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o-uncle-newt · 7 months ago

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I read Possession by AS Byatt after people told me "if you liked Gaudy Night you'll like this" and WELL.

Warning- spoilers for both books abound below!

So it sounded great- as a lapsed academic (though not in the field of literature by any means) there's a part of me that loves reading about academia because it's full of such obsessive people, and this book seemed to be exactly that and so I was excited.

Then I read it, and on the one hand, my first thought was "all these people are dull as heck, the only sane modern-day one is Val, and at the end of the day the historical stuff is just two people having an affair, who cares." My second thought was "there's just enough stuff here that makes me think that maybe the author knows that all of this is stupid, like the fact that Val is obviously one of the few sane ones here." But the ending made me doubt even that. Essentially, and I say this even as that lapsed academic, the author could not convince me to care about the important things at stake here, and as a result couldn't get me to care about the people who only seemed to care about those things.

I didn't care about Ash and LaMotte- they came across as two people high on their own supply who had a tawdry affair. (And each of them is the less interesting person, as a person, than their official partner!) As a result of not caring about them, I couldn't POSSIBLY care about Roland, Maud, and the rest of their crew, because their only functions were to be possessed by, and weirdly possessive of, these two entirely unworthy individuals, whose in-universe historical and literary significance Byatt couldn't convince me of, and to use that possession as a mirror for their own very lame romance. Beyond that they're utterly uninteresting, and there isn't even meant to BE much beyond that so it's not that surprising.

Anyway, I didn't like this book much, but it still made me think a lot. And there's a way in which a certain kind of person might say "well if it made you think then that's surely a sign of some positive quality" and... maybe? I don't know. I didn't hate all of it, and some parts were interesting, and I do have a whole separate list of things about the book that bug me including a breakdown of some of the book's (perceived by me) themes that I particularly disliked lol. Perhaps I'll post it another time. So I guess you can say it spurred me to thought, but loads of things that I don't like do that, and the only positive thing that that draws from me is that they're not downright dull.

The thing is, after finishing the book I was immediately struck by that "if you like Gaudy Night..." element, because it has a situation that felt weirdly similar (if for totally different reasons)- a young scholar stealing a letter from a library/archive. The circumstances are different- in Gaudy Night, the scholar does it to hide its existence so as not to contradict his thesis, and in Possession, the scholar does it so as to explore the document further, though still secretly- but there are still some interesting parallels vis a vis class. Possession goes into the class thing more than Gaudy Night does, but neither book goes much into it- the scholar is lower-class and someone who has scraped their way to their position, and is encumbered by a female partner of lower social and academic standing, and in the end they are juxtaposed against scholars who come from an elevated class and who have more money and opportunity. In Gaudy Night, Arthur Robinson is judged by the likes of Lord Peter Wimsey and a college full of women who don't have to do anything but think, teach, write, and grade papers; in Possession, Roland has to convince a bunch of academics of standing and resources to take a chance on him (and while this is more about money than class, he's the main one who's like "maybe it's good if Lady Bailey gets her wheelchair"). Byatt elides over this at the end by having him magically become in demand and on his way to achieving his academic goals, but I think in both books, the class element really could have taken on more significance in the text.

(I'd add as well that Byatt pits the upper-class and moneyed Maud, who of course is doing things for "the right reasons," vs the evil American businessman who clearly... doesn't care about Ash enough? Despite how much he clearly and obviously cares about Ash? The book was way more interesting when he seemed like a valid rival to the British team, who only thought that they deserved the letters more because of their obsession, rather than how it turned out at the end where the American dude is an actual cartoon villain. What made him genuinely less worthy besides having money without class, and of course having the bad taste to be American? What makes one scholar's possession more justified? Sayers was never this unsubtle.)

So that made me think more about Possession vs Gaudy Night, and the thing is, there are actual living people in Gaudy Night! Say what you will about the unworldliness of the academics at Shrewsbury, but you get a very keen view of their personalities by the end, even as they are (by necessity given the rules of their world) subsumed by academia, or subsume themselves in it. And the people who do fall in love are REALLY in love, and you understand why...

