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the complete review - fiction

Possession

by
A.S.Byatt

[an overview of the reviews and critical reactions]

general information | review summaries | links | about the author

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Why we haven't reviewed it yet:
Read it ages ago, haven't returned to it yet


Chances that we will review it:
May well revisit it at some point

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  Review Consensus:

  Impressed

  From the Reviews:

• "Possession is about reading. (...) Possession is not just satire; it’s mostly romance. (...) At times, Byatt’s novel reads like a mixture of Jackie Collins and Vladimir Nabokov. (...) While her earlier novels seemed sometimes swamped by their literary baggage, something in Possession makes the literary hocus-pocus genuinely fascinating, even inspiring. (...) Brilliantly put together, warm, witty and wise" - Thomas D'Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor
  
  
• "Possession is a sometimes dazzling, sometimes dutiful, always authentic- looking collection of imaginary Victorian cultural bric-a-brac -- poems, letters, journals -- around which she weaves a story of romantic possession, scholarly possession of the past, and scholars possessed by the past." - L.S. Klepp, Entertainment Weekly
  
  
• "Possession is most of all about speech, language, the pleasure of reading, the singularity of reading. (...) One can quibble at some of the lengths to which Ms. Byatt goes. (...) Possession accomplishes its essential purpose. It makes one read and reflect on language and consider what it meant to another age." - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
  
  
• "As Possession progresses, it seems less and less like the usual satire about academia and more like something by Jorge Luis Borges. The most dazzling aspect of Possession is Ms. Byatt's canny invention of letters, poems and diaries from the 19th century. (...) Possession is a tour de force that opens every narrative device of English fiction to inspection without, for a moment, ceasing to delight." - Jay Parini, The New York Times Book Review
  
  
• "With its intricate thematic reflections, Possession is as solid and entertaining a novel as has been seen in years." - Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek
  
  
• "(I)ts manifest intelligence, subtle humor and extraordinary texturing of the past within the present make Possession an original, and unforgettable, contribution. " - Paul Gray, Time

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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Links:

• Vintage publicity page
• Le Livre de Poche publicity page
• Suhrkamp publicity page
• Booker Prize, 1990

• Apocalypse Book
• BOOK reMARKS
• BrothersJudd.com
• Butterbur’s Woodshed
• Cleveland Plain-Dealer
• The Compulsive Reader
• Entertainment Weekly
• Handful of Sand
• Medieval Bookworm
• Meridian
• Mimsy Were the Borogoves
• The New Canon
• The New York Times
• The New York Times Book Review
• The Poet's Forum
• Rambles
• Rebecca Reads
• The Sheila Variations
• S.Krishna's Books
• 10thirty
• The View from the Foothills
• Vishy's Blog
• Women's Books Online
• Dieter Wunderlich (German)

• IMDb page

• The complete review's A.S.Byatt page.
• A.S.Byatt site
• A.S.Byatt at British Council Literature

• Angels and Insects
• Babel Tower
• The Biographer's Tale
• The Children's Book
• The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye
• The Game
• Little Black Book of Stories
• Ragnarok
• The Shadow of the Sun
• Still Life
• A Whistling Woman

• See Index of Contemporary British fiction at the complete review

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About the Author:

       British author Antonia Susan Byatt lived 1936 to 2023. Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize for the bestselling Possession, she was the author of numerous highly acclaimed works of fiction. She was the sister of author Margaret Drabble.

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© 2009-2023 the complete review

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