lizpatanders

I like to keep my reading regime pretty diverse--a little bit of everything mixed in there. Years ago in Barnes and Noble, my mother handed me a copy of Possession, saying it sounded like something I might enjoy. Since then it kept getting shoved to the bottom of my TBR pile, and I kept hearing from others how amazing it was. While I didn’t love Possession the way I hoped to, I think it’s the perfect book to read with a cup of tea on a rainy afternoon.Possession is the story of two scholars who are pulled together because of a connection between the poets that each of them studies. If you find the world of academia tedious and frustrating, don’t read this book. Part of the reason I’ve chosen not to pursue a PhD is because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life dealing with the bureaucracy of academics, and I could have skipped those aspects of this novel. However, professors jostling and backstabbing to see who had the most power didn’t take up too much of this novel, so it didn’t spoil it entirely for me.The romance between Roland and Maud was quiet and awkward. Roland is a bumbling professor type, not one to pull out suave comebacks and look neatly combed every day. I also found the love story between the two poets very engrossing, because their banter was so witty. Not only did Byatt’s beautiful writing shine through particularly in these love stories, I think she ended not only both of them but her novel as a whole on just the right notes.Byatt’s novel had a few technical issues, such as too few dialogue tags, that made it a slightly slower read. At the end of the day, however, it proved to be worth it. Possession is both imaginative and beautiful, and the perfect story for any reader looking to be swept away in a lyrical romance.