A.S. Byatt's Possession: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries)
by Catherine Burgass
List Price:
Our Price: $6.75
You Save: $6.20 (48%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.40 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Catherine BurgassEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-01
ISBN: 0826452485
Number of pages: 96
Publisher: Continuum
Book Reviews of A.S. Byatt's Possession: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries)
Book Review: Finding Ways To Balance Good Desires So They Can Co-exist
Summary: 5 Stars
I give this book 5 stars because it did what I hoped a book like this would do: It gives the reader more ideas, history, and perspectives from which to interpret A.S. Byatt's novel "Possession." This is not a Cliff Notes. It's more like if you invited a person who was way "too" smart and "too" informed to your book club discussion. Of Byatt she says, "She has worked assiduously towards encompassing what are frequently regarded as mutually exclusive states." And this is true in so many ways. Byatt takes on ideas that most people consider contradictory and challenges those assumptions capably.
There is a "signifanct part of the work (Byatt's fiction) which is semi autobiographical." "As the main title suggests, the novel is about possession, and in line with its complex form dramatizes multiple aspects of this theme, exploring the nature of possessive love and the contrary impulse to self-preservation; superficial possession - of things - and supernatural possession by ghosts, literal and metaphorical; the quest for knowledge (intellectual possession)," and "a degree of self-possession (pride)."
Catherine Burgass examines the book's form, plot choices, and language. She gives examples of the literary criticism and reviews the book has received from major media sources and different schools of thought (old and new). The book intrinsically asks how do contemporary focuses and forms interact with the considerations of the past and future? "Part of Roland and Maud's mutual attraction is, paradoxically, a shared desire for solitude."
When A.S. Byatt was asked if she was tempted to write biographies of other people, she replied, "I do not wish to spend most of my life on somebody else's life - not one other person's life. The words came to me long before the plot of the novel, Possession, and it was to do with being taken over - or alternatively, taking somebody over, depending on whether you're a sympathiser or a hunter."
Byatt's characters are beautifully complex. Ash is sensitive to past, modern, and possible future sensibilities. So "at one point in the novel, Ash considers the way to win Christabel: 'He would teach her that she was not his possession' (p.279)" or anyone else's possession for that matter. And in the end "She and Ash remain linked in their lifetimes, poignantly through this child, whom neither of them can publicly own." The "child" in the novel could be representative of many good things they shared, their literal child, their chemistry of ongoing communication, or the things their relationship created in the real world. The novel explores how and why both characters choose to hide or silence parts of their relationship.
Love that creates consistent beauty and quality is rare. Some people think it comes only once. Some believe they can experience it in several ways, at the same or different times. Some find it in art and work as much as they find it in other people. Regardless, it is rare for most people. And the novel and the Reader's Guide explore how seemingly contradictory loves may co-exist by reconsidering perceptions, definitions, and forms.
I wrote a review of the movie before I read Ms. Burgass' Reader's Guide. My review is on Amazon if you'd like additional perspectives. If you like the movie Possession or the novel, and you'd like to consider it further, I highly recommend this book. Ms. Burgass really cared about the intelligence, complexity, and work that went into creating the novel. And her Reader's Guide may open doors to considering the story in new and valuable ways.
Summary of A.S. Byatt's Possession: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries)
This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years ? from ?The Remains of the Day? to ?White Teeth?. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.History & Criticism Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in History & Criticism Books
An Introduction to Literatureby Sylvan Barnet, William E. Burto, William E Cain
Longman; Published: 2007-11-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
Arielby José Enrique Rodó
University of Texas Press; Published: 1988; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.50
Price in other shops:
The Priapus Poems: EROTIC EPIGRAMS FROM ANCIENT ROMEby Richard W. Hooper
University of Illinois Press; Published: 1999-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Theodor Fontane: Literature and History in the Bismarck Reichby Gordon A. Craig
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-11-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $95.08
Price in other shops:
The Annotated Anne of Green Gablesby L. M. Montgomery
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1997-08-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $26.45
Price in other shops:
Christmas in America: A Historyby Penne L. Restad
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1995-12-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.77
Antigone (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)by Sophocles
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1990-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)by Aristophane
Addison Wesley; Published: 2008-09-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.48
Price in other shops:
Death of a Salesman (Viking Critical Library)by Arthur Miller
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1996-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Brush Up Your Shakespeare!by Michael Macrone, Tom Lulevitch
Harpercollins; Published: 1994-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.50
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Bloody Chamber: And Other Storiesby Angela Carter
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1990-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.38
Price in other shops:
White Teeth: A Novelby Zadie Smith
Vintage; Published: 2001-06-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.20
Price in other shops:
Ian McEwan's Atonement (Continuum Contemporaries)by Julie Ellam
Continuum; Published: 2009-11-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.27
Price in other shops:
A.S. Byatt: The Essential Guideby Margaret Reynolds, Jonathan Noakes
Random House UK; Published: 2004-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.25
Price in other shops:
A.S. Byatt (Writers and their Work)by Richard Todd
Northcote House Publishers; Published: 1996-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.99
Price in other shops:
Zadie Smith's White Teeth (Continuum Contemporaries)by Claire Squires
Continuum; Published: 2002-06-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
The Virgin in the Gardenby A.S. Byatt
Vintage Books; Published: 1992-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.85
Price in other shops:
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries)by Adam Parkes
Continuum; Published: 2001-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.68
Price in other shops:
PossessionPALTROW,GWYNETH; Release date: 2003-02-11; DVD
Best price: $6.47
Price in other shops:
Possessionby A.S. Byatt
Vintage; Published: 1991-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops: