<p>On the lighter side, here is Possession as a “digested classic,” written by someone who clearly had issues with it. The revised poetry gave me a good laugh:</p>
<p>[Digested</a> classic: Possession by AS Byatt | Books | guardian.co.uk](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/09/as-byatt-possession-digested-classic]Digested”>Possession by AS Byatt | Books | The Guardian)</p>
<p>^^^Very funny Mary13!</p>
<p>PLANTMOM- I,too, hard problems with the question.
but, I don’t have any difficulty understanding that very clever and VERY FUNNY- link Mary posted. It’s a great summary!!!</p>
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<p>Haha I love it!</p>
<p>My, what a wealth of references we find…I think in a way we are like those literary researchers in the book. Possessed by Possession.</p>
<p>LOL, the digested classic is great, but I still love the book. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the Rangorok info. I actually grew up I thought on a wonderful 1920s version of the Norse myths, but seem to have forgotten all the how the world was founded part of it. I love the notion of that wild graveyard scene as a recreation of the myth.</p>
<p>I know I’ve only danced around the question too. 
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<p>I have trouble with anything to do with Darwin interpretations, because my husband is so rabidly of the school that Darwin explains religion too. Basically the notion is that natural selection created humans who were united by belief in common gods. So I tend to see natural selection and religion as very compatible. I agree though that in the book Christabel seems to be more skeptical, even if Randolph seems more interested in science.</p>
<p>Interestingly, physicists seem to be more spiritual than biologists in contemporary society.</p>
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<p>So do I. I was raised that way – it’s one of the few areas in which the Catholic Church and I still see eye to eye ;). My husband has been teaching evolution in his environmental science class for decades. </p>
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<p>Beatrice is certainly a victim of patriarchy, but that’s really no surprise: Her days as a young scholar were from 1938-1941, a time when women weren’t exactly viewed as equals in the workplace. Her mentor steers her away from the masculine (studying Ash) to the feminine (the “suitable undertaking” of editing Ellen’s journal).</p>
<p>50 years later, the feminists find her “irrelevant” and “repressive.” She never seems to be doing the right work at the right time – except maybe during Roland and Maud’s quest, when they need information from her and she provides some important clues.</p>
<p>By the way, did anyone else think “the feminists” got a bad rap in this book? They are always viewed with disdain. I consider myself a feminist and I’ve never “hissed and cat-called” at a blonde in my life. :)</p>
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<p>Absolutely. It was one of the unappealing things about the book. I felt that her attitude toward feminism was much too sneering and facile.</p>
<p>That said, I have not been involved with liberal arts studies on a campus for many, many years. I suspect that feminist scholarship has become rather insanely strident, and remains more strident than day-to-day feminism ever was. </p>
<p>In addition, I believe I noticed in Possession that Byatt mentions post-structuralist philosophers like Barthes, Derrida and Lacan. When I studied philosophy in college many years ago, we did not study those people. In the mid-60s, we had never heard of them yet. (We had never heard of semiotics either; doesn’t Byatt mention it somewhere too?) Since then, it’s my impression that post-structuralism and related subjects became hugely important intellectual topics.</p>
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<p>What “politically minded young people”? </p>
<p>The difference between Val, Beatrice and Blanche is that Beatrice and Blanche became trapped. Beatrice lingered in a niche, protected by institutional structures, and couldn’t break out. Blanche was protected by Christabel. When that relationship crumbled, she was at a total loss.</p>
<p>Val, a more modern woman, took the reins in her own hand and plowed doggedly forward, trying to improve her lot the only way she knew how – and she was rewarded.</p>
<p>This is slightly off topic, but since Byatt was influenced by The Name of the Rose, and it and Possession have some characteristics in common, here is an interesting article I found on semiotics in The Name of the Rose.</p>
<p>[The</a> Lectern: ‘The Name of the Rose’ Umberto Eco](<a href=“http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2009/12/name-of-rose-umberto-eco.html]The”>The Lectern: 'The Name of the Rose' Umberto Eco)</p>
<p>It’s a bit dense, but not long. I derived the gist of it by skimming it.</p>
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<p>Me, too!</p>
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<p>I think that by “politically minded young people” the question might be referring to The Feminists, with the double standard being that they proudly carry the torch for all women – except “fluffy” women like Beatrice or “pretty” women like Maud. </p>
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<p>Note that Val’s reward involves a man. I like Euan – seems like a fine person and good for her, but…just sayin’.</p>
<p>(Although to give Byatt the benefit of the doubt, this might not be because she believes that only a man can bring happiness, but because the book is a Romance and finding love is an essential element.)</p>
<p>I didn’t especially like it that Val’s reward was a man. It seemed sort of banal or conventional.</p>
<p>^^^ Ditto to all the above posts by Mary and NJTM.</p>
<p>Euan and Val seem a forced pairing to me … almost like Byatt needs Val to have a romance by book’s end. So, yes, I think Byatt intentionally pairs the modern-day couples for some semblance of happy-ever-after. Certainly none of the Victorian couples gets one: well, Ellen and Ash, maybe, maybe not, depends on how you look at it, but they come closer than anyone else. </p>
<p>I actually like the Blackadder/Leonora hook-up - if hook-up it is - just because I don’t think Blackadder knows what hit him. ;)</p>
<p>Feminism is portrayed in a somewhat cartoonish way in the book, but I certainly remember certain aspects of that when I was in college. Semiotics post-structuralism and all that is one of the major reasons I did not become an academic. It made my head whirl. Luckily it hadn’t hit the architectural history field yet when I was in school.</p>
<p>Beatrix Nest is an interesting figure - I liked the way she becomes more of a real person, and the way she is protective of the marginal woman of the past - Ellen - who no one really cares about - except to the extent she shed illumination on the more famous people in her orbit.</p>
<p>I’m not happy about Val’s fate. By all accounts she was a true scholar and should have either been rewarded that way, or found more fulfillment in another field. Instead she just gets a guy.</p>
<p>The book actually reminds me a bit of Shakespearean Romances where all the couples, including the servants, end up paired at the end of the play.</p>
<p>Hi,
I am new here but just want to say thank you for picking up A.S Byatt’s book.
