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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Possession by A.S. Byatt

  
 
matthew.
01:43 / 12.04.06
This summer, Girl.1, Girl.2, and I are going to have a summer bookclud. Girl.1 is not much of a reader, confining herself to the Shopaholic series of novels, and that's it. Girl.2 has expressed interest in reading Henry James, and really enjoys Wilkie Collins.

Three months and three books. Girl.1 is going first, followed by Girl.2 and completed by yours truly. This schedule was devised by Girl.2 in order to increase the difficulty of the reading material by each month, climaxing with my selection.

I have chosen the 1990 novel Possession by A.S. Byatt, which won the Booker Prize and was turned into a 2002 film starring a Paltrow and a chin.

I chose this book because one of my favourite professors in the world did her PhD. on Byatt and recommended this book to me, knowing full well that I am a fan of postmodernism.

Amazon's helpful editorial (seeing as how I know next to nothing about the novel):
"Literary critics make natural detectives," says Maud Bailey, heroine of a mystery where the clues lurk in university libraries, old letters, and dusty journals. Together with Roland Michell, a fellow academic and accidental sleuth, Maud discovers a love affair between the two Victorian writers the pair has dedicated their lives to studying: Randolph Ash, a literary great long assumed to be a devoted and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser-known "fairy poetess" and chaste spinster. At first, Roland and Maud's discovery threatens only to alter the direction of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long-forgotten romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal. Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness, challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves, and uncovers their unique entitlement to the secret of Ash and La Motte's passion.

I created this thread out of the idea that perhaps people who read it can give me ideas on how to a) introduce the novel to these unfamiliar readers and b) introduce postmodernism.

Also, I'd like to discuss Hélène Cixous and écriture féminine with this novel. Is this possible? The reason why I ask is twofold. First of all, I'm not sure if it can be done, because I'm unfamiliar with the novel. Secondly, Girl.1 has gone on record saying that she doesn't like feminists because she perceives them as feminazis (my words) and as man-haters (her words).
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
05:40 / 12.04.06
b) introduce postmodernism.

quite the undertaking. According to my 3rd year 20th Century British Fiction professor, Ulysees was the first postmodern novel.

more than anything, postmodern literature examines meaning in the context of literature, often breaking accepted codes of language and structure in this pursuit. So many wonderful examples to choose from, but I don't want to derail the thread by quoting from non-A S Byatt works.

metafiction is a common tool to postmodernist fiction, although it has been in use for centuries.

undermining conventions of fiction is another -
more than one beginning or ending.
alternative reading orders (chapter 2, 5, 42, 3, 35, etc)
cutting physical holes in pages (concrete foreshadowing)
characters behaving against the wishes of the author
the author as character

I haven't read anything by Byatt, but as I do appreciate a good postmodern hullabulloo, I'll likely pick up Possession.

ta
-nj
 
 
sibyline, beating Qalyn to a Q
13:46 / 12.04.06
it's quite odd to me to think of "possession" as a postmodern novel. i enjoyed it a lot when i read it, but apart from the conceit of academics finding old letters and falling in love, its narrative structure and language are pretty traditional.
 
 
ibis the being
00:50 / 13.04.06
I love Possession. I read it years ago after being assigned Angels and Insects in a college course. I love how Byatt brings a poetic sensibility to scienctific matters and vice versa... her love of words (the sounds of words, the history of words, the rich array of connotation) is evident in every paragraph of a novel like Possession. Is there a compelling reason to introduce or focus on the concept of postmodernism when discussing this novel, matt? I think I understand the temptation there, but I feel you may be cheating the book by veering off into such territory. There is so much worthwhile potential study material in the novel itself. It's been a while since I read it, as I say, but Byatt incorporates so much history, science (often biology and/or botany), poetry and literature into her novels you should have no shortage of discussion topics.
 
 
alas
01:09 / 13.04.06
I liked the novel too, very much, and agree with ibis that there's plenty to deal with without trying to play teacher on postmodernism. I read it twice, which I don't always do. I was, ultimately, dissatisfied with the conclusion (which I will not spoil) and a few other niggling details.

I think it's a good novel about academic life in English depts of the 1980s, but I think it's good to be aware that things are a little different at this point--the whole focus on literary theory was so "new" at that point, it was a kind of over-the-top time. People were, arguably, kind of giddy with theory-headedness in a way, and she's poking reasonable fun at that.

She's not completely fair to feminism, in my mind, and plays a bit into the "feminists all think you have to be ugly or lesbian or give up sex altogether" stereotype it seems to me. I forgive her, because she does the embedded literary criticism quite well and it's not that those rigid elements aren't "out there" in feminist theory/academic feminism. Your friend may find that the novel reinforces her opinion. If you're hoping that this novel will challenge it in any serious way, it probably won't. For whatever that's worth.

BUT there is a lot going on in this novel: the poetry included in it really feels, to me, like Victorian poetry. And the plot is strong and intriguing even though it's also a novel of ideas. There's plenty to play with here.
 
 
alas
10:00 / 13.04.06
p.s., I just re-read my post and noticed that the phrase "play teacher" sounds condescending, for which I apologize; I didn't intend it to be a snarky post, but one might reasonably read it that way. I think Possession's a great choice for a reading club and I hope you will have fun reading it with your friends; my concern was just that, as someone who has regularly had my hopes for the transformative powers of literature dashed against the cruel rocks of my students' normal human resistance (i.e., having minds of their own), I don't want you to set yourself up for disappointment if the book doesn't wind up working the way you may be hoping it will on your friends.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
01:46 / 15.04.06
It's funny, I read this book just before they made a movie out of it, just picked it up at a used bookstore because the jacket copy seemed interesting. I'd never heard of it and, though I recognized the author's name, I didn't know anything about her, either. Without any background, I thought it was a sweet and compelling romance by an intelligent, observant person with some connection to literary academia, and that's about it. It didn't seem to make any particular comment on feminism or modernism, except that maybe the characters were feminists or postmoderns. In fact, it seemed very old fashioned, in that the Victorian characters and their values are really what the book is about.
 
 
alas
20:03 / 15.04.06
... the Victorian characters and their values are really what the book is about.

To you, that may be what the book is "really" about. However, although I don't have the book in front of me, I recall the book as being split pretty evenly between the Victorian characters and the lives of the academics seeking them out. So it seems more accurate to say that it's "really" about both worlds.
 
  
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