This is a brilliant literary puzzle-book that features a well-realised fictitious author, who is loosely based on Tennyson. It is truly one of the best attempts of this kind since Pale Fire. Some individuals might think that the book is overly clever, perhaps to the point of being too much. But really, what can one expect? It's just as unjust to criticise Powell for including an abundance of upper-class twit characters, or to fault Proust for not crafting his sentences to be short and punchy. Each author has their own unique style and approach, and this book is no different. It challenges the reader to think deeply and engage with the complex layers of the story. Whether you love it or find it a bit too much, there's no denying that it is a remarkable work of literature that will leave a lasting impression.

It invites you to explore the boundaries of imagination and to question the very nature of storytelling. So, pick up this book and embark on a literary adventure like no other.

OK, I really have to say something. It's quite astonishing to see that people keep writing reviews of this book and only focus on how great it is while completely skipping over the so-called "boring poems".

READ THE POETRY, PEOPLE! What on earth is the matter with everyone? The truth is, those poems are actually rather good. They are filled with crucial plot clues that can enhance your understanding of the story. And, hello, they are a key and integral part of the novel you are reading!

I mean, what is going on here? Do people really have such a strong aversion to poetry that they are willing to skip a few pages of it right in the middle of a narrative? If you were to do that with Hamlet, you would miss half of the play! Or is this some kind of weird trend?

Perhaps you hold your hands over your ears when the Rolling Stones switch to 12/8 time, or fast-forward through all the Frank Sivero scenes in Goodfellas? Or is it literally just verse that you can't stand? I mean, you do know that there are books out there which are entirely composed of poetry, right?

What's the matter? Do you have a rhyme allergy? Does too much alliteration bring on your irritable bowel syndrome? What's really going on??

I give up.

PS The actual book is truly excellent.

(Oct 2009)

I reread it, whether it was a pack, or I listened to it again - and in the ten years that have passed since the last reading, the book has only gotten better :) It is such an epic confession of love for literature and different ways of interacting with literature, where Baecht plays with a wild number of styles - from Victorian metaphysical poetry to hardcore feminist criticism, from popular science biographies of poets to encyclopedic articles - and stamps of different genres, from fairy tales to Elizabethan dramas. Baecht is my everything. I want to be Baecht when I grow up.

This book is truly a masterpiece that showcases the author's remarkable talent and deep understanding of literature. The various styles and genres seamlessly blend together, creating a rich and diverse tapestry of literary exploration. Baecht's ability to move from one form to another with such ease and grace is truly impressive.

Reading this book is like embarking on a journey through the world of literature, encountering different voices, ideas, and perspectives along the way. It makes me appreciate the power and beauty of literature even more, and it inspires me to continue exploring and learning. I can't wait to see what else Baecht has in store for us in the future.

A modern-day academic, Roland Michell, with a specialization in the poetry of Randolph Henry Ash, a fictional 19th-century poet, stumbles upon a letter written by Ash to an unknown woman. This discovery prompts him to embark on an investigation. He soon learns that the woman was Christabel LaMotte, another reasonably well-known poet of the 19th century. Seeking assistance, Roland turns to Maud Bailey, an academic who specializes in LaMotte. Together, they unearth a lost love story between the two poets and become completely obsessed with solving the mystery, following in their footsteps. Unsurprisingly, these two modern-day academics begin to develop feelings for each other.

I mostly enjoyed this book, although it wasn't the type of thing I would typically read. The modern-day story of Roland and Maud investigating the story of Ash and LaMotte was extremely engaging, even more so than the romance of the two poets themselves. However, there were a few issues I had. Firstly, the letters between Ash and LaMotte were, to be honest, a little dull to read. Then there was all the poetry in the book written by Ash or LaMotte (but actually by Byatt), which was difficult to assess. I'm not a big fan of poetry, so I couldn't tell you if it was good or not. My instincts told me that it probably wasn't, that it was just slightly... meh. But I couldn't be sure. Whether good or not, I didn't really enjoy any of it, despite being aware that there were clues in these poems linking Ash and LaMotte.