Have anyone read her quartet on Potter family? Had it mentioned before?
I am sorry I have not finished reading whole comments posted here yet.
If you liked Possession, or even you are not quite sure about Possession, please please try them!</p>
<p>It have been long time since I have read the book but what I remember the most in Possession is the part Maud called her hair the “wrong color” I am still trying to see in my mind’s eyes what she would have looked like, always her head wrapped in a scarf.</p>
<p>And how Randolph reasoned why human kept making love to each other from we were cavemen… oh how did he put it,
“This, this, this…”
I just have to find the copy.</p>
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<p>Yes, but in a not unfamiliar way. My D graduated recently from a wonderful women’s college. She had a great experience there, overall, and certainly reaped the rewards of being educated with and by an empowered group of women. But there were times when the political correctness and somewhat militant way it was enforced was just downright exasperating. Some of the classes she could have taken sounded like the titles of Leonora’s papers. Blah, especially for a bio major.</p>
<p>On the other hand, how awful for Beatrice to feel dismissed by both men and women. And Val, unlike Blanche or Beatrice, seemed to me like an unnecessary character in this book. I didn’t particularly care that she lost her man, or got a new one.</p>
<p>Ignatius -
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<p>Exactly. I just read an interview, before the publication of Possession ,and Byatt refers to purposely ending the book “happy-ever-after” ending expected by the European/ Western reader. (Fairy Tale ending) </p>
<p>Mary13
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<p>So glad others felt the same way. It’s an uneasy “feeling” about her beliefs. I wonder if a man wrote this how we would feel. </p>
<p>From an Interview- she doesn’t hold back at all- ouch - Ya’ think Byatt has some deep battle scars from the 70s? </p>
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<p>Welcome! I haven’t read the quartet – in fact, I had to do a little research. Thanks for bringing it up. Here is some info for anyone who might be interested: [url=<a href=“http://marissabidilla.blogspot.com/2007/08/summer-reading-frederica-potter-quartet.html]MARISSABIDILLA:”>MARISSABIDILLA: Summer Reading: The Frederica Potter Quartet]MARISSABIDILLA:</a> Summer Reading: The Frederica Potter Quartet<a href=“The%20quartet%20is%20also%20referred%20to%20in%20SouthJerseyChessMom’s%20link%20above.”>/url</a></p>
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<p>Wow, I’d say so! It pays to do some background research on our authors, doesn’t it? It often explains certain oddities of character or plot.</p>
<p>I read *Babel Tower *shortly after reading *Possession *the first time. I liked it, and always thought I’d read other books of Byatt’s and never quite got around to it. I didn’t love it the same way I loved Possession though. I had no idea it was part of a quartet, or I might have made a point of at least reading it in order! I’m inspired now - though I’ve got some new sci fi space opera that is calling me first. :)</p>
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[quote]
9. Ash writes “Swammerdam” with a particular reader, Christabel LaMotte, in mind. Is Christabel’s influence on Ash evident in the poem, and if so, how and where? How, in the poem, does Ash address his society’s preoccupation with science and religion? How does he address his and Christabel’s conflicting religious ideas? How does Christabel herself present these ideas in M</p>
<p>I’m not sure why, but I found Gode’s tale so disturbing that it practically tainted the whole book for me.</p>
<p>In fact, if I were an actor and wanted to summon tears, I’d probably just have to think of that tale.</p>
<p>Maybe because it seemed to be about a dead child torturing a mother…</p>
<p>I don’t even really like talking about it. (Pretty neurotic, huh?)</p>
<p>So I’ll leave it to the rest of you to discuss it.</p>