College Students! discussion

Earlier today, Jamie, Emily, and I were talking on Twitter about Possession by A.S. Byatt. We decided to do a buddy read of this novel. If people get into this, we can make it a perpetual thing and come to a consensus about the next book once the majority of us finish. This is an informal thing where you can post any thoughts or questions you have about the book. Make sure you use the spoilers formatting if necessary.

We will start Possession on August 3, which is a Friday. I hope this gives everyone enough time to get the book. Read at your own pace and post in here.

I hope you join us.

I just want to add that I'm super excited about this. I read this book about three years ago and absolutely loved it. I liked it so much that I went out and bought quite a few of Byatt's other books, which I also ended up loving. I remember the first 100 pages or so being pretty slow (Byatt is known for her slow beginnings) but the end was absolutely unputdownable. I'm looking forward to rereading it and seeing if it's as great as I remember.

Anyway, long story short, I'm really excited, and I hope some of you join us in reading this book.

Aw man! I so want to participate in this but there is nooo way that I'll be able to until after the wedding on the 17th. It's crunch time for us in these next 3 weeks!

I'm sorry Jamie. I wish you could join us. Maybe you can squeeze in some reading here and there. You'll have to relax somehow during those times, right?

Hi, I'm Claudia. I just joined this group and I want to participate in this buddy read. This will be my second time reading Possession, and I loved it the first time around, so can't wait for July 3 :)

I have had a copy sitting beside my bed for the last couple of months without picking it up. I have never read it so this is a perfect excuse :)

Great! I am glad that you are joining us.

Okay, so this is the thread for posting questions/observations, right?

I read ~100 pages so far, and I just wanted to highlight something in chapter 2. (I don't think this is particularly spoiler-y.) I found Roland's job situation and his feeling that he "had arrived too late for things that were still in the air but vanished" very easy to relate to in the present day. Much more so than when I first read the book 2-3 years ago. This in particular resonated with me and, in a weird way, it reminded me of this post:

"He thought of himself as though he were an application form, for a job, a degree, a life, but when he thought of his mother, the adjective would not be expurgated. She was disappointed."

I haven't had as much time to read as I would have liked (shopping and whatnot). But the other morning while I was reading, I came across a word I didn't know, which led me to find this site: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/jwss/mesher...

One of the links is to some annotations of unfamiliar words. I just wanted to share this resource with everybody in the hopes that it might be helpful to you as well.

Also, several of us have mentioned owning this book for a long time. I'm curious, what made you acquire it in the first place?

Thanks for that link! I was wondering whether something like that existed, but was too lazy to investigate myself :)

As for Possession, I bought it because it was cheap and it had a cute cover (it's this edition: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26...), but mostly because I wanted to own a copy of its "twin" - Middlemarch. (That publisher has a collection, Classic Twins or something like that, where they sell a classic book together with a contemporary book they feel is similar to it thematically. Apparently, Possession and Middlemarch are twins.)

Interesting! I think that's a good idea. For a while, Amanda at deadwhiteguys was doing a classics pairing with a modern book.

My story is kind of silly. I'm always interested in knowing what celebrities are reading. So I fairly frequently check out the Oprah article that is Books that Made a Difference to (insert celebrity). I was reading the Jennifer Garner edition and she mentioned this book. So I bought it. Whatever. I love my copy though. It's used and it perfectly worn (not as perfectly worn as my copy of Out of Africa).

It's the end of August and I am wondering if you guys have been reading this. I have, though slowly - I'm all of 165 pages in.

I have never read Possession but am getting the same feeling from it as from other A. S. Byatt books. I'm not sure if I'm being too harse but I get the feeling with her books that she invests so much into the world she creates and insists on describing it to us blow by blow that it takes away from the narrative and what she is trying to say rather than adding to it. I appreciate what she is attempting to achieve but somehow feel that her insistence on pages of critical analysis of created text is more arrogant than conducive to her overall message.

I am interested in what other people think as she is a widely read novelist and I feel I should like her stuff, but often more feel like I walk away without actually either learning anything or being sufficiently entertained.

Megan, I haven't been reading Possession. I got started on another book (I'm trying to only read one book at a time so I actually finish). However, I have to agree with what you said about Byatt seeming to get so wrapped up in the world she creates. I got a little bogged down by details that I felt were not really all that important. That said, I am not judging her writing based upon reading part of one book, however it may be that this style is just not for me.