contract. If her agent was smart, Byatt has the e rights. And if her agent is really smart, he is marketing those rights separately.

Keep reading! The book is one of my favorites and I can say so is Byatt one of my favorite writers. Had the pleasure of meeting her while she was at Yale. She is a down to earth wonderful, brilliant woman.

I really loved this book. I did listen to it as an audio book but I think I might have enjoyed it more if I had read the print version. I saw the movie also, but I don't think it did the book justice.

I read one other book by Byatt but it was much different. It reminded me of an Iris Murdoch novel.

I absolutely adored it until all the different factions were sort true-crime-car-chasing each other all over England. That, for some reason, really irritated me and seemed incongruous with the rest of the story so I gave it up.

If you didn't finish it, then you really don't get to say it wasn't "worth the read" with any kind of authority. I've read it many times, though I must admit I do skip over the poetry - but that's because I don't like most poetry, period. I'm fairly literate, but I needed a dictionary by my side since so many of the words Randolph and Christabel use in their correspondence are archaic and no longer commonly used.
I must confess I liked the movie - it wasn't a faithful adaptation, but I liked all the actors so much that I kind of pretended it was stand-alone rather than based on a novel and it was better than most feature films.

I confess I'm baffled by the post from Janeb - "don't sweat" WHAT? And why are you in this discussion?

I loved it but I can see that it is not everyone's cup of tea. I was caught up in it right away. The scene in the London Library is wonderful. I thought the part about "The book was covered in dust from before the Clean Air Act" was hysterical. For myself, I enjoy the sense that she is satirizing the literary establishment and maybe taking pot shots at real people although I am not knowledgable enough to understand it or recognize anybody. I was not an English major, history is my subject. I think it can be enjoyed, though, without understanding all the literary ins and outs. I have reread it a number of times and sometimes I skip all the poetry and short stories and just read the letters and documents and I do not think you miss any plot points by doing that. What you do miss is the added depth of the characters, however. Also I found the revelation of the relationship between the 2 poets to be deeply exciting, just think if something like that happened in real life!

I loved this book. The film adaptation was ghastly! This is one I reread regularly. I love the language. I love the poetry. It's truly inspired. An excellent read imho.

Kathleen, I use the overdrive digital library they don'thave Possession, but they do have her newer books. I think publishers just haven't released there older books in this format yet. they are releasing ebooks with some new books but are only starting to release the older ones.
I'm afraid that because people can't legally get the ebooks they want it will lead to increased piracy. Just like the with the music industry

Loved this book but it took a bit of getting into. It feels like Byatt doesn't care if she loses half her readers after the first few pages. Definitely worth reading in my opinion.

Susan your post is exactly right! I've read a lot of Byatt and while half the time ('Portraits in Fiction' for example) I haven't a clue what she's saying, her use of words is just so beautiful I find myself getting caught up anyway.

She is possibly my favourite author.

Possession is a stunning novel and well worth the challenge. It's the book that turned me back on to reading and it's ridiculous it's not on Kindle yet!

I put this down in the middle and walked away. It's tedious and you get the impression that the author writes with an air of arrogance not really being interested in enticing a reader.

I was JUST hunting for it only to discover that while even several of her short story anthologies are in digital, her Booker-Prize winning, still in print (though thankfully with the original cover and not the film photo cover) novel is not.

I didn't like it either.

I knew I was lacking as an individual - to find that there are people who actually saw any merit whatsoever in this dump of words shows me that I am a deeply flawed individual.

As I intimated in my review, that I think this is just a meandering, self indulgent load of drivel can only be a reflection of my defects, and what I have written here is the real pretentious twaddle, not this book.

don't sweat it...no big loss. not worth the read.

I agree with Janeb, read this book only if your TBR stack is at the bottom.