Possession is a literary masterpiece. It is a fast-paced mystery that captures the secret affair of two Victorian-age poets through the eyes of present-day literary scholars, who discover the couple's love letters and embark on a journey to discover whatever secrets lay behind the long-dead romance. Their discoveries ultimately change the course of literary academia, and the course of their lives as well.
Five minutes prior to writing this post, I had held the book for several minutes just staring at its cover. It was my second time reading it through, and despite knowing the events of the plot, including the end, I was still not ready to finish it. It wasn't because the novel was lacking finality, but rather because I wanted to stay a little longer in the beautiful and poetical world Byatt had created.
Possession is two love stories, or rather more truly, many stories coming together to weave into one intricate tapestry, one larger story that spans generations. And with great genius, Byatt shows that not everything is as it seems, no character is as predictable as first portrayed, and no story is absolute.
The novel begins with Roland Mitchell, an ordinary (often described as dull and ineffectual), twentieth century literary scholar with a particular focus on the late Randolph Henry Ash, a Victorian poet who lived a happy, contented life with his wife, Ellen Ash. Every literary scholar knows Randolph Ash, Roland included, until one day while in the London Library, he comes across a couple of letters from Ash to an unknown woman. Whether because the letters held an urgency of tone, or because the recipient was not yet known, Roland sets out to discover why and to whom the letters were written. His searching leads him to Maud Bailey, a severe and world-renowned feminist scholar who specializes on the life and works of Christabel LaMotte, a reclusive, Victorian poet known only in small academic circles. Enlisting her help, the two embark on a journey through the British Isles and France to discover the secrets of this passionate affair between two great minds, all the while, trying to out-run the rest of the academic world, and like every great romance, falling in love despite their better judgement. All of this alone sounds like a great story already, but there is so much more to this novel: seances with spirits, Victorian society battling Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, intense jealousy, stolen artifacts, fairy-tales, and suicide.
I prolonged the inevitable end as best as I could, reading a few chapters a day to absorb all that I had read, for this is not the type of book you can leisurely enjoy-- no, Byatt puts her readers to work alongside Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey. You, as well as its characters, have to analyze and deconstruct the poems and letters Byatt scatters throughout her novel, looking for possible metaphors of lost love, fiery passion--despair. If you read too quickly, you risk losing the meaning behind a certain turn of phrase, or a verse in a poem. Sometimes, I had to put the book down just to soak in a sentence or paragraph that baffled me. In the end, you feel like a simpleton next to A.S. Byatt, but also immensely grateful for the opportunity to witness her genius. Her writing takes a hold of you, casts a spell and keeps you riveted until the end. And therefore, my favorite part? The ending. You must read this book, if only to experience the finale of this amazing novel.
This is a book I would recommend to those who enjoy English Literature, historical fiction, and for those who ever had to write a paper on a dead poet/writer, and enjoyed it.
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