Possession

Possession, by A.S. Byatt

An exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets. As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire - from spiritualist seances to the fairy haunted far west of Brittany - what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.

I don't know if you all were present for my hissy fit a few entries back. Let me assure you, that was only a very very small taste of the complaining and bitching I performed on behalf of Possession. This book was like my albatross, hanging around my neck. Here are some words of advice: don't be like me! Don't get suckered in by an interesting description like I did. JUST SAY NO (to Possession).

See, I thought this was going to be exciting, like, a mystery! But with books, and letters for clues, and nobody shoots each other, and everybody involved is long dead, so it's more peaceful-like, which I like, because I enjoy thrillers without action, is that a crime? Because if that's wrong, then I don't want to be right. So I started Possession, thinking, you know, 'Millions of satisfied readers can't be wrong.' WRONG. I hated Possession. I loathed it. I got about 1/4 of the way in, and conveniently "lost" it, so I could take a break from it. This was just not my book. And it's not a bad book! It's not, I swear. It's just, like, the opposite of anything I ever want to read. And I had a clue, right there on the back of the book:

It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets.

...two Victorian poets.

...two Victorian poets.

...two Victorian poets.

...two Victorian poets.

I hate Victorian poetry. This wasn't like, a surprise to me. I mean, I kinda was aware that I wasn't, you know, as they say, "a fan of the Dickinson" (they don't say that), but I can tell you I certainly didn't expect that reading it would feel like torture. Victorian torture. I like poetry that one could read aloud with some measure of rhythm. I do not like ellipses, and dash marks all over my poetry, with like, crap pauses everywhere and nothing rhymes. I'm getting angry just thinking about it. [NB: Actually, if you want a really hilarious take on this type of poetry, you should read Connie Willis' short story, 'The Soul Selects Her Own Society' which is a satirical "essay" on how Dickinson fought off an alien invasion by her 'near-rhymes,' bizarre meter, and 'profligate use of dashes and random capitalizing of letters.' Basically, it takes everything I hate about Victorian poetry and makes fun of it, in a much nicer and smarter way than I myself am about to.]

Like, okay, read this snippet:

I ask myself, did Galileo know
Fear, when he saw the gleaming globes in space,
Like unto mine, whose lens revealed to me --
Not the chill glory of Heaven's Infinite --
But all the swarming, all the seething motes
The basilisks, the armoured cockatrice,
We cannot see, but are in their degrees
Why not? -- to their own apprehension --
I dare not speak it -- why not microcosms
As much as Man, poor man, whose ruffled pride
Carnot abide the Infinite's questioning
From smallest as from greatest?

If you read that and immediately feel like you're breaking out in hives: congratulations! You're allergic to Victorian poetry. I advise that you put Possession down immediately and never think of it again. If you read that and go, "Hey! What fantastic imagery! I want more!": Congratulations, you're an English teacher! Go make some kids miserable with allegories and metaphors and allusions.


So Possession is a book's book. It uses a lot of literary devices in fancy ways, and wraps everything up in layers of, you know, allegories and metaphors and allusions. The Victorian story is told through poems, letters, suicide notes, diaries, and dug-up graves. I'm about to unwrap some SPOILERS, so beware, although honestly, if you read this review and still want to read Possession, it's not like you care what I'm saying anyway.

The Victorian story is an somewhat interesting one (although not my cup of tea) if only it weren't obscured by all the. . . Victorian-ness of the medium. For instance, there is an entirely too-long section which comprises the bulk of letters between the poets, and it's stuff like this:

Have you truly Weighed --what you ask of me? Not the Gracile Accommodation of my Muse to your promptings -- for that wd be resisted to the Death of the Immortal -- which cannot Be -- only Dissipation in Air.

and this:

How shall I answer you? I have been abrupt and ungracious-- from fear of Infirmity of Purpose, and because I am a voice -- a voice that would be still and small - -crying plaintively out of a Whirlwind-- which I may not in Honesty describe to you. I owe you an Explanation -- and yet I Must Not -- and yet I must-- or stand convicted of hideous Ingratitude as well as lesser vices.

But Truly Sir it will not do. The --precious-- letters -- are too much and too little -- and above all and first, I should say, compromising.

What a cold sad word. It is His word -- the World's word -- and her word too, that prude, his Wife. But it entails freedom.

I will expatiate -- on freedom and injustice.

Ugh. Anyway, so that's a problem for me. I can't argue with the effectiveness of it, or with the accuracy of it, because it's well done. Here's the thing: Possession is well written, very well written. Byatt has a lot of balls to keep up in the air, and she does keep them up with a good deal of success. Not only does Byatt write the whole Victorian thing to a T, she also has to deal with the modern (or, well, 1980s) world, which has scholars picking everything apart, which can't have been too much easy to plot and pace and do properly. Everything is like a big spiderweb - pull one thread and you've got connections to five other things going on at once. I didn't pick up on half of them, mostly because I was just trying to keep my head down and get through it without dying, but I did notice that they were there.


Another of my difficulties with the book was caused by the characters. I didn't like any of them. I found no one sympathetic. The Victorian cast is two poets, Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte, who have an affair and break it off, but not before somehow causing LaMotte's roommate to commit suicide, and LaMotte to have a baby in tawdry fashion. I didn't like them. I hate it when people in books have affairs, it always makes me hate the couple. And here, there's this weird thing where apparently Ash's wife refused to have sex with him, ever, and I guess maybe it's supposed to make us more sympathetic to his position? I dunno, man, I still think he's a bit of a shit for cheating on her. The whole thing rubbed me wrong.

Then there's the modern parts, which has two main scholars, Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey (and jeez, Byatt, could you have made your two male characters any harder for me to distinguish between than Roland and Randolph? I could not for the life of me remember which one was which) who mimic, in some ways, the Victorian couple. That is, Randolph leaves his mopey girlfriend to trek off with this other chick. Everyone is sort of slimey and unlikeable in the modern era too, at least for the first, eh . . . 7/8ths of the book. They're all weird and awkward and grating and gross until everyone comes together to rob graves in an odd tonal shift to madcap caper, when everyone suddenly turns fun and amusing and quirky instead. Oh well, at least it leavened the loaf.

I can't speak much on the moods of the book, or its artistry. Unfortunately, as I said above, I was struggling too much just to get through it to be able to appreciate any subtleties. I know that Byatt intended at least some of it to be satirical, and not serious, but for my part, I found the humor to be very dour. I saw the ridiculousness, but I wasn't amused, merely tired. It takes a different person than me to really relish this kind of humor. And possibly, I'm still upset at how difficult it was - like trying to save some kid from drowning only to find out they'd been faking it the whole time. I mean, it's almost enough to make you want to drown them for real, isn't it?

"My friend attacks my friend!
Oh Battle picturesque!
Then I turn Soldier too,
And he turns Satirist!
How martial is this place!
Had I a mighty gun
I think I'd shoot the human race
And then to glory run!"

-E.Dick.

ARRRGH