Possession cover art

Possession

A Romance

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About this listen

Winner of the Booker Prize 1990

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets.

Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time.

Cover illustration © Aitch.

©1991 A. S. Byatt (P)2019 Audible, Ltd Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Fiction Heartfelt
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Halfway through and completely in love. I don't want this to end!

Possession is the book in which AS Byatt's writing met its match in her choice of subject, inviting a reader to consider the delicious wordplay in the concept of 'literary novel'. It's the playful, thoughtful and wholly delightful work of a writer at the height of her powers. The language in particular invites you to revel in its fluency across a breathtaking range and depth of style and subject matter; entirely appropriate to the story of the romance between two Victorian writers transformed into a detective story by two latter-day literary scholars.

As for Samuel West's performance, if I could give it more than 5 stars, I would. This is pitch-perfect delivery in every possible way: not only the obvious basics of consistent characterisation, attention paid to inflection, etc, but there's a level of nuance in his performance that brings every last glory of Byatt's prose utterly, ravishingly, alive. The first time it's ever crossed my mind to think of audiobooks as their own separate art form... I loved Possession as a book, but if possible I love it even more as Samuel West's performance of it. I'll definitely be looking for more books performed by him.

Great book made greater by superb performance

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A pitch perfect narration of a fine love letter to literature . It’s almost a guilty pleasure to listen to it

A high romance

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This is an absolute tour de force of English Literature, perfectly narrated by Samuel West. A S Byatt has created from scratch two Victorian poets, one male, one female, and weaves her tale around their story. The primary action centres around a group of modern academics—some with questionable ethical standards—and their attempts to uncover the mysteries associated with the poets after a previously unknown link between them is discovered.

The novel contains many pages of the poetry of 'Randolph Henry Ash' and 'Christabel LaMotte', the poets in question, and positively drips with literary and classical allusions—some of which I was able to understand. It does have a plot, both in the present and in the Victorian times of the poets, and there is a definite feeling of wanting to know what happens next. All is revealed eventually, but very slowly. This is not a book for the impatient.

On the way there is a very great deal of poetry to listen to. In as much as I can judge, I thought a lot of it (the poetry) was very good, and a considerable achievement on the part of the author. I will admit to a few occasions when I said “Enough already!”, but only a few. There were also two magical retellings of Brothers Grimm type fairy stories, quite beautifully rendered.

This is a long book and I have noted elsewhere my difficulties with many novels. But its length and depth are entirely justified by the beauty and elegance of the language, and the magnificence of Byatt’s creative achievement.

A Tour de Force

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Samuel West read this book with much feeling, and made the poetry come alive. I enjoyed this book a lot!

Beautiful poetry

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This, I feel, is one of the best English novels of the 20th C. It's both incredibly clever and deeply moving.

I've read it a few times but this is the first time I've listen to it. I bought the audio version recently simply because it's read by Samuel West, who is such a fine actor.

It's a brilliant pairing. One of those writer/reader combos that add a completely new dimension to the book. I've been a member of A'ble since 2004 and this is one of my top three.

If you think you know the book (and don't go by that really bad movie which cut out all the meat of the story) then have a listen to this. But maybe don't listen to the end on public transport unless you really aren't ever a crier!

Absolutely perfect

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