AI Could Never... Make Possession relevant again, seventeen years later

Seventeen years ago, I started my undergraduate degree at UEA and immediately stole a book from my boyfriend there. He'd studied it at A-Level and so it was full of his handwritten notes; I read those alongside the book ('historiographical metafiction' indeed) and it all just seemed so terribly romantic. The book was Possession by A.S. Byatt, by then already nineteen years old. It actually predated our respective births by less than year; the book is full of landlines and stamped letters and photocopiers which were rubbish then, and still rubbish now.

Curiously, the only thing I remembered about Possession from my 2009 reading was the end, and the young man's handwritten note that accompanied it: No one knows Randolph met May. I couldn't even remember the significance of that sentence, just that there had been a postscript about, essentially, undocumented history. I read A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book more than a decade later and when it came to populating my new, permanent library in what we affectionately call 'the cabin' (more on that later), I thought I'd get a copy of Possession to keep it company on the shelf, because all I remembered about it was that I enjoyed it. That seemed a good enough reason to get it. 

Seventeen years passed between reading Possession and seeing it on the shelf two weeks ago. In an effort to rest my tired brain from the archival research and academic pursuits of my PhD, I decided to treat myself to a novel for a change, and chose Possession.  It turned out to be a novel about archival research and academic pursuits - go figure. But it was a completely different story now. I doubted myself if I had ever even read it in 2009 at all, it felt so new, and yet, because of my new situation, so completely familiar.

I didn't realise it then but that university relationship wasn't the Roland and Maud I hoped it would be, or even the (thank goodness, honestly) Randolph and Christabel - we were the square-peg-round-hole Roland and Val. What was endearing in the extreme was the way I could now relate to the academic bickering and withholding, the toddler with a toy screaming "IT'S MINE!" that basically makes up 90% of modern academia. Cackling with acknowledging familiarity as many grown adults try to circumvent each other in search of a truth that they, in their tiny niche sphere of research about one specific , could change everything, I saw my recent self in it. My supervisor has lectured me more than once about protecting the integrity of my research, and when I think about the weight I've put behind my discoveries about Grace Chappelow versus the actual interest in the publishing field I've had about her thus far, not to mention the way my husband desperately fights the glazing over of his own eyes when I talk about it, it's suddenly so obvious how ridiculous we all are about our little slice of interest. But we are all changing everything, one little slice at a time.  

However, Roland applying by post to three university professorships abroad and getting three positive responses, all of which are held for him whilst he jollies around the UK on someone else's money (academia paid a pittance then, and suffice to say rates haven't improved) is the sort of business that makes one think this book should be re-categorised as a work of fantasy. 

The Goodreads reviews (one should NEVER, I know) are so frustrating for Possession because one common complaint is the reams of 'other writing' that so many readers claim to have skipped. I'd go to war with them over it if not for the fact that I definitely did that when I read it in 2009. So it's no wonder, really, that it felt like a new book in 2026, because I'd missed half of it. But imagine reading or seeing Hamlet and missing out the scene(s) with the play because it doesn't seem on the face of it like it matters. To know that one woman wrote this absolutely glorious narrative, but also wrote poetry in the style of two different Victorian poets that she created from her human mind, extracts of imaginary academic essays relating to these two imaginary poets, diary entries, letters, all of which explain or foreground or foreshadow the rest of the plot. It's a celebration of authorship, and if it seems ostentatious, frankly I think A.S. Byatt is entitled to it.

Until you've had to journal because you're a grandma millenial, write an email to your child's school, then write 1,000 words of a PhD-level thesis and then 500 words about breastfeeding problems for Metro Online in a single morning, the mind-bending effort required to change your metaphorical hat (or your pen, if you will) is a mystery. And to do literally any of those things, one must first experience a bit of life as a legitimate human being. A.S. Byatt is most certainly a human being, a carbon-based life form, of great legitimacy. Therefore, it has taken seventeen years for Possession to turn into not just a gorgeous novel that I devoured in a few days for the good of my soul, but a yardstick against which all my future work will be measured in my own head. In ten years' time, post-PhD with a teenager (whelp) and maybe another book or two, it'll be a totally different book all over again. I can't wait to see what I missed this time.

AI absolutely could never.  

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