Besessen

I first read this book, "Possession," when it was published back in 1990. I loved it then, but this second reading held even greater significance for me. It is an extraordinary accomplishment. Byatt seems to possess a wealth of knowledge on everything, and she skillfully weaves together countless delicate threads of character and story, leaving me in awe. I find myself constantly looking up quotes and references every few pages, and I struggle to recall how I managed during my first reading, in the pre-Google days.

There are passages in which Byatt's descriptions are breathtakingly eloquent. More often than usual when I read, I find myself setting the book aside to reflect more deeply and slowly on the richness of the content. She renders the subtleties of her characters' interior lives with such precision that one feels they are real people in real situations, rather than mere fictions of her mind.

The poems within the book deserve a separate comment and far more praise than I can give them here. I am astonished that Byatt has written these poems herself, attributing them to her poet-characters Randolph Henry Ash and Christable LaMotte. They would stand up well against any highly-regarded poetry of the era. I thoroughly enjoyed them, although my taste in poetry generally leans away from the overwrought High Romanticism of the Victorian poets... not all of them, of course. Some of my favorite poets are among this group. However, in my opinion, this type of poetry must be executed flawlessly or avoided completely. There is no middle ground, as there is nothing worse than reading the fumbled efforts of the Romantics, which come across as sentimental gushing and the vomiting of too many poorly chosen words. It's like a potentially delicious meal prepared by a bad cook, inducing nausea in all who partake.

For myself, I am pleased to say that I feel I have finally grown into Byatt's writing. I believe I am now a more worthy reader of her books than I was when I was younger. If I love "Possession" more profoundly now than I did then (and recently found "The Children's Book" to be a miracle in itself), it is only because I have changed, not the books. I needed to experience more, know more, and become more before I could fully grasp the depth and breadth of Byatt's intellectual, artistic, and emotional brilliance.

She writes densely, so her books will not be enjoyed by those who prefer minimalism or terseness or are in a Hemingwayesque mood. However, not for the first time in my life, I have been longing for labyrinthine books lately. I am very much in the C.S. Lewis state of mind that led him to say, "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." Hear, hear! But it's even better when the book is magnificent and the tea (or coffee) is perfectly brewed. I am glad that now I can go back and read all of Byatt's books that I've overlooked, and also that she is still alive and writing, so there will undoubtedly be more to look forward to!

The Mermaid, Edward Burne-Jones, 1882 (The Tate, London).

**Artfully Told Tale of Academics, Victorian Poets and Romance**

This metafictional novel, "Possession", weaves a complex and engaging story that combines elements of romance, mystery, and academic exploration. The author skillfully interweaves two time periods, 1987 and nineteenth-century Victorian England, creating a rich tapestry of characters and events.

In the Victorian era, we are introduced to two fictional poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. Ash, a renowned poet, and LaMotte, a lesser-known but talented woman, have a secret affair that has far-reaching consequences. The author not only invents these poets but also writes their poetry,展示了remarkable skill and creativity.
In 1987, a group of academics become intrigued by the connection between Ash and LaMotte. Roland Michell, an unknown scholar, teams up with Maud Bailey, an authority on LaMotte, to uncover the truth. Their quest leads them to other scholars, each with their own motives and personalities.
The characters in the novel are diverse and well-developed. Some, like Leonora Stern and James Blackadder, are colorful and engaging, while others, like Christabel LaMotte and some of the 1987 characters, are less sympathetic. The author also explores themes such as love, possession, and the power of knowledge.
Despite its many strengths, the novel does have some weaknesses. The poetry of Ash and LaMotte may not be to everyone's taste, and some readers may find the 1987 characters a bit chilly. Additionally, the audio reading by Virginia Leisham may not be to everyone's liking.
Overall, "Possession" is a thought-provoking and entertaining novel that offers a unique perspective on Victorian literature and the world of academia. While it may not be perfect, it is definitely worth reading for those who enjoy a good mystery and a well-written story.

Belíssimo “tour de force” literário. “Possessão” é um romance com múltiplas camadas de significação.

As I explore this remarkable work, I am struck by its depth and complexity. From my perspective as a literature enthusiast, I can clearly identify three prominent layers: the mystery romance, virtuosity, and academic satire.

