During my last knitting group get together, we were chatting about
books. It’s a common topic since most knitters I know are also
readers. Mysteries seem to be the most popular genre with Miss
Marple, Brother Cadfael and the Judge Dee books the most popular. Why
this is so, I have no clue, though we have had chats about the precise
techniques for knitting while reading. Perhaps it’s some primal need
to multitask that I never inherited. I do know I have never gotten the
hang of it, the book keeps flopping closed or I drop a stitch or I
forget to knit and just read or whatever. So I must divide my time.

Anyway, Byatt as an author came up and I mentioned that I had tried 3
times to read Possession without success and had given it up as too
obtuse or modern for my sensibilities. Another member of the group
suggested I give it another go, staying with it for the 1st hundred
pages or so before tossing it into the trade in box for the used
bookstore. And of course, she was right. The story kicked in somewhere
around page 70 or so and I was hooked for a week.

I mean, really hooked. I read it at work on breaks, while cooking,
before bed, waiting for my dinosaur computer to boot, etc., etc. I even
delayed knitting on a sweater I’ve been dying to work on to finish
it. I got a little anxious when I realized that I only had about 20
more pages and the book would be over. Sort of anticipatory separation
anxiety. This happens rarely.

The plot is more complex than this but essentially it’s a mystery. A
young, unemployed researcher of an obscure British poet runs across a
draft of a letter by the poet to a woman. There is no known
documentation that the two had ever met except for a brief reference
to the woman at a dinner party he attended. She, however, had written
an epic romance that the feminist camp had rediscovered recently so he
takes himself over to the leading scholar of the woman’s work to see
what he can find out. She, of course, is brainy, beautiful and
interested…in the relationship between the two poets. From there, it
is the bit by bit unraveling of the poets’ story thru letters,
journals and literary detective work and the building of the
relationship between the two modern researchers. It was
entrancing. Byatt writes with a command of the language that is
breathtaking. Some of her descriptions I read two and three times just
to enjoy them again. Her use of color was so interesting I was noting
them on post it notes to see if I could find the pattern. There is
one, but I will leave it up to you to discover. A rare, fine
read. And she has other books she’s written to be discovered and read.