Possession (1990)
Who wrote it?
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy (1936-; active 1964-), born Sheffield, England as Antonia Drabble, sister of fellow novelist Margaret Drabble. She is, of course, known to most of us as A. S. Byatt, her professional surname taken from that of her first husband.
She was educated privately, including at a Quaker school, and attended both Cambridge and Oxford. She describes her relationship with Margaret Drabble as a “normal sibling rivalry” but the narrative has often been somewhat more dramatic, with both exploring family themes in their works that have been seen as a little too close to home on occasion. She was nominated for the Booker again in 2009 for The Children’s Book, which lost out to Wolf Hall but won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the same year.
What's it about
Possession: A Romance (to give it’s full original title) is all sorts of things at once. It’s a detective story, it’s at least two love stories, it’s an incredibly literary and self-referential piece of metafiction, it’s a compendium of (masterful) imitations of various forms of Victorian writing, the list goes on… Ultimately, the heart of the story centres around the discovery of some letters by a modern-day academic, Roland Michell.
These letters are the first “clue” in a trail that uncovers a previously undocumented romance between two fictional Victorian poets - Randolph Henry Ash (a Tennyson / Browning era titan) and Christabel LaMotte (sort of a Rossetti type I think.) Roland, himself an Ash scholar, embarks on a secretive quest with fellow academic Maud Bailey, a LaMotte specialist, which develops into a parallel (albeit very different) romantic narrative.
What I liked
A hugely impressive range of styles on display in here. While I didn’t love some of the deep dives into pseudo-Tennyson poetry or the lengthy ponderous letters, they did feel (to a non-academic eye at least!) extraordinarily authentic.
The contemporary content, by contrast, was light and fun. Strip out the Victoriana and you’d have a quintessential early nineties romance, albeit set in a very specific academic milieu.
The modern-day characters are extremely well-drawn and cover a huge number of bases. The relationship between Michell and Bailey seems unlikely but develops into something very unusual and therefore believable. The parade of other academics are hugely enjoyable caricatures (notably the flashy American Ash expert Cropper, who certainly reminded me of more than one sports-car owning professor from my own student days…)
The “detective” aspect is genuinely gripping, making it very much a page-turner.
The denouement, wonderfully set in the midst of the great storm of 1987, is fantastically ludicrous. For all that some of the Victorian period recreation can drag, your reward is this near-farcical conclusion involving grave-robbery and Scooby Doo esque “gotcha” moment for an afore-mentioned pantomime villain.
There are a good number of laughs sprinkled throughout. It’s a heavy novel in places, but also one which humour is never too far away.
I liked the novel’s self-referential interrogation of the idea of “possessing” the past - is it possible, desirable, to what end should it be sought, etc.
There’s a delightful section at the end where Roland starts getting friendly with loads of cats belonging to a dead neighbour. I don’t know if this was intended to have deep significance or if Byatt just likes cats, but either way, lovely.
What I didn't like
As mentioned above, there are thousands of lines of poetry in here that, while hugely impressive an achievement, don’t hugely add to the momentum of an otherwise gripping novel. In her intro, Byatt suggests that numerous publishers pleaded with her to cut down the Victorian components, with the book’s US publisher amusingly saying “you have ruined a nice intrigue with these excrescences” (!) - I do partially agree with this, short-sighted as it may sound in retrospect. Including quotes or fragments rather than lengthy extracts would have made it a more readable novel, but probably a lesser literary achievement. Which you prefer is up to you.
I do get the sense that it’s a book written predominantly for literature obsessives. This is of course no bad thing, and the bestseller status proved that this was a sensible audience to write for - obsessives are after all the ones who buy books. But for an average reader, perhaps one without Byatt’s multiple Oxbridge degrees and immersion in the academic community, I can’t help but feeling a lot of it will feel like indulgence and excess.
Some aspects of the ending feel a bit too neat and sentimental. For all the literary showmanship, the underlying themes are ultimately revealed to be pretty classic and straightforward.
Food & drink pairings
For the early ‘90s academic community, nothing less that a five-course meal featuring foie gras and something special from the cellar will do, of course.
Fun facts
I read this book actively assuming nobody would have been daft enough to try to film it (entertaining as the modern-day plot is) and boy, looks like I was badly wrong. The 2002 film may be a surprise classic, but looking at the trailer I sincerely doubt it. Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart look spectacularly miscast as Roland and Maud and the tagline “The Passion will Possess You” does not bode well for a nuanced look at the key themes of the novel. Anyone seen it and able to confirm / deny my suspicions?
A random aside, but I couldn’t help but feel jolted every time Professor Blackadder was referenced in the book? Despite the friendly, serious Scots academic being described, I found it somewhat difficult to get Rowan Atkinson’s face out of my mind…
Hilary Mantel was a judge in 1990 and, despite preferring Amongst Women as a winner, suggested that there was very little behind the scenes drama. She did, however, have this to say:
“I’m glad I was a Booker judge relatively early in my career. It stopped me thinking that literary prizes are about literary value. Even the most correct jury goes in for horsetrading and gamesmanship, and what emerges is a compromise.”
Vanquished Foes
Beryl Bainbridge (An Awfully Big Adventure)
Penelope Fitzgerald (The Gate of Angels)
John McGahern (Amongst Women)
Brian Moore (Lies of Silence)
Mordecai Richler (Solomon Gursky Was Here)
You won’t be shocked to learn that I’ve read precisely none of these. As ever, any tips?
Context
In 1990:
Reunification of Germany
Boris Yeltsin elected Russian president
Collapse of communist regime in former Yugoslavia
Iraqi invasion and annexation of Kuwait
Release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years
Resignation of Margaret Thatcher as British PM
Slobodan Milosevic elected President of Serbia
Helmut Kohl wins first German federal elections since reunification
Poll Tax demonstrations and riots in the UK
Strangeways Prison riot lasts for 3 weeks in Manchester in April
Channel Tunnel workers from the UK and France meet, establishing first land connection between Britain and Europe for c. 8000 years
US invasion of Panama
Italia '90 World Cup
Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth
Formal beginning of Human Genome Project
Launch of Hubble Space Telescope
First internet companies catering to commercial users begin selling services in US (PSINet) and Netherlands (EUnet)
Super Nintendo (SNES) gaming system released in Japan
Peak year for music cassette sales in the US
First broadcast of MTV's Unplugged series
Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet
Happy Mondays, Pills'n'Thrills and Bellyaches
Home Alone
Ghost
Pretty Woman
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia
Life Lessons
So this is what academia is like? Glad I gave that one a swerve, then… (there was enough evidence at undergrad level to put me off, to be fair)
Grave-robbing is probably fine as long as it’s not-for-profit grave-robbing?
The Passion Will Possess You, naturally.
Score
8
Yeah, this is very good. I’m knocking it down a few points for a combination of tedious bits I couldn’t be bothered with and some overly sentimental bobbins here and there, but broadly speaking everyone is right, it does largely manage to be both technically impressive and highly entertaining, so fair play.
Ranking to date:
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) - 9.5
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981) - 9.5
Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively (1987) - 9
Oscar & Lucinda - Peter Carey (1988) - 9
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Life & Times of Michael K. - J. M. Coetzee (1983) - 9
Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982) - 9
The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1985) - 8.5
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
Possession - A. S. Byatt (1990) - 8
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Rites of Passage - William Golding (1980) - 7.5
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7 .
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner (1984) - 4.5
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (1986) - 4
*Read in later condensed edition.
Next up
More magic realism (a lot more, by the looks of it) with Ben Okri’s The Famished Road from 1991.
