Possession: A Romance

A.S. Byatt 1990 (April 2013)

  This is a complex book, with many things to comment on. In parts, it is a modern romance about contemporary (post-modern) people who don’t believe in love, but nevertheless grow into a close personal connection, with elements of possession. In others, it is a romantic passion between kindred spirits, drawn together by their feelings but forced apart by social and personal demands of the nineteenth-century middle class. This is particularly interesting when it is expressed in lengthy poems, letters and journals.
  At another level, it examines different kinds of academic and literary possession, with various researchers and their obsessions for understanding, reputation, completeness and personal satisfaction. And at another level, it’s a literary tour de force, looking at the joys of literature, reading and losing yourself in the creation and re-creation of literature. Byatt manages all of these in a convincing way, combining different forms of writing that give a different perspective on and relationship to each character – some creative, some academic, some poetic, some imaginative.
  While slow-moving in parts, there’s so much to enjoy, including even comedic and satiric bits, that its 600 pages don’t become tiresome. By the end, when it turns into a melodramatic chase story, it zips along with a what-next spirit and revelations in the salon. A post-modern work about post-modern theorists, it even manages to poke questions at post-modernism when its central figures (they are hardly heroes) fall in love while rejecting the notion of romantic love.
  I enjoyed this a lot, even though had I read a description of the book I might have thought it would be too literary. So, much respect to Byatt for tackling a forbidding prospect and making it a pleasure.

Budapest Noir

Vilmos Kondor 2008

(translated from the Hungarian, Paul Olchváry, 2012) (February 2013)

An interesting book in a noir-ish style and an exotic setting, but with some contemporary feeling added. The plot concerns a young middle-class Jewish woman, who turns up dead on the street, and an American-Hungarian reporter who tracks down the nasty family and social circumstances around her death. Although not personally involved in her story, he feels compelled to follow it up and to an extent take a kind of vengeance, both for her and his troubles. There is a range strong female characters with agency, though neither the female nor the male characters are particularly attractive, and the male reporter is the centre of the story. It builds slowly to some rather sharp violence, which is probably in keeping with the style and theme of the story, and the setting of pre-Nazi Hungary. The political scene is a backdrop, and well integrated into the storyline, but not central to the plot. Although very gritty, it does give a memorable picture of the life of the middle and lower classes in a middle-European city in the 1930s.

Wolf Hall

Hillary Mantel, 2009 (January 2013)

Like some, I resisted this a bit at first but became drawn in and look forward to reading more of Mantel. The present tense and sometimes ambiguous second person require a little focus from the reader, but the layered, textured prose rewards attentive reading. This is not history, although it is historical. Mantel's interest is not in telling a story about the 1500s, but in illuminating, perhaps commenting on, themes that are very contemporary. Science, finance and religion, the role of the state, the personal in the political, even urban development are current topics, but Mantel shows that they have a long history and context. Looking at Cromwell as one of the first modern men at a time when European society was breaking out of medievalism is a fascinating take on the differences between our society and its roots. His rationalism and political manipulation, though unpopular, are the unquestioned basis of the modern society. Equally interesting to see Thomas More portrayed as a religious fanatic, and compare that to the modern image of him as a principled moralist standing up against tyranny. As we know, they are not so far apart. I liked the details of daily life in London in 1530, which set the scene but don't become laboured. My principal criticism is that it makes Cromwell into a kind of superman who can do everything. Perhaps in his time he was - perhaps that's what stands between modern and medieval.