The early 50's in Britain described here were the age of post-war austerity, but were also heralded as the beginning of a "new Elizabethan age". Byatt beautifully re-creates the half-hopeful, half-cynical atmosphere of those times. She gives us her characteristic juxtaposition of things cerebral and things visceral, obsession with Spencer, Racine, Ovid and sex.

Her heroine of this and two subsequent novels, Frederica Potter, is portrayed, I think, to be somewhat like Jane Austen's Emma - a character no one will like very much. But as a creature possessing all the human passions in abundance, she's wonderfully attractive. I just love her. She must appeal to anyone who has ever suffered for possessing an excess of intelligence.

The book also provides further exposure to the geography of Byatt, with explorations of the parts of Northern England which she subsequently introduced into Possession. The places, the characters, the culture depicted all give more clues about the contents of the fascinating mind of the author.

Like all her other books, it forcefully argues the point that everything that it is to be human, intrinsic to our species, is contained in the edifice of our culture, and that our culture is entirely built of language. Her work challenges the reader, in every line, to examine and re-examine the richly heaped-up layers of meaning in the simplest of English words, and to recall with awe how Ovid and Chaucer and Spencer and Shakespear and Austen are alive and well and living in our brains every time we frame a sentence.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

on its way to jillbe in Dorset , who requested it as a trade

hope you will enjoy it

Safely received today, thanks very much. Looks a good one, going to wild release somewhere appropriate etc.

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