The mystery romance aspect unfolds as two literature researchers, Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey, delve into the lives of Victorian poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. Their investigations lead to the discovery of something entirely new, challenging existing theories and piquing our curiosity.

Byatt's virtuosity is evident in the masterful structure of the novel. She weaves together multiple narrative formats, including poetry, letters, diaries, and academic articles, creating a rich and immersive reading experience.

The academic satire offers a scathing critique of the university world. Byatt exposes the flaws and foibles of academia, from the power struggles between professors to the questionable methods of some academic disciplines.

Overall, “Possessão” is a tour de force that demands careful analysis and interpretation. It is a work of great art that rewards multiple readings and invites us to explore the many layers of meaning within.

Published in VI (https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/...).

Here I forgot to talk about my translation, which I am perhaps most proud of!

Annotation:

The young and unsuccessful literary scholar Roland Mitchell believes that he is late and has missed all the most interesting things. Even about the subject of his research, the Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash, everything has already been written before him, and all that is left for him is to add some incidental small notes. Everything changes when he accidentally finds a passionate letter from Ash addressed not to his wife. Trying to establish the mysterious addressee, Roland embarks on a literary detective story, where there will be gothic wastelands and opened graves, secrets from the past and spiritual séances, works stolen, lost and found, and finally love that conquers time and unites epochs. "Possession" by A. S. Byatt won the Booker Prize in 1990 and was recognized by the wide public and critics as one of the most important postmodern British novels. This is one of the most poignant love letters to books and very different readers, a story about how we explain ourselves through the prism of our cultural heritage.

Here we talk with Bogdana Romanova about this novel for an hour - and could talk even more, it is one of the most inventive and humane postmodern novels, in my opinion.

Here I once explained why I generally love Byatt:

No one else has described light and color, the heavy materiality of objects, defined by the sheen that bathes their surfaces, as A. S. Byatt, the Booker laureate and one of the most important authors for me: for example, no one else would describe the chopping of onions as "reduced onions to fine specks of translucent light". The world of her texts is filled with objects and works of art, weighed down by whole tangles of adjectives - Arts and Crafts, Van Gogh and Matisse, high art and decorative tiles, ekphrastic descriptions nowhere else hold such a prominent place (since the time of that same shield).

(and so on)

And here I copy two anecdotes about this translation from Facebook:

1) Firstly, this is the only translation where I accidentally cut out Russian culture. I am not a proponent of the strategy of "cutting out incidental references to Russian culture when translating", but here it happened (to my joy).

The plot: we are explained that the names of racehorses have to play on the names of their parents. "The horses' names are jokes. White Nights, by Dostoevsky out of Carroll's Alice" (that is, the father horse is Dostoevsky, the mother is Alice Carroll, and the name of the young horse plays on the homophony of Dostoevsky's story "White Nights" and the White Knight from "Alice Through the Looking-Glass").

I was trying to preserve this combination of authors (with a different combination of works), inventing increasingly artificial variants - one of the variants was Rabbit-and-Car, others were no better, but my leaky memory dropped the mercy vis-à-vis the rest)))). Until finally it dawned on me: this is a passing moment that works for the characterization of the heroes (shows that erudition can exist outside the academic world), but is not an important intertext for the interpretation of the rest of the novel. In principle, you can substitute any other cultural artifacts, as long as it's funny.

So as a result:

— And the names of the horses — these are puns. The transformation — the father is Kafka, the mother is My Fair Lady.

(Dedicated to the publisher of the book Bogdana Romanova, who loves Kafka more than Kafka loved himself.)

2) About the translation of the title: The title in the original sounds like "Possession" and combines several motifs of the book at once:

That was.. not what I was expecting this time.

I have to admit, I did not approach this book this time around with what I would consider pure motives. I wasn’t in it to find things I had never found before, to revisit a personal classic to explore ideas that I had left behind for the time when I was ready to connect with them in the way that they deserved. I wasn’t even in it to re-approach situations and characters with a new perspective of age and experience.

No, I needed something from this book.

I can’t really think of any other way to put this, really: I was self-medicating with this book.