And somehow a book from 1935 feels far more interrogative of the possession (or lack thereof) found in love and romance, and just about the place of women in academia and relationships overall, than one from the late 80s. In Gaudy Night, Harriet accepts Peter once she has determined that despite their power differential (brought on by class, money, history, and to a degree gender) he will not threaten her personhood, because he has proven himself to her. In Possession, Maud accepts Roland because she has the power (money, class, position, even height) and so Roland actually cannot threaten her- and yet still that final scene is about her being taken by him, basically to prove some kind of a point. In contrast, in Busman's Honeymoon, the euphemistic sex scenes are about Peter trying to please Harriet.

When I say it's to prove a point, I'm paraphrasing Byatt, incidentally- who said: "And in the case of Maud I had made it very inhibiting. She was a woman inhibited both by beauty (which actually isn't very good for very beautiful women because they feel it isn't really them people love) and she was also inhibited by Feminism, because she had all sorts of theories that perhaps she would be a more noble kind of woman if she was a lesbian. And so she was a bit stuck. And Roland was timid because I am naturally good at timid men. It's the kind of men I happen to like. He's a timid thinking man, so of course it took him the whole book." I mean... yikes, but also that explains a lot. Maud can only bring herself to be with a man who is weak/effeminate (?) enough to justify whatever weird psyche Byatt has imagined up for her, but still she needs to get over her inhibitions and under him because... reasons. I don't know.

(Height is also interesting here as a point of contrast- Byatt makes Maud taller than Roland to make a point about how on the one hand she retains the power but on the other hand there is now even more of her that has to surrender. Peter and Harriet are the same medium height and wear the same size gown.)

I think the thing that most stuns me is how regressive Possession feels when it comes to gender politics on relationships than Gaudy Night does. I'd need a whole other post to talk about this, but the theme of Possession seems to me to be "relationships that produce things (whether art or children) are worth more than ones that don't." Roland is better with Maud than with Val because Val is a second rate scholar who drags him down (while supporting him financially) and Ash is better with LaMotte than with Ellen because LaMotte didn't only inspire his writing (Ellen's contributions are described only in the negative "didn't impede"), she gave him the child that Ellen refused to. Incidentally, in both cases it's the man pursuing a relationship that will give HIM something... But, to paraphrase Peter in Busman's Honeymoon, one wouldn't want to regard relationships in that agricultural light. Gaudy Night is about how two people can produce great things without each other but choose to be with each other for their own, and each other's, happiness. They aren't each less apart, and as I noted in a prior post, they don't need to solve cases together or conjoin their work in order for their relationship to be worth something. It is worth it for them to be together because it encourages some kind of inner balance within them and between them, as people. They enjoy collaborating but that is by no means the basis of their love (and, incidentally, I think that a lot of, if not most, detective series romances fail this basic test of "would they have fallen in love if they were accountants who met on a dating app." Peter and Harriet definitely would have- would, say, Albert Campion and Amanda Fitton have? I do NOT think so).

And here's the thing- another reason why Byatt's quote above is so off-putting is that it makes it clear that not only in the text but on a meta level, the purpose of the relationships is to prove a Point. I found Roland and Maud to have zero chemistry, and honestly I was expecting them to get together 3/4 of the way through and split up at the end when it turned out they had nothing in common- it seemed like that kind of book. I was kind of stunned when they only got together at the end in an "it's meant to be" way because nothing about it seemed meant to be. They were stuck together by that one thing and they each apparently needed the relationship for some kind of self-actualization or historical rhyming or other. (Whatever I say about Ash and LaMotte... at least they seemed to like each other!)

Peter and Harriet... they get together because they love each other. Do they change over the course of Gaudy Night, and over the course of the other books they share together? Of course they do. But if it makes sense, I'll put it this way- Harriet doesn't accept Peter's proposal as proof that she got over her hangups, Harriet gets over her hangups so that she can accept Peter's proposal. Her hangups only matter because they were keeping her from this particular kind of happiness- she was a fully actualized person even with them. She is a person who does things for human reasons so that she can build a mutually happy life with the person she loves, not a little plot mannequin being moved around in order to tell the author's desired Message. People can say what they want about Gaudy Night and its flaws, but despite the intricacies of its construction, nobody can call the characters' actions and motivations anything but brutally human.

