Possession   by A. S. Byatt

Dec, 2005     A Christmas gift from my loving, book-addict Mother.

This review is not so easy to write. The reasons for this that I'm aware of are as follows: 1, it's a long, complex, intricate, many layered book. 2, I finished it six days ago, and plenty of things have happened since then. 3, it's my mother's favorite book. This meant that I didn't start reading it with no expectations at all. I was wondering the whole time if I would see what she liked about it, and if I would enjoy it in the same way, and be as caught up in the language used, and so on. And of course, my general expectations were very high, but without knowing anything at all about what kind of a book it would be. (I mean moving, or enlightening, or touching, or inspiring, feel-good.)

So, What then, did I think of this book?

It is good. Yes. That's my own judgement. But in what ways? And why?. Let me see. (I really can't answer my question. I have to analyse it, which I'm going to do now, in and with the process of writing.) The characters were all good. I don't mean that each had good morals and intentions, but that they were all... meaningful, and palpable, and "real." There didn't seem to be "stock" characters to me.

The story was good: with unexpected twists, turns, and nice mirroring. Well, I can't say with honesty that it was 100% surprising at every turn. I KNEW that at the end, the secret treasure would HAVE to be found; to be uncovered, and felt mostly sure that there would be a relation shown between someone in the present story, and someone in the past. Ah, but I haven't explained that aspect yet: This book was written with two stories: It's the tale of how two researchers found the secret, untold relation between two poets, (who'd died 130 years earlier.) So as the tale of the present is rolled out, the tale of the past also slowly emerges. And this double level was well done.

Also, the way the world was painted by Byatt was nice: It gave a certain feeling of being in the victorian era, as well as a feeling of the lives of those contemporary academics studying them. Besides that, there was the great ways that the characters each fit, or didn't fit, into their respective places.

As it has been with many books, It took about a hundred pages before I "got a feeling" for this one; before that point, I had no great interest, and I was reading on, to see if I would become interested. Which I did. And at that point, I read on, because I had to know what happens.

One unexpected... situation came nearly at the end: When the mystery was finally being uncovered, and the antagonists were foiled. The Antagonists were NOT then sent away in shame, but were allowed, along with the other interested parties, to be the first to see and understand the mystery. There was an equality there, and an academic understanding. The antagonists would not be the "discoverers" and would not have legal or academic claim over what was discovered, but they were invited to be a part of discovering the truth for the first time. I liked that. (Was this paragraph at all clear, I wonder?)

Besides being good at painting the scene, and telling the story, the author puts in... ART, as well. There are observations made, and images thought of, and personal philosophies and enlightenments described. And a good number of these are... of worth. The one that I lighted upon especially, and quoted in a letter I wrote, was as follows:

We must come to grief and regret anyway -and I for one would rather regret reality that its phantasm, knowledge that hope, the deed than the hesitation, true life and not mere sickly potentialities.

When I told this to my mother, (who, as I said, loves this book,) she responded that there's a great number of lines in this book, which one might apply to the self. I don't know if I've expressed myself well yet, or if I'm capable of that achievement at all.

Anyhow, it is, to repeat myself, a good book. It is not yet one that I feel is a true Masterwork though. (Not because I feel that it Isn't, but merely because it isn't Yet one, to Me.) Perhaps a re-reading of it will reveal yet deeper enjoyment of it. Perhaps not. I don't know.

But it's still worth reading at least once. There's no doubt about that.