There's another small nitpick I have. Throughout the entire book, we only learn about Ash and LaMotte's romance through their letters, poetry, biographies, and so on. But then, suddenly, towards the end of the book, Byatt just drops us into their lives as they travel together in Yorkshire as man and wife, which felt like a cheat. Why have Roland and Maud investigate all this stuff if you can simply narrate their story whenever you feel like it? It happens again at the very end of the book, but that felt earned and necessary, a nice little touch to finish things off. But the earlier example just seemed out of place given everything that came before it. Anyway...

Ultimately, I liked the book and would recommend it. I especially liked the idea that love, deep and visceral love, can never escape the quality of being possessive. In a post-feminist world, where women are increasingly repulsed by the idea of belonging to someone, yet that, by its very nature, is what true love always demands.

So, yeah, the book wasn't really my cup of tea overall, but it was entertaining, well-written, well-put-together, and easy to read. And it goes without saying that if you're a big softie who still believes in that thing called love *spits in disgust*, then you will definitely find something to like here. The book is, after all, quite heartbreakingly romantic.

Please provide the article that needs to be rewritten and expanded so that I can help you.

It took me three attempts to get this one right.

From the very beginning, something about the premise had a certain allure that drew me in. I truly believed I was destined to love this book. There was no doubt in my mind.

However, I was in for an unpleasant surprise. It didn't take long before I found myself bored to tears. The language seemed so outmoded, and everything about it was just plain difficult. I put it aside for a couple of months, hoping that it would somehow get easier. But when I picked it up again, it was still the same. And I was still the same.

A couple of years passed, and yet it was always in the back of my mind. In the end, curiosity and sheer stubbornness prevailed. To a lesser extent, there was also a glimmer of hopefulness. I hoped that despite all the things I disliked, there might still be something worthwhile here, something that gave it value.

With this in mind, I persevered and read until I reached the end.

There are some things that won't change. I still don't love this style of poetry. Most of the letters between the dead poets were, at best, eyebrow-raising and, at worst, sleep-inducing. None of that really stood out to me.

What did stand out, however, was the story. Towards the end, it became everything I had wished for, perhaps in the quietest way possible. All the loose ends were neatly tied off, and the story was as rich as I had always thought it would be, right down to the final sentence.

I wouldn't recommend this to most people. It's a particular book for a particular person. But that doesn't take away from its charm. It's important to know yourself and what you like. Personally, I enjoyed this book, and I'm glad I gave it all the chances I did.

Like many biographies, Byatt's "Possession" is as much about its author as its subject.

AS Byatt is a novelist who adores the academic approach to biography and applies it to fiction and semi-fiction, creating postmodern metafiction that is rich in texture and research. However, it can be a bit challenging for the average reader to digest.

The novel has two main timelines. One follows a pair of Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, loosely based on Browning/Tennyson and Christina Rossetti respectively. The other focuses on various modern academics who specialise in either RHA or LaMotte, principally Roland Michell and Maud Bailey. When a connection between the two Victorians is discovered, professional rivalry and collaboration clash in the ensuing literary detective story. This also opens the possibility of a modern romance paralleling the past, culminating in rather ludicrous scenes in Cornwall.

The title "The Great Ventriloquist" not only refers to (fictional) Mortimer Cropper’s famous biography of (fictional) RHA but also applies to Byatt. The stories unfold through an impressive variety of documents and genres from different periods, including epic poems, diaries, letters, lists, and more. There are also references to real authors like Emily Dickinson and Willa Cather.

However, the novel alternates between being too self-consciously clever with its unique writing styles and historical poems hiding clues, and being too predictable plotwise, propped up by stereotyped characters and clichéd situations.

Literal ventriloquism is a recurring theme, along with a seance and even postmodern musing. Roland wonders about the intense pleasure of reading and blames its "regressive nature."

