Currently reading . . .

Currently we're reading Necropolis, by Anthony Horowitz, book four of the series, The Power of Five. Meeting this Thursday. See you then!

Possession: A Romance

We discussed Possession: A Romance by A.S.Byatt last week. Of the six of us present, three had finished the book (including me!), one had nearly finished, one had read a small amount and seen the movie, and our host had seen the movie. (I too had seen the movie.)

It was a very weighty book to try to discuss in our usual time period of around an hour and a half, and as a result we jumped from topic to topic quite erratically as ideas formed and people bubbled over trying to express their opinions. I'm not sure how we would have coped with a larger group!

Somewhat inevitably, we discussed the poetry -- both in terms of how it was used to add atmosphere, texture and information, and whether it was necessary to read it all from end-to-end. I believe we were divided on that point. I personally found that experiencing the poems via the audio presentation was vastly easier and thus more enjoyable than reading them in the conventional manner, and I think the other audio listeners found this as well. And while it was certainly possible to enjoy the novel without reading them, I think they are an integral part of the whole and therefore enhanced the novel considerably. The bitterness of Mummy Possest gives great insight into Ash's feelings, for example. And those short, sad poems by Christabel left with Sabine's journal are also very revealing. (It was pointed out that most of the novel's complexity is derived from the poems, journals and letters. Without them you're left with little more than a slightly predictable plot hinged on coincidence!)

We also talked over several of the relationships -- Roland and Maud's is perhaps the central one for which the entire novel was declared an 'enormous foreplay' by one of our group. Certainly they spend an awfully long time getting to the point! In a podcast interview with Byatt she said that the novel had to end with Roland 'possessing' Maud to give the whole thing symmetry. She added that one of the sub-themes of the novel was exploring the effect overt 1980s feminism might have on a woman -- does it inhibit or enable? In Maud's case it was the former. Hence the waiting.

On the subject of the portrayal of academia, we discussed whether Roland's initial act of stealing the draft letters was reprehensible or not. I confess I lean a little to the side of not -- to my mind it's a bit like the proverbial tree in the forest. (i.e. if no-one knows they're there, does it actually matter?) Others thought the opposite! The discovery of the letters and the quest they engendered are for me at the heart of the story, and are what made me love the movie when I first saw it, which led me to select this book to read. Like Roland, like Maud, I wanted to know! I can clearly imagine the excitement they must have felt at such a momentous discovery!

Obviously we talked about all sorts of other things as well. I could go on about this novel for hours . . . about how I shared Roland's bereftness when all the others got in on the act and took the secret away from him and Maud . . . about how the plot relied a little too heavily on coincidence . . . about the fascinating characters of Leonora Stern and Beatrice Nest . . . about the various meanings of 'possession' and how they are explored . . . about the difference between feeling connected through words, as opposed to through artifacts . . .

As usual, my take on the novel is fairly analytical in terms of craft. I stand in awe of Byatt and her ability to create such a complex and convincing world -- she wrote all the Victorian poetry in two distinct voices, plus fairy tales, journal entries, letters etc in more voices again. Moreover, she says she wrote them in-situ, not after the fact, so they are integral building blocks of the story. But it's not just the poems. In fact, they might almost have been easy in comparison with all the other sources she created -- such as excerpts from Cropper's The great ventriloquist. This is replete with academic theory and analysis that sounds convincing enough to an ignoramus like me.

The novel is also rich with subtext and symbolism, and I'm sure I missed most of it. But for instance most of the characters are defined by colour -- Christabel (and Maud) is green because that's evidently the colour of fairies; Ellen Ash is white. I confess the colours were revealed to me in the podcast, so now I'll have to read it again to take more notice! (A very interesting thing Byatt said was that she sees novels in colours -- like an abstract painting -- and she can't write without knowing what colour it is . . .)

The final thing I am going to share is Byatt's inspiration for the novel. She was sitting in the British Museum library watching a Coleridge scholar pacing around the catalogues, and started wondering whether the woman had an original thought, or whether it was all the poet. Does he possess her, or does she possess him?

For those that are interested, here's the link to the podcast.

Here's a link to my (very different) post on Possession on Forge and Brew.