A Tale of Two Love Stories
If you liked Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, you might be into Possession, due to both novels' epistolary and historical natures. I say "might" because The Historian is a lot easier and more accessible to the average reader. The Historian is unputdownable, while Possession is a slower burn. Where The Historian is easily accessible, Possession, with the exception of its happy ending, is much more cerebral, with frequent oblique references to academic theories that a scholar in history or literature would find familiar, but most of us will end up needing to gloss over. Those parts are actually not 100% necessary to follow the story and start to thin out later, so if you can force your way through the first quarter, you'll do fine.
The only thing that stops me from considering Possession to be a really great book is the ending, which was obvious and a little too... happy, in a fairy-tale type way. I'll leave it at that so as not to give anything away. None of this is to take away from this book.
Possession, a tale of two scholars researching Victorian authors whose lives and personalities they ultimately end up mirroring, is complex, engrossing, and beautifully written. It took me over a month to read it, but I was never bored or wishing I could just read something else (which is admittedly what usually happens with books this long and difficult). In reading Possession, you sense the presence of a great mind at work. Byatt casually throws out references to history and literature as if they are common knowledge. She also manages to convincingly create writing styles for fictional authors in the late 19th century, which is impressive. Byatt keeps referring to one of her fictional authors, Randolph Henry Ash as "the great ventriloquist" for his ability to speak convincingly in the voices of his subjects, but I get the sense that she knows SHE is the real ventriloquist.
Books this reminds me of:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Historian
A Discovery of Witches
The Argonauts
Currently reading:
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Queen Isabella by Alison Weir
The only thing that stops me from considering Possession to be a really great book is the ending, which was obvious and a little too... happy, in a fairy-tale type way. I'll leave it at that so as not to give anything away. None of this is to take away from this book.
Possession, a tale of two scholars researching Victorian authors whose lives and personalities they ultimately end up mirroring, is complex, engrossing, and beautifully written. It took me over a month to read it, but I was never bored or wishing I could just read something else (which is admittedly what usually happens with books this long and difficult). In reading Possession, you sense the presence of a great mind at work. Byatt casually throws out references to history and literature as if they are common knowledge. She also manages to convincingly create writing styles for fictional authors in the late 19th century, which is impressive. Byatt keeps referring to one of her fictional authors, Randolph Henry Ash as "the great ventriloquist" for his ability to speak convincingly in the voices of his subjects, but I get the sense that she knows SHE is the real ventriloquist.
Books this reminds me of:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Historian
A Discovery of Witches
The Argonauts
Currently reading:
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Queen Isabella by Alison Weir
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