Possession – February CC Book Club Selection

Parent Cafe
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<p>From Week Two of the Guardian Book Club articles:</p>

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<p>Byatt’s was trying to combine an academic literary satire with a detective story, and in my opinion, the graft was weak. </p>

<p>I occasionally enjoy a good detective novel in which character development doesn’t matter. But generally what I much prefer is what Byatt calls “psychological novels.”</p>

<p>In my opinion, Possession was lacking the good clean fun of a “pure” detective novel. The construction was too awkward. At the same time, it was very short on the kind of interior reflection that characterizes books like Jane Eyre or even the page-turner Before I Go to Sleep.</p>

<p>It could be argued that Roland’s brooding thoughts, or Ellen’s or Sylvie’s journals, were a kind of character development, but they didn’t seem that way to me.</p>

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<p>Greetings all-
First, I want to comment on Ignatius’s love of poetry, and especially that her children quoted Christini Rossetti. I’m impressed.</p>

<p>I’ve enjoyed all your comments about the poetry in the book, and now I am reading some of those poems, looking for clues, and it would please Byatt, to know all the interesting background reading I’m doing-
Mummy Possest, led me to John Donne,
who led me to Paracelsus. </p>

<p>Re: previous comment, isn’t ** Mummy Possest **about Ash’s anger with Christabel, and disdain for mysticism (a nod to Browning). Read John Donne’s poem, he is extremely angry with women, saying that love is not lasting, women deceptive, and an pregnant woman seeking marriage is not worthy of true affections.</p>

<p>Which gets me to Emmy’s post<br>

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<p>Exactly!
I just finished ** Freidrich LaMotte’s story Undine **- famous Melusine story -triad of three characters -Undine and ** Bertalda **, and the Knight.
Lots of references to this story in Possession.
[Undine</a>, by Friedrich de La Motte Fouque](<a href=“http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2825/2825-h/2825-h.htm]Undine”>Undine, by Friedrich de La Motte Fouque)</p>

<p>Edgar Allen Poe’s review of Undine-by Friedrich ** Lamotte <a href=“Edgar%20Allan%20Poe,%20Review%20of%20Undine,%20Burton’s%20Gentleman’s%20Magazine,%20September%201839”>/b</a>
“At all events he has succeeded, in spite of a radical defect, in producing what we advisedly ** consider the finest romance in existence” **</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.eapoe.org/works/criticsm/bgm39f01.htm[/url]”>http://www.eapoe.org/works/criticsm/bgm39f01.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Question about an incident in Possession-
I was confused about one of the meetings between Christabel and Ash.
It was an early meeting, and Christabel was covered with large brim hat, he could barely see her face She had her large grey hound, Tray,with her when earlier she decribed a medium sized dog. </p>

<p>Did anyone else think this might have been Blanche, impersonating Christabel. because Blanche had been intercepting the letters at that point?
As I recall they held hands. </p>

<p>(I ask because reading the complications of Undine and Bertaldo reminded me of this issue, and it sheds a different light on Blanche’s motivation for suicide- jealousy)</p>

<p>Last point- Mary13 Regarding the question you ask- “How does the ending of the book make a difference in Roland’s future?” No idea.</p>

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<p>^^^ Don’t be too impressed. We do own more than a few children’s poetry books, and poems by Christina Rossetti and Robert Louis Stevenson - among others - pop up throughout each of them. My children recited many a Rossetti poem - the words just flow. I still like giving poetry books as a baby present or birthday gift. Beyond that, my poetry background is limited - though I can still recite Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, having had to memorize it as a senior in high school. :wink: So I’ll include another childhood favorite, before moving on:</p>

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<p>No, I feel sure that it was Christabel. Because of the rain, she wore a hat that partially obscured her face, but Randolph saw her: “Ah, but I saw your face, even if only in flashes under the dripping brim of a bonnet and the arching shadow that huge and most purposeful umbrella” (p. 208).</p>

<p>Also, they conversed as they walked in the rain. Since he had already met her at Crabb Robinson’s, he knew her face, her voice and her physique. And this meeting took place before Blanche began intercepting the letters. Randolph reminisces about the rendezvous in a letter to Christabel and she responds (p. 209). Both those letters are in Christabel’s saved collection. It is after this that Blanche gets involved and steals the letter with Swammerdam.</p>

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<p>I agree with the rest of you: I don’t see how the ending of the book affects Roland any which way. Perhaps you can say it affects Cropper and Blackadder as Ash’s biographers, who will never have the whole story, but Roland … no.</p>

<p>I’ve been thinking about the pregnant servant. Ash loves Ellen - to impregnate her maid would have been an act of cruelty. He writes Ellen daily and buys her thoughtful gifts even while he travels with Christabel. Three things stand out to me. </p>

<p>Randolph makes a point of telling Christabel that he’s not the sort of man who cheats:

