Possess

«Possess» — one of the best English novels of the late 20th century and, undoubtedly, the best work of Antonia Byatt. However, the word «novel» can be applied to this remarkable prose very conditionally. So what do we have in front of us? A detective novel of ideas? A women's gothic novel in modern execution? A chivalric novel in a new style? All together — and something more, a deeply modern piece that has absorbed many traditions while being marked by the seal of true inspiration and innovation. In it, the mystery of the English spirit and English greatness shimmers in various facets.

But first of all, this book is about living people (although some of them have long since died), whose images haunt the reader; about love, rebellious and fierce passion that conquers time and death; about the aspirations of spirit and flesh, earthly and sublime, overt and hidden; and about the divine Plan, which is glimpsed in the tragic and comic patterns of human fate... Through the mirror labyrinth of the plot, the characters of this whimsical narrative make their way into a mysterious past: the inhabitants of the age of men — into the age of heroes, and the inhabitants of the age of heroes — into the age of gods. Two elements reign on these pages — the element of mind, brilliance of thought, almost sensual, and the element of subtle eroticism, born from the contact of the coarse matter of life with the tender fabrics of fantasy.

«Possess» occupies a unique place in the history of modern literature and, with its profound national uniqueness, belongs to the whole world. Now, a quarter of a century after the release of Byatt's masterpiece, it seems that the Booker Prize awarded in 1990 is barely enough. As perhaps is the Order of the British Empire, presented to the author a little later...