In the first chapter, Byatt writes, "His own huge ignorance, a grey mist, in which floated or could be discerned odd glimpses of solid objects, odd bits of glitter of dimes or shadows of roofs in the gloom." Those familiar with Victorian literature and its interests would gain more from this than some readers.

Nevertheless, "Possession" is a brilliant achievement. Parts of it are moving, inspiring, thought-provoking, and educational. However, there was a disconnect for some readers. Overall, it's a novel more to admire than to love, but perhaps the fault lies more with the reader than with Byatt.

Byatt categorises herself as both a poet and a novelist, as seen in RHA’s letter to LaMotte where he writes, "The difference between poets and novelists is this - that the former write for the life of the language - and the latter write for the betterment of the world."

After writing the review, the author turned to those of friends. Dolors asks, "Does love inevitably imply possession?" This is a profound question, and the author initially thinks that love and possession are mutually exclusive. The next day, a blog cited Kahil Gibran's famous lines about finding the balance between independence and intimacy in long-term relationships: "Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

Byatt's trademarks include detailed descriptions of fabric, decor, and dress. Some examples are: "He wore a long black silk dressing-gown, with crimson revers, over black silk pyjamas, crimson-piped, with a monogram on his breast-pocket. His slippers, mole-black velvet, were embroidered in gold thread with a female head surrounded by shooting rays or shaken hair."

Other quotes from the novel include: "Victorian dust, a dust composed of smoke and fog particles accumulated before the Clean Air Acts." and "Letters... are a form of narrative that envisages no outcome, no closure... Letters tell no story, because they do not know, from line to line, where they are going... Letters, finally, exclude not only the reader as co-writer, or predictor, or guesser, but they exclude the reader as a reader, they are written, if they are true letters, for a reader."

All four Byatt novels the author has read are layers of fictional biography, with varying degrees of success. "The Children's Book" (4*), "Possession" (3*), "The Biographer’s Tale" (2*), and even her myth-based "Ragnarok" (4*) are related. The author has also read some of her short stories, most recently "The Little Black Book of Stories." Another novel of similar themes is Sarah Perry's "The Essex Serpent" (3*).

There is also some interesting word play in "Possession," such as Ash (the poet) and dust and ashes, possession in various forms, Medusa, mermaids, and serpents, LaMotte and motte and motes of dust, and Blanche Glover and gloves.

However, the author also notes some clichés in the novel. The stereotypes, such as rich, brash Americans, feminists, lesbians, bisexual women, and socially awkward academics, felt overdone. The situations, like a creepy country house needing repairs, being snowed in, car chases, near misses, convenient coincidences, digging up a grave at night, being caught in a storm, and legal small print, were borderline comedy and felt out of place.

The movie adaptation of "Possession" features Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), brought to life by Neil LaBute. It's a thrilling literary adventure that earns a 5-star rating. There are multiple love stories within, also deserving of 5 stars.

In September 1986, 29-year-old Roland Mitchell, who graduated from Prince Albert College in London in 1978 and obtained a doctorate in literature from the same university in 1985, is a part-time research assistant. He waits in the reading room of the London Library to examine a book that belonged to the famous Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash. The book is described as "thick and black, covered in dust. It had curved and brittle margins; it had clearly been mistreated in the past." After hours of research and analysis, Roland discovers two complete sheets of writing paper. They are both letters written in Ash's graceful handwriting, starting with "Dear Lady" and not signed. Roland is initially deeply surprised but then, as a scholar, he feels excited.

