Byatt changed my life with Possession when I read it in high
school, and I try to make a point of soaking up everything she ever
writes, whether it's fiction or critical theory. This novel follows
a man who has a sudden ideological break with postmodernist literary
theory and decides to embrace biography instead. Byatt weaves
together his story with those of Carl Linnaeus, Henrik Ibsen, and
Francis Galton, creating an almost intimidating book of loose and
uncertain connections. I found it very difficult to put down. And
then there was this passage: "Death, judgment, heaven and hell, I
said. The Four Last Things. Something was tugging at my mind. A
new idea, said Erik. A tour of the Four Last Things. Like a
pilgrimage. Tourism had taken over from pilgrimages, said Christophe,
that was a cliche. Travel was what was left of religion. Art
galleries were the new temples, it was true, said Erik. Once people
travelled to see the artefacts in the galleries. Now the galleries
themselves—Stuttgart, Nimes, Houston, St. Ives—were the
ends of journeys, spiritual centres of contemplation, as the great
cathedrals had been, and before them the caves of the oracles. Great
nineteenth-century monumental buildings of the industrial revolution
(the Bankside power house, the Gare d'Orsay, the Hamburgerhof in
Berlin) now housed collections of art, canvas and sculpture, wax and
glass boxes."
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Heidi J. De Vries
