Interlude - "Possession"

My favourite place to read is outside.

I spent a few hours outdoors yesterday, reading (and going back and re-reading certain bits of) "Sebastian Knight," trying to pinpoint what I wished to discuss. The pre-blog mental state of my ideas currently runs something like this (please bear in mind that I'm only halfway through the novel, and the thoughts are quite unformed): "Something about satirizing biography, and how the truth gets changed and refracted as soon as you write about it, so even when you're trying to nail down the truth, literature takes over." Obviously still in the early stages, and I figured I'd have to reach the end before I could clothe and regiment them. But suddenly ...

A book found me.

I believe in the power of a meticulously organized book list. It's motivating, it's exciting, it's ... beautiful. However, I also believe in the existence of certain books that tumble into your life, for which you insult the aforementioned book list as you grant the new volume the allowance to stride proudly, and a little arrogantly, to the front of the queue.

I have met some of my favourite books in this manner. Sometimes it's an author whose name you hear in passing, which subsequently doesn't leave your head and to whose novels you feel yourself oddly drawn despite having never read them. Sometimes it's a title from the bottom of your book list whose stock suddenly, inexplicably skyrockets and you feel that you can't let another word pass from your eyes and into your body until you find out what lies between those two covers. Or sometimes - and this is my favourite way - the name of the book/author keeps appearing in your life in very coincidental ways. That means it's unquestionably time to read this book, list be damned.

I know. It sounds ridiculous. But it does happen. That's how I was introduced to John Updike. And that is how I found "Possession" by A.S. Byatt.

"Possession." Written in 1991, it tells the story of two young academics who discover a love affair between the two Victorian poets whose work they are researching. On the grounds of the premise, I was hooked right away. Then I read a bit about the novel and discovered that the title refers to, among other things, "... the possessiveness that a biographer feels toward his subject." I read that the novel is intended, in some respects, to parody biography.

Hmm.

I ran out and bought the book (among others) and was struck by the fittingness of the preface, part of which is an excerpt from Robert Brownings 'Mr. Sludge, "The Medium" ' - a poem that mocks biography as a manipulation of truth comparable to literature.

WELL.

That's timing. And I just picked it up because I was drawn to the stunning premise. But Nabokovian coincidence seems to have seeped into my literary endeavours.

I'll be done "Sebastian Knight" long before I work my way through the brick that is "Possession" (having adopted more characteristics of the Victorian novel than just the partial setting.) However, I am convinced that this book that swooped into my life will aid me in articulating my thoughts on my current Nabokov novel.

Ten o'clock. Time to make tea and park myself outside. I'll take both novels with me. I think I'll start the day with "Possession," but I'd like to be in the company of both books just because I think there's a nice mutual understanding between the three of us at the moment. Signing off - expect a post on a completed "Sebastian" (with help from a dented "Possession") by midweek.

Oh, and the best part. What do you think is on the cover of "Possession"?

That's right. Butterflies.