Possession
Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and triumphant love story It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire from spiritualist s ances to the fairy haunted far west of Brittany what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.Man Booker Prize Winner 1990 Free Read Books Possession By A.S. Byatt – kino-fada.fr That was. not what I was expecting this time.I have to admit, I did not approach this book this time around with what I would consider pure motives I wasn t in it to find things I had never found before, to revisit a personal classic to explore ideas that I had left behind for the time when I was ready to c...A honking great piece of literary self gratification, a novel about writers all novels about writers should be given a concrete overcoat , a grand excuse for A S Byatt to dazzle us with some fancy ventriloquism, and yes you can feel the throb of the author s perfervid intelligence like a lawnmower hacking away at the tough grass at the edge of the lawn but after all of that you have to come clean and say that Possession isn t worth the thinnest novelette written by Raymond Chandler or the most A honking great piece of literary self gratification, a novel about writers all novels about writers should be given a concrete overcoat , a grand excuse for A S Byatt to dazzle us with some fancy ventriloquism, and yes you can feel the throb of the author s perfervid intelligence like a lawnmower h...OK I have to say something People keep writing reviews of this book and talking about how it was great except for all the boring poems which they skipped through.READ THE POETRY, PEOPLE What s the matter with everyone They re actually rather good, they are full of plot clues, and, duh, they re a key part of the novel you re reading I mean what is going on here Do people really hate poetry so much that they re skipping a few pages of it in the middle of a story If you try that shit with Ha OK I have to say something People keep writing reviews of this book and talking about how it was great except for all the boring poems which they skipped through.READ THE POETRY, PEOPLE What s the matter with everyone They re actually rather good, they are full of plot clues, and, duh, they re a key part of the novel you re reading I mean what is going on here Do people really hate poetry so much that they re skipping a few pages of it in the middle of a story If you try that shit ...A while ago I said to myself, I m going to payattention to doing things that make me happy So I m going to cookcreatively and readfantasy, because I keep forgetting I like those things Then I started reading Possession The happiness project got put on the back burner until I was ready to emerge from the Victorian melancholia, which placed demands on my time too great to allow for preparing meals I never cried at this book, exactly, but I frequently wept the way a lemon mer A while ago I said to myself, I m going to payattention to doing things that make me happy So I m going to cookcreatively and readfantasy, because I keep forgetting I like those things Then I started reading Possession The happiness project got put on the back burner until I was ready to emerge from the Victorian melancholia, which placed demands on my time too great to ...Stolen snapshots that defy the laws of space and time Past.A poet observes a mystical creature, half woman half mermaid, scouting cliffs and creeks, bathing in unruly seas and still ponds, getting drenched in the cascade of his flowing words The ache of losing God is not so acute when intellect is met with incandescent creativity Or with unrestrained love His gentle curiosity breathes life into inert things, making them shine with an inner glow of their own, because he doesn t aspire to posse Stolen snapshots that defy the laws of space and time Past.A poet observes a mystical creature, half woman half mermaid, scouting cliffs and creeks, bathing in unruly seas and still ponds, getting drenched in the cascade of his flowing words The ache of losing God is not so acute when intellect is met with incandescent creativity Or with unrestrained love His gentle curiosity breathes life into inert things, making them shine with an inner glow of their own, because he doesn t aspire to possess what he loves, he cherishes it an...Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1990.Giving this book 5 stars was not ever in doubt for me This is one of the most remarkable books I ve ever read I m a romantic, I admit I love art and art history I love good historical fiction But all that combined still does not make a good book A.S Byatt pulls all this together with the most important aspect of any book, great writing But she adds something else also, something that s hard to put your finger on, a uniqueness, an edge, if you will, Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1990.Giving this book 5 stars was not ever in doubt for me This is one of the most remarkable books I ve ever read I m a romantic, I admit I love art and art history I love good historical fiction But all that combined still do...Too much work for too little reward.I read somewhere that if you pick up a book, and you re not enjoying it by either a your age if you are under 50 or b 100 minus your age if you are over 50 , you should abandon it and move on There is too much to read and life is too short to be spent reading bad books.I think this applies particularly to books in that grey zone, where you can tell the writer is winding up to something, and the style and story has enough ooomph in it to keep you poweri Too much work for too little reward.I read somewhere that if you pick up a book, and you re not enjoying it by either a your age if you are under 50 or b 100 minus your age if you are over 50 , you should abandon it and move on There is too much to read and life is too short to be spent reading bad books.I think this applies particularly to books in that grey zone, where you can tell the writer is winding up to something, and the style and story has enough ooomph in it to keep you powering on, despite perhaps your better judgement A.S Byatt s Possession A Romance is definitely in that zone It s not that Byatt is not a good writer she is I am enjoying her eviscerating attack on the insular, political world of academia, with its serpent eating its tail kind of irrelevance The set up of the grad student teaching assistant temp couple, living in a dank basement, banned from the garden, and feeding off of each other in passive aggressive co depend... Like many biographies this was as much about its author as its subject. AS Byatt has characters describing biography as a form of religion a form of ancestor worship She is a novelist who loves the academic approach to biography, applied to fiction and semi fiction, creating po mo metafiction that is rich in texture and research, but which can be a little hard for mortals to digest There are two main timelines here a pair of Victorian poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, l Like many biographies this was as much about its author as its subject. AS Byatt has characters describing biography as a form of religion a form of ancestor worship She is a novelist who loves the academic approach to biography, applied to fiction and semi fiction, creating po mo metafiction that is rich in texture and research, but which can be a little hard for mortals to digest There are two main timelines here a pair of Victorian poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, loosely based on Browning Tennyson and Christina Rossetti, respectively , and various modern academics who specialise in either RHA or LaMotte principally Roland Michell and Maud Bailey When a connection between the two Victorians is discovered, professional rivalry and collaboration are at odds in the literary detective story that ensues That opens the possibility of modern romance to parallel the past, culminating in rather ludicrous scenes in Cornwall Th...I just finished reading A.S Byatt s novel, Possession, again for about the fourth time It has been several years since I last read it, and I have to say that I saw it in a completely new light It is a literary masterpiece that is exquisitely plotted and written This time around I very carefully studied the epigraphs leading off most of the chapters and all of the beautiful poetry included in the text I don t know that I gave muchthan a cursory glance to the poetry during previous ...I did it I conquered the beast That s a tad dramatic, but this book wasn t always the most fun to read even though I do appreciate everything Byatt accomplished Creating this story about fictional Victorian poets, including their writings, letters, diaries, etc is extremely impressive But I did find it slow at times and she te...
- English
- 25 April 2018 A.S. Byatt
- Paperback
- 555 pages
- 0679735909
- A.S. Byatt
- Possession