I’ve heard this talked about in so many different ways, if perhaps not in those words, by other book lovers that I know that I can’t be the only one who does this. I came back to this book because of the transformative experience I had the last two times. I needed to be transformed. I’ve fallen into a new line of work in recent years, and I.. well, there are a lot of things that I’ve seen that I wasn’t prepared for. It’s the sort of work where I’ve felt the need to create an entirely separate daytime persona to feel brave enough and competent enough to get through the day, one that I consider separate from what I would consider myself. I come home at the end of the day and spend my time trying to reconnect with the other person I know I am and want to continue being. Some days I can even stay awake long enough to get some of her back. It isn’t that it is necessarily objectively that horrible of an experience. It’s just something where the vast majority of the time I spend during the day is spent in tasks that are for the most part not suited to my personality or many of my strengths. It also involves things that I would personally prefer not to be part of my life. I chose this job because I had become so disillusioned with the ivory tower academic path I was on that I chose the most opposite thing that I could think of to do that still fell within the realm of my skills and education. After years of being shut up inside a library going crazy inside my head, I got sick of the whole exercise as a merry-go-round of narcissistic and masochistic head games. I decided I just wanted to be useful, do anything that didn’t leave me time for that nonsense. I think that I am useful, sometimes. Sometimes I help. Sometimes I go home and don’t wake up in the middle of the night worried, or check my email at 10 pm just in case.

But goddamn, it’s just… it’s ugly sometimes. It’s tiring, and isolating, and my daytime persona is taking over more and more of my time. There are things about her that I like and I think would benefit me if I could adopt them outside a situation of necessity. But there are things that I desperately want to save about the person that I can only be after work hours, which I have less and less time for. What I would gain is not worth what I would lose-I am lucky enough to have enough time with my other self banked right now to be able to say that with certainty. It’s the only fucking reason I can write this review right now- I’ve got the other one far enough at bay that I can only barely hear her screaming about what a fucking waste of time this is and what a terrible writer I am anyway and I should get back to doing something that fucking helps somebody.

I reached for Possession after two weeks of working twelve hour days and only one Saturday to restore my Self. I wanted it to bring me back to myself as fast as possible, though I'm sure I didn't think that consciously. I thought, Irememberthis, only, when I was lucky enough to see it on the shelf.

There are parts of this book that I have such a strong, bodily anchored memory of, that I have connected to so strongly that my body has a sense memory of what it should do at the time when I read those words. I am at the point with this book where I am not only remembering the scenes and words, I am doubling that over with my memories of myself reading them and feeding off of them, trying to make them a part of my immediate self again. It was a cycle of memory and experience, one feeding off the other to bring me back, make me disappear and make me whole again, here in the present.

I went to it looking for something that I knew wasn’t going to go away: beauty. I needed some beauty in my life so badly, and this is how you know the disease of bibliophilia has really set in- books are what I turn to when I need that. I go to books to remind myself that beauty exists and it is worth something and it is a part of me, no matter how much I forget that sometimes. There are some books that we readers can no longer do this with. Before I realized what I was doing this, it was happening for years with my constant re-reads of parts of Guy Gavriel Kay novels. He was my go-to until I read his latest novel and the spell was broken- I stayed in the present and analytical- that it wouldn't work again. That was when I started to figure out what I was doing because then I tried reading my favorite novel of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s, and similarly, rather than being swept away, all I could see was the melodramatic dialogue and some fucked up coded gender politics that I considered writing an enraged essay about. Some of this, sure, is perhaps about developing better taste and letting go of adolescent attachments. But more of it is about being so far away from what I like to think of as myself that there are days where I can’t get back.

Possession, though, it brought me back. It has not disappointed me yet. Parts of this book made me laugh and smile and exercise my brain in the way that I want it to be exercised, and alternately, it devoured me whole. There were parts where I came up gasping for air, and parts that I danced over lightly, barely reading, except for letting the pieces of a well-known structure fall reassuringly into place.. There were parts where the rhythm of it was enough, and parts where I read and re-read a page again and again until I felt I had understood it on many levels.

