I loved Possession by A. S. Byatt when I first read it in 2000. 23 years later, and I still have my original copy from 2000, with notes in the margins. The death of A. S. Byatt in November inspired me to read this with fresh eyes.

What it’s about?

Winner of the Booker Prize and the literary sensation, Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and a 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 séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany – what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.

What I think:

Re-reading this book was completely different from the first time. My own reading experiences are so much broader and thus added to a richer appreciation of the different elements of the book and Byatt as a writer.

I love the modern-day story of Maud and Roland. They are awkward and interesting, passionate and intelligent. Their intellectual pursuits collide with the discovery of a previously unknown connection between Victorian writers Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte and a cache of letters between them. Working together, their relationship develops, becoming increasingly personal and sexually charged.

There are also professional rivalries with collector Mortimer Cropper, Ellen Ah’s biographer Beatrice Nest and Roland’s colleague Fergus Wolff.

Byatt recreates the letters, the short stories and the poetry of Ash and LaMotte, hiding clues to their relationship in plain sight. The stories of Ash, LaMotte, Roland and Maud interweave beautifully.

All the voices in the book are clear and distinct and brilliantly clever.

The book explores lots of ideas about academic scholarship, the relationship between biographers and their subjects, ownership of artifacts and documents, and the connection between artist’s lives and their works.

This is a big, big book. There’s lots going on and it deserves all of your attention.

The subtitle is ‘A Romance’ and this is full of different love stories.

I’m so glad to revisit it. Its really quite a special book