A.S. Byatt’s Possession is one of my favorite novels of the past fifty years. It marries dense and allusive language with a page-turning plot. I’m going to teach it in my literary theory course this spring, so I’m rereading it now to begin preparing my lectures. I’m shocked at how much I’ve missed in my previous readings.
- Byatt connects private morality and professional work. A character’s ethics gives us a clue to their work’s worth.
- The book is concerned with The Word of God as much as words. In the novel’s central plot, two nineteenth-century poets exchange letters and debate the historicity and divinity of Christ. They love words, but they know such words reflect The Word.
- The novel captures how tempting knowledge can be. Its exploration of human finitude resonates with scripture.
I am eager to finish the book in the next few days and begin crafting classes around it.
Experiments in Criticism 