But mostly, it was all so much words, words, words, paragraphs and pages put together in just that way. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, for a read that looked to suck out whatever drop of beauty it could find, it was the “first-hand” personal accounts that stood out to me the most here- the letters and the diaries- each and every one of them a record of love, desire, becoming and stone-set final regret and loss, each and every one of them filtered though the love of words, writing and books, of the seeking, narrative embroidered kind that I recognize as one of my own:

”…I may write to you as I write when I am alone, when I write my true writing, which is for everyone and no one- so that in me which has never addressed any private creature, feels at home with you. I say “at home” what extraordinary folly- when you take pleasure in making me feel most unhemlich, as the Germans have it, least of all at home, but always on edge… But poets don’t want homes- do they?- they are not creatures of hearth and firedogs, but of heaths and ranging hounds. Now tell me, do you suppose what I just wrote is the truth or a lie?”

“Today I laid down Melusina having come trembling to the end of this marvelous work. What shall I say of it?.... How shall I characterize it? It is like a huge, intricately embroidered tapestry in a shadowed stone hall, on which all sorts of strange birds and beasts and elves and demons creep in and out of thickets of thorny trees…”

“At first Roland worked with the kind of concentrated curiosity with which he read anything at all by Randolph Ash. This curiosity was a kind of predictive familiarity; he knew the workings of the other man’s mind, he had read what he had read, he was possessed of his characteristic habits of syntax and stress. His mind could leap ahead and hear the rhythm of the unread as though he was the writer, hearing in his brain the ghost-rhythms of the as yet unwritten…”

“We live in an age of scientific history- we sift our evidence- we know somewhat about eyewitness accounts and how far it is prudent to entrust ourselves to them.. So if I construct a fictive eyewitness account- a credible plausible account- am I lending life to truth with my fiction- or verisimilitude to a colossal Lie with my feverish imagination? Do I do as they did, the evangelists, reconstructing the events of the Story in after-time? Or do I do as false prophets do and puff air into simulacra?..”

“My dear Friend,
I may call myself your friend, may I not? For my true thoughts have spent more time in your company than in anyone else’s, these last two or three months, and where my thoughts are, there am I, in truth, even if- like the May, only a threshold-presence, by decree. I write to you now in haste- not to answer your last most generous letter- but to impart a vision…”

“I have dreamed nightly of your face and walked the streets of my daily life with the rhythms of your writing singing in my silent brain. I have called you my Muse and so you are, or might be, a messenger from some urgent place..”

“Oh Sir- things flicker and shift, they are indeed all spangle and sparks and flashes. I have sat by my fireside all this long evening- on my safe stool- turning my burning cheeks towards the Aspirations of the flame and the caving-in, the ruddy mutter, the crumbling of the consumed coals…”

“My dear-
The true exercise of freedom is-cannily and wisely and with grace-to move inside what space confines- and not seek to know what lies beyond and cannot be touched or tasted. But we are human- and to be human is to desire to know what may be known by any means…

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 and 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- your thoughts clothed with your words are uniquely you, came with you, would vanish if you vanished…”

“I have been angry for so long- with all of us, with you, with Blanche, with myself. And now near the end, “in the calm of mind all passion spent,” I think of you again with clear love. I have been reading Samson Agoniste and came upon the dragon I always thought you were- as I was the ‘tame villatic fowl’-

His fiery virtue roused
From under ashes into sudden flame
And as an evening dragon came
Assailant on the perched roosts
And nests in the order ranged
Of tame villatic fowl-

Is not that fine? Did we not- did you not flame and I catch fire? Shall we survive and rise from our ashes? Like Milton’s Pheonix?

That self-begotten bird
In the Arabian woods embossed
That no second knows nor third
And lay erewhile a holocaust
From out her ashy womb now teemed
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed
And though her body die, her fame survives
A secular bird, ages of lives.

I would rather have lived alone, so, if you would have the truth. But since that might not be- and is granted to almost none- I thank God for you- if there must be a Dragon- that He was You…”

See, that is the shit that matters. Fuck, I remember now. That is the shit that started me down this path in the first place, that lead me to make choice after choice that I thought was going there, even if it went somewhere different. That restored me again. I read the letters twice and Sabine’s diary slowly once, the sort of read that is three times over in reality. By the time I was done, my brain circuitry had slid back into it’s proper place, and I could answer the sort of basic questions that I couldn’t before I had started. I felt purged, like I had gone on a cleansing diet for a month. This is the sort of read that cleans out all the nonsense from my brain and leaves me with what is essentially important again.