Roland makes a decision. He looks around and seeing no one watching, he places the letters between the pages of his own copy of the Oxford edition of Ash's "Selected Works" that he always carries with him. These two stolen letters written by Randolph Henry Ash, a respected married man, to an unmarried woman who is not his wife, serve as a pretext for an improbable literary search and investigation that unites Roland Mitchell with the feminist academic Maud Bailey, an expert on Christabel LaMotte and a distant relative. Roland and Maud discover a series of enigmatic clues through the textual analysis of various documents as they attempt to solve the mystery surrounding the two Victorian poets, Christabel LaMotte and Randolph Henry Ash. The reader witnesses the evolution of the relationship between the two Victorian poets and between the two contemporary academics.

A.S. Byatt (born in 1936) constructs the narrative masterfully, conjugating two separate stories in time - in the Victorian era in the mid-19th century and in 1986 - but closely related, in a unique combination of literary techniques. In the Victorian era, the narrative develops using letters, diaries, poems, stories of Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, and literary articles. There is also an unforgettable cast of academic researchers, whose ethical and unethical behaviors in research and university investigation are obviously questionable, in an unforgettable satire of academic institutions and researchers.

"Possession" is a novel that allows for multiple analyses and interpretations. One aspect that stands out is the problematic nature of relationships and love affairs, both in the past and in the present. Even though they are delimited by a specific historical framework, they end up being constructed or reconstructed based on irreducible emotions that are not always easily explicable.

"Possession", which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1990, is an exceptional, surprising novel, a literary thriller written in an imaginative and talented way, a true academic creation with numerous narrative components, multiple voices, in one or more stories, narrated through letters, diaries, and literary articles, to which are added the poems and stories of Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte - not always with understandable explanations or interpretations.

"Possession" is a novel that I will reread - sooner or later.

Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) e Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) no filme realizado por Neil LaBute

This review won't be lengthy as this book has truly defeated me, and in a manner that makes me not overly inclined to list out all that went awry. The likely short answer is that I'm simply not the intended reader for this book (and perhaps this author too, which is why I've removed The Children's Book from my TBR). I purchased this ages ago, probably over a decade back, and finally gave it a go around six years ago. I managed to get 48 pages in before deciding to try it again at another time. This year, I'm participating in BINGO over at Cannonball Read, and there's a White Whale square. So, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finally read this book and give it a proper chance.

Well, it didn't pan out well.

To be completely honest with you, before I resorted to speed-reading this, when I was earnestly attempting to read it straight through, a significant portion of it was being construed by my brain as utter gibberish. It was extremely strange. It's as if I'm a magnet and this book is another magnet, and when you try to push the wrong ends together, they just repel each other. I had to force myself through the entire process.

And it was exasperating because this seems like the kind of thing I would typically love, but the style simply did not work for me at all. I felt like I was gradually losing my mental faculties as I read.

Basically, in this metaphorical game of Ahab and the whale, the whale has devoured Ahab and continues to roam the ocean, its teeth bloodied.

P.S. Whalers were indeed gross, and the ships attacked by whales perhaps deserved it. HOT TAKE!!

No, I just can't do it. I've been at it for 2 hours, and there's not a glimmer of hope.

It's a Man Booker Prize winner and was referred to as the best ever romance novel in one of my favorite books. But alas, I am giving up.

Maybe it's more suitable for people who love reading books about books and literary research. Or perhaps I am just not smart enough.

Painfully, it reminded me of "The Historian" too. I feel a sense of disappointment as I put this book aside.

I had such high expectations, but it seems that this particular work just isn't clicking with me.

I wonder if I'll ever find that perfect book that keeps me engaged from start to finish.

For now, I'll have to continue my search and hope that the next book I pick up will be more to my liking.

Basically, "Possession" is a remarkable, albeit old-fashioned, poet's "showcase."

I firmly believe that poetry books should not share the same shelf space as works of fiction. This is a merger of two distinct arts, after all. The plot and the prose in "Possession" seem to be merely a pretext for incorporating all these snippets of poetry into a book.

Byatt's possession of her characters is the novelty here. She has achieved something quite outstanding, mainly by giving both fictional historical poets true, clear voices. The poetry shines through, but unfortunately, it doesn't suit my taste.

