Possession A Romance Author:A.S. Byatt "This intelligent, literary, and ambitious thriller will take its place alongside 'The Name of the Rose' and 'Waterland' as Umberto Eco's scholarly monk and Graham Swift's history teacher are joined by another unconventional type of 'natural detective,' the literary critic...[Byatt] combines the drive of the thriller with the measured exploratio... more »n of human nature more normally associated with the nineteenth century novel, and throughout she threads the poetry and passion of 'romance.'" (review from The Times, London)
"In this book, [Byatt's] clever, discursive talent at last finds its form. Bursting loose from the more or less naturalistic mode of its predecessors into what an epigraph from Hawthorne calls the 'latitude' of the romance, this cerebral extravaganza of a story zigzags with unembarrassed zest across an imaginative terrain bristling with symbolism and symmetries, shimmering with myth and legend, and haunted everywhere by presences of the past....'Possession' is eloquent about the intense pleasures of redading. And, with sumptuous artistry, it provides a feast of them." (review, The Sunday Times, London)« less
I did not expect to get so drawn into this story of two poets whose connection is discovered by the scholars studying their works many years later. Part mystery story, part romance...very nice listening.