It is a species of addiction- it works much the same as any other. I realize this. But for now, books like Possession, books that devour me and spit me out again remade… this is what keeps me in equilibrium, and keeps the self that I very much want to keep around from disappearing. They are my guide back. I am keeping this one, along with others of its kind, on my bedside table. I have a feeling I will need them again soon.

If anyone has any books to recommend that they turn to for beauty and rest, please let me know. I would love to add them to what I can only call my arsenal. Thank you.

* * *

ORIGINAL: I do so hate to be predictable, the girl who has victorian and victorian-wannabe shelves, and shelves for regency and romance and the-aftermath, and pretty much every other category that this would plausibly be generally shelved in (except, perhaps, pretentiousness-that's-worth-it...but we'll get to that later) but I really do love this book.

I'm going to have to go even further down the disgustingly adoring path and say that this is going to be a personal classic, for me. I don't argue that it needs to be taught in classrooms or become part of a modern canon or anything like that (though I'm certainly not against the idea), but it definitely meets the most important thing for me:

A different experience at every age/read- This is my second read through. The first time I read it was in 2002. I was 16 years old, and the movie was coming out. There was no way I appreciated this book beyond a few very shallow things. Why? 'Cause dude, there was a movie coming out with some of my favorite sexy people in it (Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehele), and duuuude it was about hot Victorians having hot sexy smart people sexy sex and their words were as hot as their hot costumes and hot modern academics (ooohmygood whoos this Aaron Eckhart, hellooo!) getting it on over books, books are so awesome... Ooh look, letters with smart people references in it that I understand, this is so cool that I get even a little of this, yay!... oh did I mention HOT VICTORIANS??

... Yeah, that was about the extent of my thoughts at the time, I think. I did cry at the end, but for the most simple of reasons, something that you could cry at a freaking Hallmark special on the Lifetime channel about.

Now? I am only 23, but I'm old enough to be mostly embarrassed for myself at 16 (though I still think parts of this book are smokin' sexy), and I do feel like I'm getting worlds and worlds more out of this book than I ever got back then, and I can see myself getting more and more as I grow older, as the characters do. There's so much in here that leaped off the page and spoke to me and both my every day little problems and the bigger opinions and feelings that I have about the larger things in life. And I know there are still vast things in here that I missed, things that I don't think I quite understand yet, or call bullshit at at the moment that I just know will be of comfort to me when I pick this book up again in ten years or so, in twenty years, in thirty years. And the fact that I know that I'm going to do that, that I expect my copy to wear out and that I'll have to get a new one before I die, well, that speaks volumes, doesn't it? This particular read I really attached onto the characters struggling to find out what to do with themselves, what they were worth, after the life prescribed by their parents and other authority figures ends, those characters trying to deal with what other people expect them to be as opposed to how they see themselves, creating the narrative of your own life, being your own person in a relationship, and the connections I keep making between this book and the ideas in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. There's a fascinating fight over spiritual beliefs that I don't have the headspace to deal with now, but is haunting the back of my head, and I expect to be obsessed with it the next time I read it.

So, yeah, that's what the good books should do to you.

There's also other things, like all the fascinating things she deals with in the book. I mean, just to rattle off a few: feminism, post-modernism, living in a post-modern world, deconstructionism, many many issues of religion and spirituality, cultural relativism and archetypes, living in a globalized world, negotiating the self in relationships, the academic life and petty infighting, etc, etc. And I do mean etc, etc, etc, because there's tons in here that I'm not even bringing up, and probably tons more that I missed. Which is why I think this book is a gold mine.

Now

Yesterday when I was reading, I was crying and thinking that this is the best book of my life. I understand that these are emotions, but still...

How to talk about it in the video without spoilers? This is a difficult question. On one hand, I want to share my excitement and enthusiasm for the book. On the other hand, I don't want to give away too much and ruin the reading experience for others.

