Well, Reading Buddies, here we are at our last (at least, for now) wrap-up. How did you like Possession by A.S. Byatt? It seemed, to me, an acceptable way to close out the past year and a half of reading together. I wasn’t totally sold on it at the halfway point, but it won me over in the end.

Beware — as always, spoilers are fair game!

I really didn’t know what to expect going in. I bought a used copy at a library sale because Amanda was quite adamant about her love for it. I can’t say I adored it, but I was, overall, rather impressed.

I must admit, the inclusion of all the correspondence and textual evidence annoyed me at times. I felt like the passages were so long and slow to read. But! I grudgingly appreciated that Byatt gave us all the pieces. She did not, as most writers do, include only a key phrase or two. She constructed an entire body of text on which to base her story, and she revealed that corpus to us pretty completely. So, though I found it slow to read through, I would not have wished it away. I think it’s one of the things that makes Possession stand out.

I was a bit disappointed to realize I was able to guess most of the plot twists and mysteries in advance. I can’t usually do that. I do think a lot of the evidence was there, though. I knew Christabel was talking about Blanche, not the child, when Ash disrupted the seance. I knew her child was alive and had a hunch one of the prominent characters would turn out to be a descendant of him/her. That sort of thing. I wonder, though, if part of the characters’ slowness to realize these things was perhaps because of their proximity to the people involved. They were so intimately familiar with their respective poets, so steeped in the accepted “facts,” that they were slower to see the errors and truths than the reader.

I liked how we didn’t hear the end of the contemporary story. What did Roland decide? Did Maud get the papers? Where did the papers end up? What happened to Cropper? I realized, as I finished the book, that it wasn’t about them. We got a touch of closure with Roland and Maud’s relationship, but that was it. And I think that’s fine.

I also very much enjoyed how LaMotte and Ash grew from stiff, lifeless historical figures under careful academic study into intricate human beings, alive and complicated and flawed. What is so cool is that Byatt achieved this effect almost exclusively through the use of letters and poems. The poets themselves — and other characters, like Ellen — are almost never seen first-hand by the reader, and yet they come so gloriously to life.

Which brings me to my central question: Why did Byatt include those few scenes set during the poets’ lifetimes? Why did the reader get this glimpse of truth when the characters themselves did not? I’m not sure I liked those parts. I think I would have preferred to get the story along with the characters, to leave the gaps empty or have them filled in, at least partially, by other textual evidence. Am I the only one who feels that way?

So! Overall, really glad I finally read this one. I hope you are, too. I’ll be honest — it’s made me wonder what other fascinating stories are hidden in correspondence and the like!

If you read along, or if you’ve read Possession in the past, what are your thoughts? I’d love to hear them!

Hey Reading Buddies! Welcome to the discussion post for Possession by A.S. Byatt.

It’s a bit of a chunkster, and kind of dense at that, so I’m making my way through rather slowly. I’m about 200 pages in, right in the middle of the Ash/LaMotte letters, which I’m finding kind of hard to get through. Perhaps it’s just not the best bedtime book. I’d better get my butt in gear if I’m going to finish in two weeks, though. I’ll never do it at the rate I’m going!

So, I’d heard mixed things about Possession going in. Some bloggers have declared undying love for it, while others were sort of…meh. It’s far too early to form my own opinions on the overall book of course. I’m enjoying it, but I’m not totally hooked.

I quite like Roland. And Maud, and Joan, for that matter. I find all the poetry and such a little hard to get through, except for the few short stories we’ve gotten so far. Those I really like. It’s definitely not light reading though.

I think what’s kept me interested is that I cannot figure out where the story is going. A full-out Roland-and-Val drama? Not yet, at least. A Roland-and-Maud romance? Not so far. The uncovering of a secret set of letters? Well, yes…but that’s happened less than half way through the book. So I am quite curious to know where it is all going, even if the story itself hasn’t completely sucked me in.

That’s about all I feel I can say at this point. More in two weeks!

Your Turn!

If you’re reading along or have read Possession, what are your thoughts?