Saturday, 5 September 2015

Possession – Antonia S. Byatt



What do I care about the unfulfilled love life of a fictional 19th century writer? Nothing, I never did.
What do I care about the unfulfilled love life of a 20th century Londoner? Nothing, if it’s written with such corniness (I would have probably answered “very little” but, for the sake of symmetry, I’ll stick with “nothing”).

What do I care about the research of a struggling London academic? Nothing, now that I have finished my Ph.D. and have put aside “real” academia – at least for now.

What do I care about the role of private money in advancing academic scholarship? Nothing, and – personally – I wonder whether public money should be spent for said advancement in the humanities (for much that I’d like to be bold enough to claim that public money shouldn’t fund research in the humanities, however, I probably believe it should – otherwise we’d just become fairly hairless monkeys in a couple of generations)

For all that, the last page of the book is one of absolute beauty – but you do have to overcome 400 lengthy ones before that.


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