Maybe I could start by introducing the author and the general theme of the book. Then, I could talk about some of the things that I liked about it, such as the characters, the plot, or the writing style. I could also share some of my favorite quotes or passages from the book, but without revealing too much of the story.

In the end, I think the most important thing is to be honest and passionate about the book. If I can convey my love for it in the video, maybe others will be inspired to read it too.

London, 1986. Roland Mitchell discovers the drafts of two letters by Randolph Henry Ash during a routine research at the British Library. The content of these letters, addressed to Christabel LaMotte, reveals new aspects of Ash's life that could also shed new light on his works. Roland should, out of courtesy, talk about this discovery with his boss, Prof. Blackadder, but he decides to postpone it until he has more details about the relationship between Ash and LaMotte. So, he decides to approach Dr. Maud Bailey, one of the leading English scholars of Christabel LaMotte and, as Roland will discover, a descendant of the poetess herself.

The two young researchers retrace the lives of Randolph and Christabel through the joint reading of their works and by visiting the places where the two poets lived. Many important discoveries follow, piecing together the different pieces of an intricate puzzle where the present and the past end up being confused.

In the first two hundred pages, the author's main desire was to give up. There was too much culture, too much erudition, too many verses. However, she didn't abandon "Possession" and gradually the novel took hold of her. She realized that Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte were fictional characters and all their works in the book were the result of A. S. Byatt's skill.

The Byatt manages to insert prose, poetry, epistolary collection, biography, autobiography, critical essay, oral tradition, legends, and myths into the novel. The themes treated in the book are many and each one can be a key to reading the entire novel. The role of man in the world is explored, as well as the different ways in which men and women can pursue knowledge according to Victorian culture. The novel also shows that for women, the situation has not changed much and that they still have to submit to the dictates of male scholars or renounce passion and the desire to be loved.
In conclusion, "Possession" is an erudite and well-written novel, beautiful not only for its style and themes but also for its plot, characterization of the characters, and the way it manages to possess the reader.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

...........................................................

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”

“La Belle Dame sans Merci” - Keats

Christabel LaMotte is a unique prose version of Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci. Her knight in shining armor is the poet Randolph Henry Ash. Their story operates under different moral rules than the story of those uncovering it. As the novel progresses, we, along with Roland and Maud, explore the traces of these two Victorian poets' love story, receiving clues like in a detective story. We read their love letters with the scholars interested in them, and are vividly described what they see that inspires their famous poems in the reality created by A.S. Byatt.

We feel initiated into the secrets of an arcane group of scholars. The more we read, the more immersed we become in the story they are striving to discover and understand. We are led to believe that just as Dante had Beatrice, Petrarch had Laura, and Shakespeare had a Dark Lady, there is a hidden love story behind every great personality's biography waiting to be uncovered. Christabel is more than a character; she is a prototype, a symbol that art requires muses to fuel the inspiration of male artists.

"I have dreamed nightly of your face and walked the streets of my daily lives with the rhythms of your writing singing in my silent brain. I have called you my Muse, and so you are, or might be, a messenger from some urgent place of the spirit where essential poetry sings and sings."

As the secret Victorian love story unfolds, another love is born: the love of two scholars who discover each other through sharing the same interests in the world of literature. In a world where we grow increasingly accustomed to the desacralization of all values and immune to all kinds of feelings, people tend to avoid love out of fear, convenience, or a lack of belief in its existence. Maud and Roland learn to love by pursuing their literary interests.

I finished reading this book several days ago, but ever since I turned the last page, I have missed the romantic atmosphere it created in my mind. This is one of those books that you remember and miss after reading. I'm not a big poetry fan, but here it had a wonderful effect: Byatt truly managed to recreate a Victorian atmosphere.

It was as if I was transported back in time, experiencing the emotions and intrigues of that era. The detailed descriptions of the settings, the characters' thoughts and feelings, all contributed to making this a truly immersive read.

The love story between Maud and Roland was both touching and believable, showing how love can blossom in the most unexpected of circumstances.

Overall, this book is a masterpiece that combines elements of mystery, romance, and literature to create a captivating and unforgettable reading experience.