Whether within their universes or on a meta level, the books have SUCH different things to say about the value and nature of love, the place of and purpose of sex, the place of art and intellectual accomplishment in relationships, all of the above in the context of femininity… and I can't help but feel that each time, Gaudy Night wins the contest. It's possible I'm missing something major about Possession, and maybe sometime I'll post the rest of my notes about the things I disliked and people can tell me what I'm wrong about- but if nothing else it made me appreciate Gaudy Night even more, so for that I'm grateful.

#possession #as byatt #gaudy night #dorothy l sayers #lord peter wimsey #harriet vane #i'm not tagging all the characters from possession bc i don't actually really remember their full names and i'm too lazy to look them up #I also saw recs for possession for “if you like jonathan strange and mr norrell” and “if you like jfsp s9”#for jonathan strange and mr norrell i actually have several Thoughts #and am happy to share if asked #but i'm perplexed by the jfsp comparison #though a reading of ellen ash as asexual vs uncle newt would be...interesting #i guess it's based on romances contrasted through time?#also- i've seen people claim that possession is satire #to which i say #BS!!!!#the way that book is written either literally every word of it is satire and none of it is meant to be taken seriously #or it's serious as gospel #the only bits where some parts felt like they might be meant to be “satirical” in relation to other parts #came across more as caricature than anything else #cough cough lesbian feminist american professor... i mean jeez #which reminds me #any future writing i do about why i disliked possession #will have to include my take on that thing some women writers do where they're really WEIRD about how they write women #(sexually but in a way that they THINK is clinical to the point of objectivity)#while barely even describing what the men look like #and not having the women be physically attracted to them #another contrast point with sayers actually #who is perfectly prepared to have harriet be physically attracted to peter

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quibbs126 · 2 months ago

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Well I haven’t made one of these in a while, but it seems like we’re back to it

*sigh* okay, so basically, here’s what’s going on with my life right now

So I finished up my current semester of college this week. I was on academic probation this semester due to my poor grades the semester before, and to fix this, I needed to: get my GPA up above a 2.0 once more, take a mandatory workshop during the semester, and have at least one meeting with my academic advisor throughout the semester. Once I did all that, or at least finished all the meetings, I would have my hold of my account removed and I could register for my next semester’s classes

But here’s the thing. I did the first two, I’ve gotten pretty good grades this semester, As and Bs in my classes (even if grades aren’t finalized yet, I highly doubt that it’ll change from that from when I saw them before finals). But I never met with my academic advisor throughout the entire semester. So I still have that hold on my account. And the semester’s over, so I don’t know what that means for me going forward

I tried looking for what would happen if I miss those meetings, and right now I’m not sure, but what I do know is “failure to meet the requirements of academic probation can result in suspension or dismissal from the university”. And so now I’m terrified that because I missed those meetings, I won’t be able to return next semester

But specifically what makes it so bad is that I had fully intended to come back next semester, I was not preparing for not being able to go back this semester. And worst of all, I told my parents that I had everything sorted out for next semester when they picked me up a couple days ago, I just had a hold on my registration because I hadn’t met with my advisor yet. Which isn’t untrue, but what I failed to mention to them is that I was supposed to do these meetings during the semester, not after, and that I was required to do them. So if I were to tell them the truth, they’d know I’d have lied to them

I know for a fact that the worst thing I do in their eyes is when I have a problem, but then I hide it from them and lie to them about it, saying everything’s fine when it isn’t, and only revealing the truth at the last second, meaning they have to scramble to try and get everything fixed. This is literally the main problem I had with them the last semester and two, and why my last couple days of summer felt horrible because I hadn’t applied for my loan this last semester yet and I had found out that day when they asked that the place I had been getting loans from was no longer doing them

It was supposed to be different this semester, I was supposed to not fuck it up. And yet I’m doing the same thing I did before, I haven’t learned my lesson at all. And when they find out, they won’t let me go back, I’m sure of it. They didn’t really want me going back to college this semester either, because of all that had happened prior, so this new wrench in everything might just be what makes them fully say I’m not going back