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<p>He later confesses to Ellen:

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<p>And, lastly, Ash so desperately wants to find out what happened to his child with Christabel. I can’t see him ignoring another pregnancy.</p>

<p>So … no, Ash is not the father of the servant’s baby … and I’m digging my heels in on this. It would ruin the romance. :o</p>

<p>**SJCM:**I don’t think Christabel ever describes Dog Tray to Roland. He imagines a smaller hound. Christabel has learned by that time that Blanche intercepts letters, so writes to Ash and makes the arrangements herself. Ash only has to show up. The rainy day occasioned the dripping bonnet and large umbrella. Still, Ash notes

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<p>Oops, Mary posted much the same thing.</p>

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<p>Mary: I am going to correct one thing. Christabel meets Ash after she discovers Blanche steals the letters. She meets with him out of fury with Blanche. Randolph’s letters and poems have been destroyed, or so Christabel thinks. I’m not sure she would have met with him - at that time - if she hadn’t learned that Blanche interfered. She makes the arrangements in the same letter in which she tells him about his mailings: “I cannot find them. They are torn to shred, I am told. And Swammerdam with them.” Her fury with Blanche and sense of betrayal/hurt literally jump from the page. In effect, Blanche precipitates what she most fears.</p>

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<p>I won my 6th grade poem memorizing contest. I can still recite zillions of them, my high school teachers, especially the one I had freshman year were big on poetry. For one of our reunions we brought favorite poems to share with her at some event honoring her. The German exchange student from that year recited the entire Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by heart! I too grew up on R.L. Stevenson and Rosetti’s poem about the wind. I actually knew someone named Annabel Lee in junior high!</p>

<p>I don’t think it was Blanche at that first meeting. She didn’t really lie about the dog I thought he just made assumptions. I think there are elements of detective story here, but I agree that if you are looking for a true graft, that part is definitely weak.</p>

<p>To question 5, I don’t think not knowing the whole truth makes any difference to Roland’s future - which looks at this point to be some combination of poet and scholar. I think that last scene was a bit of a gift to us the reader, both to leave us on a happier note, and to emphasize that none of us possess the whole truth. </p>

<p>Randolph doesn’t stop writing poetry either because of the affair, or after he knows the child is thriving. He writes at least one reaction poem that we know of (Mommy Possest), but then goes back to life as usual I think. LaMotte’s life however and her poetry seems more irrevocably changed.</p>

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<p>Thanks ignatius, I had forgotten the exact order of events—only knew that Christabel and Randolph had both written about the rainy walk, and that those letters went through safely. </p>

<p>I have a correction, too – and it’s given me a brainstorm!</p>

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<p>^ Now, I know you meant Randolph, not Roland, and throughout this discussion many of us have made the same accidental swap, either in our heads or in our posts. So that makes me think…Maybe whoever wrote the discussion questions meant to ask, “What difference does it make to Randolph’s future? Because that would make sense.</p>

<p>I think that the secret that Randolph keeps and that only the reader knows, i.e., that he met his daughter, would have given him much peace of mind, especially in light of how distraught he was at the s</p>

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<p>^ LOL yes, I meant Randolph,and the mixup of their names in the quesion would make moe sense.</p>

<p>Randolph suffered in two ways, not having a relationship with his only child, and never getting a response from Christabel. Perfect ending. </p>

<p>Thanks, for clarification about the Christabel / Ash meeting !</p>

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<p>Mary: I kept mixing up the names when I read also - no more than for a brief moment, but still. And I bet you are exactly right: the question makes sense with Randolph’s name rather than Roland’s. And good answer to the corrected question.</p>

<p>mathmom: Ash’s Ask to Embla follows his affair with Christabel. Blackadder talks about these poems in his TV interview. I remember another reference to these poems - maybe Cropper thinking they had been written for Ellen. Whatever, the poems signify a change in the Ash oeuvre.</p>

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<p>Page 127-Beatrice wanted to write her dissertation on Ask to Embla.</p>

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<p>^^^ Good find. Now doesn’t Cropper mention those same poems, also?</p>

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<p>I too think the final secret was a gift from Byatt to the reader. In disclosing Ash had met and recognized his daughter for who she was, she allows us to validate our ability to discover the whole truth of the ancestors, or not. So much of this book is pointedly asking us to interpret facts and resurrect the dead (Lazarus), while questioning our ability to do just that. The author has allowed us our happy ending, yet also shown that there are many facts and essences of the past we’ll never be able to recover. </p>

<p>Perhaps the question was meant to ask how the story itself might have differed, if Ash’s message to Christabel (telling her that he had met May) had been delivered. Would Ash have been invited to meet with Christabel again? I doubt it. Would Christabel have written her final letter of disclosure and apology to Ash at all? Probably not. Would the modern day detective story with the graveyard ending have made sense without Christabel’s letter to Ellen. No. Would Roland and Maud ended up together, even if Maud was not a direct descendant of Ash and LaMotte? I’d like to think so!</p>

