It swaps the private dicks for two literary academics – Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell – who use their skills in textual analysis to follow a series of arcane clues in order to unravel a mystery surrounding two Victorian poets (Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte). Indeed, the entire book is a clever joke a sophisticated riff on the manners and tropes of detective novels. Anyone and everything that falls under Byatt's gaze is a source of fun. It lampoons a certain type of overwhelming, over-articulate American. It laughs at English eccentricities, foibles and inability to talk about emotion. It sends up academics of all stamps (dusty, thrusting, shy, ambitious, greedy, gender-obsessed, sex-obsessed, celibate). Among (many) other things, Possession is a wonderful comedy of manners. The first thing that surprised me about an author I had previously pigeon-holed a dry old stick was how witty she is – and how playful. I part company with Evers, however, from that point on – perhaps because we chose different books with which to reacquaint ourselves with the writer.
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