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jodar's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
A wonderful novel.
A masterly tour de force of literary styles, an examination of the at-times petty academic life of literary criticism and an interweaving of interpersonal and familial relationships.
While threaded throughout is the uncovering of a literary puzzle, what to me was more enticing was the development of rich, complex and convincingly real relationships. The challenges in particular of man-woman relationships are brought to life, both of people in the past as well as of people in the narrative present.
The title Possession is very apt as facets of ‘possession’ are alluded to throughout: that of legal property, interpersonal (especially intimate) ‘ownership’, spiritualist ‘possession’ of 19th-century mediums, intellectual ‘possession’ by authors to write, the obsession of literary scholars to ‘possess’ the lives and writings of the authors they study, and ‘self-possession’ by a few to resist being ‘possessed’ by others. In the end, as Byatt shows, no object, no life story and no individual can be totally ‘possessed’ or fully comprehended.
CW: extramarital sex.
A masterly tour de force of literary styles, an examination of the at-times petty academic life of literary criticism and an interweaving of interpersonal and familial relationships.
While threaded throughout is the uncovering of a literary puzzle, what to me was more enticing was the development of rich, complex and convincingly real relationships. The challenges in particular of man-woman relationships are brought to life, both of people in the past as well as of people in the narrative present.
The title Possession is very apt as facets of ‘possession’ are alluded to throughout: that of legal property, interpersonal (especially intimate) ‘ownership’, spiritualist ‘possession’ of 19th-century mediums, intellectual ‘possession’ by authors to write, the obsession of literary scholars to ‘possess’ the lives and writings of the authors they study, and ‘self-possession’ by a few to resist being ‘possessed’ by others. In the end, as Byatt shows, no object, no life story and no individual can be totally ‘possessed’ or fully comprehended.
CW: extramarital sex.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity and Grief
Moderate: Suicide and Terminal illness
Minor: Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Classism