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<p>I wasn’t thinking so much of the love poems, but the breakup poems, if any. I guess that’s what Chapter 27 is. Is the only bit of Ask to Embla the one that appears at the beginning of Chapter 14? Do they say when it was written?</p>

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<p>question- Did Ash write any poems after 1868 ( or whenever he met May), with references to May?</p>

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<p>Byatt keeps dates intentionally keeps dates vague (which had me constantly rereading … trying to figure out a timeline), but:</p>

<p>p.127

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<p>You can find a snippet of poem here too. It sounds as though Ash communicates to Christabel through his poetry rather than letters now.</p>

<p>p. 257 - 258

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<p>Roland and Maud compare Ash’s poetry and Christabel’s here. Again, it sounds as though the two communicate through their work - you hear regret. You can find another snip of Ask to Embla here.</p>

<p>p. 526

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<p>I think there are maybe more comments/poems to be found.</p>

<p>Off a past tangent for a minute, remember how we commented on Ash’s freedom to wander while Christabel remained at hearth and home? I just noticed that Ash’s last message to Christabel to be related by May:</p>

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<p>After The Fairy Melusina, however, the communication is one-sided. Roland reads the following in Christabel’s biography: “After Melusina she appears to have written no more poetry, and retreated further and further in voluntary silence. She died in 1890 aged sixty-five” (p. 42).</p>

<p>That’s nearly 30 years without writing. Seems like she would go mad not creating a work in all that time. Maybe her unpublished, post-Melusina poetry will turn up in a closet in Seal Court.</p>

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<p>It’s not just Christabel and Maud who value autonomy; it’s Ellen, too. She recognizes that the women in her time have very few choices, writing, “It is odd, when I think of it, that in chess the female may make the large runs and cross freely in all ways—in life it is much otherwise” (p. 248).</p>

<p>By the way, I like that Ellen plays chess, and quite skillfully. “I enjoy these miniature campaigns,” she writes. The two times she plays Herbert Baulk, she defeats him easily (“He was pleased to tell me that I played very well for a lady—I was content to accept this, since I won handsomely.”)</p>

<p>I set out to find meaning in a game of chess (everything means something to Byatt, right?) and I came across this story about Charles Dickens, as told by a woman named Victoria Traeger, whose uncle was a friend of Dickens:

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<p>I was struck by the sentence, “Intellectual affection is the only lasting love.” Seems like a belief that Ellen would espouse.</p>

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<p>A post about “chess” has my name all over it. </p>

<p>Great discovery about Charles Dickens.Love it.</p>

<p>A Chess Master told my son, everyone is equal over the chess board, and you can discover many things about a person by watching them play chess. </p>

<p>As this relates to the book.
This statement jumped off the page when I read it “** We played chess. I won.**” pg 251</p>

<p>I think Ellen, referred to her successful manipulation of getting rid of Bertha.
There remains doubts in my mind that she thought Ash may have been the father. </p>

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[quote]
"Perhaps Bertha is gone to the man who [passage crossed out illegibly] pg 251 <a href=“Byatt%20employs%20that%20crossed%20out%20lines%20sparingly”>/quote</a></p>

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<p>The “Bertha issue” causes Ellen to take to her bed- she is ravaged by headaches, needs laudanum, and is receiving letters from Blanche. </p>

<p>Let’s see how our wise Beatrice reacts to Maud’s discovery of these Journal posts.
Maud says “It must have been * terrible* for Bertha. She ------Ellen----doesn’t seem to see…”</p>

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<p>Can someone clarify Beatrice’s meaning ?</p>

<p>Of course, at this point Maud, and Beatrice don’t know about Ellen’s ‘medical issues’, but it was not hard to imagine any Victorian male, or slave holder in the US, taking advantage of powerless women. </p>

<p>So, when I read this statement about Ellen winning chess game, it displayed a manipulative woman, with devious intentions, and lacking any sympathy.</p>

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<p>Autonomy for Christabel and Maud seems to be keeping control of their creative and thinking processes, and related to the well defined spaces they define for themselves. I think the females want to the power to control or create these enclosed spaces, their spaces of solitude, so they can work. Their autonomy is wrapped up with the idea of maintaining solitude in their self made spaces.</p>

<p>From Maud, on Christabel (p. 549)</p>

<p><a href=“Roland”>quote</a> “Yes. But you don’t want --do you–to be alone always. Or do you?”</p>

<pre><code> (Maud) “I feel as she did. I keep my defences up because I must go on doing my work. I know how she felt about her unbroken egg. Her self-possession, her autonomy. I don’t want to think of that going. You understand?”
“Oh yes.”
“I write about liminality. Thresholds. Bastions. Fortresses.”

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<p>And then Roland replies,

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