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aseSince I finished thirteen books in July, I'm going to post each seperately, in the order read, combining the related or shorter notes. Four and a half pages of the grab-bag is a little much to wade through. I think from now on I'm going to write and post book commentary as I finish books, and perhaps do a post of links back at the end of the month to ease future searches. We'll see.
Today, however, I'm going to spam everyone with something like ten book posts in an hour. I wish I could find the compassion to be apologetic.
Possession (A. S. Byatt):A fairly unhappy postgrad finds two drafts of a letter and stumbles onto the trail of an unknown affair between two Victorian poets. The surreptitous treasure hunt involves a second academic, and the narrative sets up a repetition of history.
"Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other."
A romance, a secret history, the study of english literature after the doctorate. I think![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
melymbrosia also said something about it being about readers, but I cannot for the life of me find where she might have, so take that with a grain of salt. I'm glad I read this, but I don't think I'll ever read it again. The flow of each sentence, the shape of the paragraphs, the construction of the plot is superb. Byatt's use of the usual narrative novel style is interleaved with letters, journal entries, and a few chronologically displaced scenes focused on the Victorian characters' interactions works surprisingly well. The whole novel is laced together with a strong, measured authorial presence. The story reflects the subtitle "A Romance" as described in a preliminary quote (warning: popups!) from Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables: a Novel should be true to life, while a Romance may answer a thematic truth of the author's creation. Byatt plays with the older and contemporary senses of "romance", constructing the parallel between the academics and the poets, but denying the romantic consummation of the academics until nearly the end of the story. Her control over the connections between each theme, sub-story, character and motif is astonishing. (It sounds a little silly, since all words are controlled by the writer, pulled from memory and thought, but I've read uncontrolled writing. Maybe "thoughtful/less" would be a better term.) If I didn't feel a great desire to shake many of the characters during most of the novel I think I would love it for its sophistication and complex consideration of the stuff mentioned above. But the first 300 pages are a terrible slog.
"No use of the word 'ash' may be presumed to be innocent."
How any author can write that with a straight face is beyond me.
Today, however, I'm going to spam everyone with something like ten book posts in an hour. I wish I could find the compassion to be apologetic.
Possession (A. S. Byatt):A fairly unhappy postgrad finds two drafts of a letter and stumbles onto the trail of an unknown affair between two Victorian poets. The surreptitous treasure hunt involves a second academic, and the narrative sets up a repetition of history.
"Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other."
A romance, a secret history, the study of english literature after the doctorate. I think
melymbrosia also said something about it being about readers, but I cannot for the life of me find where she might have, so take that with a grain of salt. I'm glad I read this, but I don't think I'll ever read it again. The flow of each sentence, the shape of the paragraphs, the construction of the plot is superb. Byatt's use of the usual narrative novel style is interleaved with letters, journal entries, and a few chronologically displaced scenes focused on the Victorian characters' interactions works surprisingly well. The whole novel is laced together with a strong, measured authorial presence. The story reflects the subtitle "A Romance" as described in a preliminary quote (warning: popups!) from Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables: a Novel should be true to life, while a Romance may answer a thematic truth of the author's creation. Byatt plays with the older and contemporary senses of "romance", constructing the parallel between the academics and the poets, but denying the romantic consummation of the academics until nearly the end of the story. Her control over the connections between each theme, sub-story, character and motif is astonishing. (It sounds a little silly, since all words are controlled by the writer, pulled from memory and thought, but I've read uncontrolled writing. Maybe "thoughtful/less" would be a better term.) If I didn't feel a great desire to shake many of the characters during most of the novel I think I would love it for its sophistication and complex consideration of the stuff mentioned above. But the first 300 pages are a terrible slog. "No use of the word 'ash' may be presumed to be innocent."
How any author can write that with a straight face is beyond me.
