Possession A Romance - Book Review

Possession A Romance
By A.S. (Antonia Susan) Byatt
Originally Published Chatto & Windus 1990
This cover version published Vintage 2001
Movie

This book is my third and final book for the Book to Movie Challenge. I love reading literary detective novels, although I do not particularly like poetry. However this is a search for what really happened between two (fictional) Victorian poets in England in the 1860s. A.S. Byatt made up poems, stories, diary entries and letters from both poets, and other family members and friends. These were woven throughout an excellent story of two present day academics looking for more details of the poets lives.

The two poets are Christabel LaMotte and Randolph Henry Ash. Christabel is actually a lesbian - but in Victorian times, this of course was a horrible sin - so she lived quietly with her companion Blanche Glover. Ash was married to Ellen, but they did not have any children. Ash and Christabel met at a dinner party given by a colleague in 1859, where they found a common area of passion (literature and poetry) to talk about.

Roland Michell is an American scholar of the poet Randolph Henry Ash. He is in England doing a fellowship (similar to an internship) on Ash. One day in the London Library, he is looking through an old Book that used to belong to Randolph Ash. Inside this book, he finds 2 drafts of a letter written by Ash to an unknown lady. The letters begin..."Dear Madam". It's obvious that Ash is not writing to his wife. The letters mention the name of the colleague who gave the party, so Roland does more digging and eventually discovers that there were 3 women at that party. Two of them were known, and one was not. The unknown woman was a Christabel LaMotte. Ash asks a colleague for advice on who to consult regarding LaMotte and is referred to Dr Maud Bailey in Lincoln University.

Roland goes to Lincoln to visit Dr Bailey and discovers that she is Lamotte's great great neice, being descended from Christabel's sister Sophia. Sophia's daughter May Bailey, married a Bailey cousin. Maud takes Roland on a small tour, visiting the home where Christabel lived. and died. There they discover some letters, previously unknown. These letters indicate an ongoing affair with Randolph Ash - something that noone else was aware of.

The letters take Roland and Maud on a trip to Whitby, and from there to France, where eventually they discover a secret, something that will change Maud's entire life.

At the same time as I was reading the novel, I also watched the movie. Beautiful. Not having seen it before, I loved it. I think its stayed pretty true to the novel, except that it cut out a lot of the other academics. In the novel there are other academics chasing Roland and Maud, because they too want to be the first to discover something new about Randolph Ash. Its the old adage - Publish or perish. They featured quite heavily in the book, and not so much in the movie.

My DH really liked the movie. He usually prefers actions and thrillers. He says this was a great story because of the search and the mystery, and he wanted to know the answers just as much as Roland and Maud did.

If I was to write a novel, I would want to write a novel just like this - a Literary Detective novel.

Lost in a Good Book - Review

Lost in a Good book
By Jasper Fforde
Published by Hodder & Stoughton 2002
Website Jasper Fforde

All I can say is that Jasper Fforde is a GENIUS!!! This is the second book in the Thursday Next series (I reviewed the first book - The Eyre Affair - a few weeks ago), and I LOVE it, Simply LOVE it. As the back cover quote says - "Douglas Adams would be proud".



This book (as I said) is the second book in the series. It involves Thursday Next, who (at the end of the first book) had just gotten married to her long time beau Landen Parker-Laine. Within one month Landen has been eradicated (not eliminated). Purely for the purpose of blackmailing Thursday into doing what the government wants. And that is to release Jack Schitt from the pages of Raven (Edgar Allen Poe). This happened at the end of The Eyre Affair.

While Thursday keeps refusing, she tries to find a way to release Landen by herself, and ends up finding a lost & unknown Shakespeare play, saving the world from total annihilation. Along the way Thursday meets Miss Havisham who teachers Thursday how to travel through books, becomes a police officer in the pages of books, deals with Neanderthals, discovers that she is pregnant and tries to tell herself that the baby is indeed Landen's, (because noone else knows anything about Landen since all knowledge of him, except Thursday's memories, have been eradicated) and takes a few trips through time, courtesy of her chronoguard father. Thursday also meets the Red Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat (at least he used to be the Cheshire cat until the county borders were moved).

This series is crazy, but Thursday is a thoroughly likeable character. She's in her thirties, smart, well read, knows how to look after herself, married late and will have one child. Exactly as I have done. I think thats why I like her so much. There are 5 books so far in the series. The 5th and latest was just published this year.

If you are looking for a wild, crazy and hilarious ride, something like Alice in Wonderland or the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, you have to read these books.

Here's the Wikipedia Article.

An interview with Jasper Fforde

Mystery Books Challenge Book Review Number 6

The Eyre Affair
by Jasper Fforde
Hodder Paperback 2001
Website - Thursday Next

I have seen a few mentions of this character called Thursday Next, and wondered what a Literature Detective actually did. Now I know. I spotted 2 books in this series on display at the bookshop and stopped to have a look. They looked good, and were going cheap so I grabbed them, plus a third one, and have just now finished the first book in the series.

This series starts off in England in 1985. Actually its an alternative history where the Crimea war never ended. Russia and England are still fighting over who will own Yalta and the Crimean peninsula.


The Special Operations Network was begun to handle policing duties considered too unusual or hush-hush to leave to the regular forces. There are 30 departments in the Special Operatives Network, starting from SO-1 (the equivalent to the Internal Affairs where the SO themselves are kept under a watchful eye) down to the Mundane SO-30 which handles Neighbourly Disputes.

Anything below SO-20 is restricted - although it is common knowledge that Antiterrorism is SO-9 and ChronoGuard is S0-12. Anything higher than SO-20 is public knowledge and considered not secret. These departments include Art Crime (SO-24) and Literary Detectives (SO-27) AKA LiteraTec, the department that Thursday Next works for.

In this first book, Thursday Next works for LiteraTec in London, but after the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit is stolen, 2 colleagues are killed because of an evil new enemy (named Archeron Hades). Thursday requests a transfer to the town of Swindon.

Upon her arrival in Swindon, Thursday has to deal with her family, her former boyfriend and the same arch enemy who kidnaps Thursdays Aunt & Uncle, steals the orginal manuscript of Jane Eyre and proceeds to rewrite the novel by removing Jane from the book. Every single copy of Jane Eyre immediately becomes nothing but a book with blank pages.

Thursday must go into the novel, find Mr Rochester and help restore the book to its former glory. Well almost it's former glory. In doing so she burns down Thornfield Hall, and helps Jane & Rochester to get married. And thereby creates a new ending. The orginal ending had Jane going off to India with her cousin St John Rivers. Once back in the real world, Thursday is greeted as a hero because everyone loves the new ending.


One of the reviews inside this book calls Fforde "this year's grown up J K Rowling". And yes, this book is sort of like the Harry Potter books, but using Time Travel instead of magic.

And thus we end up with time paradoxi. Where things and events become twisted and not making sense because of something that happened some place or some time else. There was a brief mention of the Second world war, but I'm not sure how exactly that could have happened against a long running war in the Black Sea that has been going on for well over 100 years.

Thursday's father is a ChronoGuard (SO-12). It was his job to keep the timeline straight and correct, but he seems to have changed something important, because he is now banished to another time, and can only drop into see Thursday for very quick 5 minute visits.

There are 4 books in this series, with a 5th book due out this year. I have 3 of the series, and cannot wait to read book number 2. But first I have a few others to read & review.

You need to be able to suspend reality and read this book with an open mind. If you can do that, you will enjoy this book for the ripping yarn that it is.

Thus endeth my Mystery Challenge.