And by the way, not a lot of this is hyperbole, at least not that last paragraph. A number of these things they did say to me. They’ve said verbatim that the problem is that I lie and hide things, and that I do it over and over again. I’m not just making stuff up, I know it’s what they’d say because they have before

I want to go back, I like it there. My best friend goes there, and quite frankly, I feel like I need her in my life more than anyone else. And I may not talk to a lot of people, at least not as much as I should, but I enjoy being around other people and at least getting the chance to talk to them. I like taking walks around campus, I like being able to go to the store and buy whatever I want whenever I want. I like being a person here and not stuck in my room, stuck with the same three people and basically only doing things when I’m told I have to. I just can’t take online school, I go mad now staying 4 months here in the summer

And what makes it even worse is that this whole situation was so avoidable. It really would have been no problem to just schedule appointments with my advisor, it would be so easy. The other things were probably the more difficult things to accomplish in all honesty. But I genuinely forgot about them until Thanksgiving, and I just couldn’t be bothered after that, because the entire semester whenever I did remember it, I thought, “I’ll have time to make that appointment eventually”, up until now when I don’t. It’s all my fault this is happening because I was so lazy I never bothered to do it. There’s no one to blame but myself for all this

I sent an e-mail to the account I think I’m supposed to send it to about my probation, explaining the issue of missing my meetings. They don’t respond on weekends, so I have to wait until Monday to get a response because I sent that email at 11 PM on Friday. So I’ve at least started to work it out

And a part of me recognizes that maybe I’m just overblowing things in my head; again, this was probably the least important thing I needed to do, especially since we were supposed to meet with our advisors to work on improving our grades, and I’ve done that all on my own this semester. So maybe it really won’t be that bad, and everything will work out

But I’m terrified it won’t, that I’ll have thrown everything down the drain for something so small, and that I’ll be found out and have to deal with last summer all over again. It was supposed to be different this break, I could finally rest from everything, and literally my own mistakes have brought it all down

I feel like it’s been eating me alive these past two days, especially at night when my brain thinks more about it. But I can’t tell anyone, since my brother won’t really understand, and I’ve already listed why I can’t tell my parents. And it just makes it worse, because I have to be alone in this lie. There’s no one to tell, to assure me things will be fine, there’s only me. Which is probably why I’m posting it here, at least you people aren’t part of my real life to make me feel worse

I don’t know if I can keep it up for another day or two. My dad hasn’t come and asked me about the situation today, but I feel like he will tomorrow, especially if we go out tomorrow, which I assume will happen since we didn’t today. And by the way, I’m a pretty bad liar and I crack under pressure, so “keeping it up” means literally avoiding my parents whenever possible. I have the trick of staying under my blanket when they come over to my door, because I’ve somehow confused them into believing I was asleep/taking a nap, but I won’t always be listening in and prepared to use it at a moment’s notice, they can creep up on me. Or again, if we go out, it will be something my dad asks about. My parents don’t really like to ask me about normal non school/stress related things unless they think I’m in the clear. Which at this point is less frequent and they already have something to question me on. And I know I’ll just bury myself further and get them more mad if things don’t work out, but I can’t take them being mad at me either and causing them more problems, especially since I’ve already been lying about the situation, just not as much as I would be if I lie tomorrow as well

Why did I have to do this, why do I have to be such a horrible person? Why couldn’t I have just done this before, there would be no problem otherwise

#and to add yet another thing I didn’t get anyone Christmas presents yet either #I mean I got my brother one thing that he asked me for but it was also like $5 and something you could buy any day #and I have an income now and was planning on buying them things #but I didn’t so yet more salt in the wound from me #especially since I can’t drive to go out and get things myself #I know it’s not really related to everything else I mentioned above #but it’s more of me being a horrible lazy person and just causing problems by my inaction #especially when I had time I was just too lazy to do it #why do I have to be so horrible?#real life stuff #school stuff #long post #I guess?#I don’t remember what I used to tag these anymore #it’s funny because a couple weeks ago I was thinking about how I hadn’t made one of these in a long time #and how I haven’t cried myself to sleep this semester unlike the last two semesters and breaks #I haven’t done the latter yet but here I am doing the former #*sigh*

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