I can’t resist the literary novel. I suppose there’s just a
certain kind of person who likes reading books about people reading books. If
you are that type of person, then you will love Possession by A.S. Byatt. It falls in neatly with other novels that
take place in and around academic settings like Dorothy Sayers’s Gaudy Night or Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Like those other, Possession centers on a
mystery though it is officially subtitled “A Romance.”
Roland Mitchell is a minor scholar working part time for a
researcher exploring the works of Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash. Roland is
extremely intelligent and dedicated to his work but lacks what we Americans
would call “gumption.” All this changes however, when he finds in a copy of a
book belonging to Ash, two unfinished letters to a mysterious lady. He impulsively
pockets the letters and sets out to discover the identity of this belle dame to whom the respectable and erstwhile
happily married poet was writing. He soon crosses paths with Maud Bailey, a
feminist scholar working on another obscure English Victorian poet, Christabel
LaMotte, who just may be Ash’s elusive lady. Together the two determine to
unravel the mystery of a relationship unknown to anyone for a hundred fifty
years. Of course, there are academic and romantic rivalries that threaten to derail
the investigation and an ongoing race for any bits of evidence that can be had.
Byatt alternates her narrative between the exploration of
our main protagonists, Roland and Maud, and the letters and journals of Ash and
LaMotte, allowing the reader to participate in the investigation as well as the
characters. I love books like this if they are done well, and this is done very
well. My only complaint is that there are exactly three sections of the book in
which the author directly narrates events in the 1800s, unmediated by
documents. For me, this seems like cheating, and I would prefer to know exactly
what the characters in the book have discovered and no more. The way she has
set up the narrative does not lend itself to those omniscient excursions into
the past. In fact, I would say the strength of the book lies in the revelation
of how much we think we know of the past based on so little information.
If you like books and academic settings, then you’ll enjoy Possession. If everything I’ve just said
sounds incredibly boring to you, then you
may want to give it a pass. What else can be said for this book? It’s a
literary novel that questions how much we understand of literature, a
postmodern book that pokes fun at postmodernity, a feminist critique that
parodies feminist critiques, and, yes, I suppose too, A Romance.
4/5 stars
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