"Possession" - the discussion

[Freddiecat]

Here goes!

I'll add something later when I'm not being dragged off by a bored toddler... But the discussion is open!

I found this very difficult to read, in fact I think I picked it up and put it down and finally read the rest years later when I found it again after moving!!! I did enjoy parts of it , although it is quite heavy going in terms of langauge & literature referances. I must admit I would like to watch the film now to refresh my memory, as I couldnt possibly wade through it again.

I just got hold of the book & read first 4 chaps. . .by when should we have officially finished it?

Senora I think the you're right about Byatt "faking a faker." Also there are a lot of Victorian novels whose chapters begin with a poem or part of a poem, so Byatt seems to be mimicking the architecture of a Victorian novel. I think it's also a vehicle through which we get to know Ash's work.

I plan to read the poetry. So far it appears to be the poetry of someone stuck in academia, perhaps easier to charicature and imitate than truly "great" poetry. I think there is a theme anyway (I can already see it!) of people being stuck in academia.

I'm struggling..(and me an English teacher!)
I'm impressed by her cleverness and see that this is a very 'important' book, but following it does not come easily. I will persevere though!
Off to have a look at the light reading thread now!

I've finished! Enjoyed it actually. It felt very neat and tidy at the end (good by me because I like to have all my questions answered). Will wait for others to finish before I say anymore!

Well I don't want to set a deadline for finishing it. In a week or so I will put another selection list online but I don't think it'll work if we have set deadlines. That way if anyone is a quick reader they can go onto another thread if they want to. If you don't have masses of time to read you may find you have to miss out on the odd book every now and then. But if I start a new book thread and enough people are still reading a previous book then we'll delay it. No sense in rushing things.

I had a hiatus over the weekend while I read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time"!

Sorry, I wasn't pressurising. The amount of time it usually takes me to read anything I was just really pleased with myself for finishing at all!

I think my favourite character so far has to be Beatrice Nest. ASB has pulled off the best breast description ever, humourous and poignant in equal measure. I'm starting to wish RH Ash was real - I loved Swammerdam.
This book is already on my shelf of "must read again before I die" - along with Midnight's Children and Sophie's World - and I'm not even half way through yet!

Oh dear I skipped Swammerdam as well - and the Fairy Melusina and any other poem over half a page. I know there are probably all sorts of hints and clues in there but I just can't do it!

Really enjoying the book now. A few questions though:

1. Why do you think AS Byatt put that whole chapter about Ash and Christabel in Yorkshire in their present when the present is 20th C for the rest of the book?

2. Is the point that the historical characters mirror the present day characters an obvious point? (Roland = Ash, Maud = Christabel, Tedious Val = Ellen, Leonora = Blanche)

I think the whole thing between Maud and Roland is wonderfully tense. Also Byatt's descriptions of women are brilliant. Firstly Maud and her hair (esp. the Yeats quotation) then Beatrice's breasts - have to agree with you on that one clairemagnolia. These two women seem to have a waryness of their own bodies and she leaves their sexuality ambigious - yet you can also argue that neither of them is within the academic feminist mainstream.

I've finished! And I really enjoyed it! Does anyone fancy a live discussion on the whole book? Suggest when you might be ready/available. If you've not finished then no rush at all - it's a heavy book and I had 2 3 hour train journey's last week which helped!

Freddiecat, is Roland really Ash? I'm sorry, he just seemed too boring to me. I couldn't really see why Maud fell for him, he just lacked that certain oomph to me. I found their romance not that convincing - meeting of two minds that like sterile white beds - come on, they'd never get it on! Whereas Christabel and Ash are truly sexy.

Freddiecat, I'm not finished but would be delighted to have a discussion to the extent that I can. Florence, I don't think it's that Roland & Ash are meant to be direct parallels, but more thematic parallels. . . both men have these 'extraneous' women in their lives, as do Christabel (Blanche) and Maud (Leonora). You're right: Roland & Ash are nothing alike in personality.

