Possession by A.S. Byatt is a work of absolute genius.
It’s been a chaotic work week for me with plenty of long days but even when I can only manage an hour of reading a day, it’s been a joy to slip back into Byatt’s 1990 Booker Prize winner novel of Victorian romance and modern-day academic sleuthing.
Byatt didn’t just write a novel. She wrote poems and short stories and letters and diaries and biographies and academic analysis from multiple perspectives on all of it. And yes, she also wrote a narrative that weaves it altogether. The entirety is so cleverly conceived and brilliantly executed that it boggles the mind.
If you haven’t picked it up in a while (or ever? What a treat you have in store in that case!), I urge you to do so now. It’s a perfect book to immerse yourself in, offering multiple worlds, immense passion, and also, I had forgotten, quite a lot of humour around the academic rivalries.
Absolutely agree, Clare – Possession is such a satisfying tour de force – a great read. Inspired by you, I’ll now get it as an audio book & enjoy it again….
Ooo, I’m intrigued by the thought of it as an audiobook. I must admit to sometimes skim reading some of the poems, so perhaps an audiobook would make me pay proper attention to them.
I read this about 30 years ago. You have inspired me to do so again!
Hurrah! It’s a book that never grows old, no matter how many times you read it.
I still haven’t read my copy yet, so this review is just a quick reminder.
Thank you!
Excellent! Glad to have been of service.
I read this ages ago. Your review brought it all back.
It sounds like the sort of novel I would enjoy and yet I recall having had great difficulty with it. Perhaps I was just not in the mood when I picked it up. Now is probably not the time to try again, as I am now struggling to read anything. I have yet to get even half way through a comfort read in 2021. At this rate, this could be the year I read the least since I was about seven years old!