{"id":42,"date":"2003-09-12T18:32:19","date_gmt":"2003-09-12T18:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.com\/?p=42"},"modified":"2003-09-12T18:32:19","modified_gmt":"2003-09-12T18:32:19","slug":"possession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/?p=42","title":{"rendered":"Possession"},"content":{"rendered":"

“So what’s new?” was my friend Xiaohui’s response when I told her over the phone that I was reading a novel before she called from Singapore, instead of working on my assignments. ;p
\nThe novel in question is A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”. I only had a little more to go, so I was eager to finish it. Byatt won the Booker Prize<\/a> for it in 1990 and in my opinion, deservedly so. It’s an extraordinary piece of literary work. This is the first time I’m writing a book review so do forgive me if it’s really awful!
\nThe story is about an academic Roland Mitchell, who stumbles upon two letters by Randolph Henry Ash, the poet he is researching on. These two letters are drafts of letters written to an unknown woman. Roland then sets out to uncover the identity of this woman. In the course of it, he gets to know Maud Bailey, an academic who is an expert on the poetry of Christabel LaMotte, the woman whom they suspect Ash was writing to. Together, Roland and Maud set out on a journey to uncover secrets that have been unknown for many years.
\nThe novel was adapted into a film<\/a> of the same title, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow (Maud Bailey), Aaron Eckhart (Roland Mitchell) and British thespians, Jeremy Northam (Randolph Henry Ash) and Jennifer Ehle (Christabel LaMotte).
\nI love the unique narrative structure of “Possession” because A.S. Byatt weaves other sets of literary works within a literary work. The story is told through a mixture of letters written by the different characters in the plot, diaries, poems, and prose. It’s like a play within a play. As one progresses through the novel, one also can’t help but notice the parallel between the Roland & Maud’s relationship and Ash’s relationship with LaMotte.
\nA.S. Byatt is so amazingly prolific in the amount of poetry that she writes in “Possession”. According to the film’s website, the characters of Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte are both ficititious amalgams of a number of poets. British poet Robert Browning has been cited as a basis for Byatt’s Ash poetry. LaMotte is supposed to be a fusion of Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The latter of “How Do I love Thee<\/a>” fame, is particulary influential in Byatt’s conceptualisation of LaMotte’s character because of her famous love correspondence with her husband Robert Browning.
\nThough I admire Byatt’s prolificacy, I found that it soon got very tedious to read through every single one of the poems that were written in the novel. One would do fine just skimming through the poems and concentrating on the main prose.
\nRomance, passion, love, betrayal, mystery, human emotions, sexual politics, Greek & Norse mythology, beautiful language and an unexpected twist at the end, all lend themselves to a novel which is definitely worth all the laurels and accolades that have been heaped upon it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“So what’s new?” was my friend Xiaohui’s response when I told her over the phone that I was reading a novel before she called from Singapore, instead of working on my assignments. ;p The novel in question is A.S. Byatt’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-literature-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}