Dabbling in mythology and lore, with some Gothic exotica, it doesn't completely astound. The Victorian poems are rather droll and seem irrelevant to the excitement of the modern day. It's truly amazing just to observe the way intellectuals "make love" in the story. (They aren't deliciously repressed nor even slightly interesting.)

So again, I encounter another highly praised and prized novel which, despite all attempts at realism and romance (an art that is truly left dead and buried, but perhaps ripe for modern interpretation), is mediocre.

Possession: A Romance is truly a demanding read. It is replete with countless names and references, and features lengthy poems in a Victorian style that is both solemn and grand, yet extremely difficult to assimilate.

It was not until I reached page 50 that I finally felt truly engrossed.

The story itself is rather conventional and passionate, revealing a hidden love through a letter. However, the remarkable aspect lies in Byatt’s literary expertise and profound literary knowledge, which are deeply impressive.

I extensively searched for information about this book on Google, eager to know who the poet in the story was and whether such a person actually existed in reality. But for the first time, I found that information about a book was so scarce on the all-knowing internet!

There were only a few links, and I eventually discovered that it won the 1990 Booker Prize and was adapted into a movie in 2002. I was unable to find the identity of Randolph Ash, nor any relevant reviews. Only in a forum did I learn that many people praised the book while also agreeing that it was very difficult to read.

As the book progresses, it becomes increasingly engaging, driven by the desire to uncover its mysteries, making it almost impossible to put down. The shocking aspect of this love story is the profound sense of loneliness of Christabel, who insists on celibacy, refuses to be violated, encloses herself in layers of protective armor, and endeavors to safeguard her lifelong reputation. She is proud, unwilling to follow common customs or submit. Despite falling in love, she refuses to give herself away. When she becomes pregnant, she disappears without a trace, preventing our poet from finding her. Stubbornly, she doesn't even disclose her pregnancy to her cousin, with whom she lives. Despite everyone noticing her growing belly, she remains unchanged. On the day of childbirth, she chooses to face it alone, and her cousin doesn't know whether the child survives. It wasn't until the last few pages that I learned the child survived and lived with her as her niece. This girl never liked the lonely aunt, unaware that the strange "old maid" was her mother, and even hated poetry, despite her parents being outstanding poets.

What a strange story. During their lifetimes, aside from Christabel's sister, no one knew the child's true identity. Our poor poet Ash died in confusion and regret. His wife was also an odd person.

Yes, the story is quite strange. It was not until the last few pages that I fully understood it and overturned all previous assumptions. Was Ash's betrayal truly a betrayal? His wife had always refused conjugal relations, yet Ash still deeply respected and cared for her. He had no scandal except for this hidden, tragic love. In terms of a true marital relationship, wasn't Christabel more of Ash's wife?

Christabel's departure was motivated by her intense loneliness and external factors such as Ash's wife and her cohabiting girlfriend's suicide. Before the discovery of these letters, all scholars assumed she was a lesbian, and her poetry was based on feminism. Ash, on the other hand, was a rational, reserved, self-talking, and obscure poet. But these letters overturned everything, and the study of their poetry would need to restart.

Anyone's creations are deeply influenced by personal experiences, and love is fatal in this regard.

Some past people, and some in the present, study the past, and the overturning of the past destroys the present. Reconstruct, then destroy again.

Exploring someone's life is challenging. Some secrets, if one wishes to hide them, can remain hidden for a lifetime. Autobiographies selectively conceal secrets, and biographies are even less reliable. How can someone else explore another person's inner world? Wilde said that if the universe is finite, the human heart is infinite. An infinite heart, described and recorded with finite words, is an attempt at sketching and metaphorical representation.

Christabel used metaphors to hide a deeply entangled love in beautiful, unique poetry. Ellen Ash (Ash's wife) used deletion to hide pain in dull diaries. Only letters taken to the grave and passionate love letters tell the true story in the underworld.

3.9 / 5 stars