Possession: A Romance was an engagingly fun read – concerning an over-the-top literary quest that often strained credulity, I had the persistent feeling that A. S. Byatt was parodying her format while somehow keeping me 100% invested – and while I ended the book feeling like I could take issue with so many of the plot points, this sense of a non-mocking parody, or po-mo irony, made me feel like I was in on the joke, and therefore more amused by it than annoyed. Interweaving two timelines, I will note that I believed in and related more to the Victorian characters than those from the present, but as the point of Possession is the interplay between them all, it seems like it could have only been written precisely as it was. For sheer entertainment value, I'm rounding up to four stars.
All scholars are a bit mad. All obsessions are dangerous.In an Introduction to my edition, written by Byatt, she explains that the genesis for this book was her observation of “the great Coleridge scholar” Kathleen Coburn as she haunted the British Library and Byatt's wondering, after having given her entire life to Coleridge's thoughts, would Coburn now possess the poet, or would he possess her? To this end: Possession begins with a modern day scholar – the quiet and unremarkable Roland Michell – who is an assistant researcher looking into the life of the (fictional) great Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash. While examining a book that had once belonged to Ash – so sooty around the edges that it had likely never been opened since the passage of the Clean Air Acts – Roland discovers the first few drafts of a letter, written by the poet, that hint at a relationship unknown to Ash scholars. Roland is so personally galvanised by this secret knowledge that he puts the drafts into his pocket – which is completely out of character – and endeavors to investigate the mystery for a while on his own. When he discovers a chance connection and wonders if Ash's letter was written to Christabel LaMotte – a (fictional) minor Victorian poetess and writer of fairy tales, now remembered primarily by feminists and those in Women's Studies – Roland decides to visit a LaMotte scholar, the quiet and studious Maud Bailey. As Roland and Maud fill each other in on the details of their chosen subject's life and works – neither of whom had ever been of the least interest to the other – they discover connections that had never been recognised before; and as they travel together to where the clues lead them, Roland and Maud unearth evidence that will force the academic world to reevaluate the meanings of, and inspirations for, each of the poet's major works.
Early on, Byatt describes Ash's reputation for erudite and muscular poetry, quotes they who dismiss LaMotte as the spinster “fairy poetess”, but as the narrative proceeds, Byatt judiciously reveals their work through intermittent excerpts; knowledge of the poets' characters (and the true value of their work) revealed to the reader at the same pace Roland and Maud are discovering new information and explaining to one another how it all fits into what is known about their subjects. With further excerpts from letters, diaries, and biographies, the whole reads as a great detective story; Roland and Maud pursuing clues and trying to keep ahead of the other scholars, hot on their trail, who seek to possess secret evidence and knowledge for themselves. And although everyone involved does seem possessed by their research subjects – Roland and Maud represent a sort of middle point in the mania, with quiet British scholars on the one side (Beatrice and Blackadder, toiling away in the basement of the British Museum for decades) and loud, rich Americans (Leonora and Crupper dashing around the globe to pursue leads) on the other – and although Roland and Maud have no moral or legal claim to pursue their leads without informing the rest of the academic world what they've discovered, as a reader, I desperately wanted them to solve the puzzle first. Between the able “ventriloquism” shown in the poems, stories, letters and diaries, and the tension added by the literary detective story, I was consistently in admiration of Byatt's writing.
Roland thought, partly with precise postmodernist pleasure, and partly with a real element of superstitious dread, that he and Maud were being driven by a plot or fate that seemed, at least possibly, to be not their plot or fate but that of those others.This self-awareness in the modern storyline is likely what made the historical one more real (and engaging) to me; but it is also what allows for commentary on the necessity (or mischief) of studying authors' lives alongside their work. Until everything is revealed, the major works of Ash and LaMotte cannot possibly be properly understood (and particularly the latter's epic poem on the sorceress Melusina), but how important is it for the reader to know anything more than what appears on the page? Before this discovery, the unmarried LaMotte had been a model of feminist independence – if it turns out that she had some kind of relationship with the more famous and revered Randolph Henry Ash, she not only loses her status as a (possibly) lesbian icon, but she is open to accusations of being influenced or instructed by the more forceful male voice; how does this knowledge affect the legacy of her work? There is commentary on those “vultures” who rifled through Dickens' desk after his death to collect all of his papers, commentary on the fact that George Eliot had her most personal letters buried with her, and yet each of the scholars in the modern storyline (quiet British and loud American alike) believes that a plea for privacy does not survive death; that the need to possess every fact and artefact associated with an artist is in the interests of truth and art. It's all interesting stuff, and it's not by ironic dint that I started with a biographical nugget about Byatt in this review; I, personally, love knowing what inspired books (but I'm not about to start digging up graves to get that knowledge; I am not possessed).