I don't blame a lot of you skipping the poetry (everyone I know who read this did the same!) but because poetry is my area of interest, I have been reading it and I've come to the conclusion that Ash's work is meant to be loosely based on the work of Robert Browning's & Christabel's on Christina Rosetti. Unfortunately I've never been too intersted in poets' lives (I'm more focused on the work) so I wonder if there are any biographical parallels too between Browning/Ash & Rosetti/Christabel. . .but I just don't know. What I do suspect is, as this whole book is an examination of male versus female (or at least what I've read of it) there is a distinction between the very masculine poetry of Ash and the very so-called feminine poetry of Christabel. An American equivalent of Christabel is someone like Emily Dickinson, who, some might argue, also writes a kind of "femine" poetry, a poetry which breaks away from the strong ango-saxon rhythms of iambic pentameter etc.

Hope I haven't bored anyone!

I have to admit I am so lacking in knowledge about poetry that I only realised who Rosetti was when I read the book (previously had been wondered who Rosetti Wordsworth from the Story Makers was based on....).

Agree the book is very much a contrast between male and female - and that the female characters really try to emphasise the difference. I thought Maud and Roland were quite convincing actually. They weren't sexy, but both had these real issues which the other seemed to help with almost without saying anything.

I did think it odd that Byatt puts so much into the physical descriptions of the female characters and almost NOTHING into the men. You only know what Ash looks like because his picture is described. You know nothing about Roland at all which I think is strange.

Isn't Roland meant to be small and furry - like a mole? I sort of imagined him looking like Mark Rylance for no particular reason (haven't seen film). I did wonder why Byatt kept emphasising Christabel's large white teeth - made me think of a rabbit - not the best image!

I noticed the parallels between Christabel's poetry and Emily Dickinson (not that I read much poetry) - the point that the Melusina poems were influenced by Ash was made clear. But the stylistic difference was not something commented on by the literary critics in the book? Have to admit I enjoyed the fairy stories the most, they really stuck in my mind.

BTW I think this is much the best of Byatt's work - have found some of her other books unreadable.

Well, I've finished it!
I'm glad I read it but I can't say it was most enjoyable thing I've ever read. I didn't like much of the poetry (though I did get the Rosetti/Dickinson-type references) but I did quite like the mystery of unpacking exactly what happened. Thought the ending was a bit contrived actually, though I did like the humour of digging in the storm!
Did anyone else think that the old-fashioned present day characters had victorian names like Maud, Beatrice etc while the modern characters had more typically twentieth century names - Val, Euan?

Good point Sassy.
I ended up feeling very sorry for Christabel - and I was trying to work out in my karmic way, what she had done to deserve her fate - other than be unconventional, and self contained. A warning for all "chilly mortals"!

I think the one thing about names that really stuck with me is that you have Christabel LaMotte and her direct descendant Maud Bailey. Motte and Bailey is a medieval form of castle construction isn't it? (This is from my hazy memory of school history lessons). If Motte and Bailey are a form of physical defence and Christabel and Maud can both be said to erect "barriers" around themselves then this is quite a clever way of linking them right from the beginning. Infact Christabel makes a reference to motte-and-bailey defences in her last letter to Ash "behind my motte-and-bailey defences" and Maud talks about how she writes about fortresses.

I'm sure someone else can tease this out a bit more than I can.

A* for Freddiecat!! Very clever of you.

Wow, as Leonora would say! I've just finished and I'm still reeling. A beautifully crafted novel which has made my want to laugh and cry and read more poetry - and I don't think you can really ask for more than that.
One question which wasn't answered, unless I missed something: who was the mysterious god-daughter Ash wrote to about trees and ducks, Sophy/Sophia - the letter Cropper photocopies on Daisy Wapshott's toilet?
And was Bertha, the pregnant housemaid dismissed while Ash was up north, carrying Ash's child?
Are these incidents linked possibly?
I'm definitely up for a live discussion when everyone's finished - toddler-permitting of course!

We just rented the movie this weekend (I read the book about 12 years ago) and it was awful! Anyone else see it? Talk about making a hash of things. It took a beautifully crafted and detailed novel and turned it into a trivial romance. Yuck. Thoughts?

Who is in it? I wasn't actually aware there was a film until I bought the book!