We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
(7) Snow Level
As a not-so-slim hybrid of multiple genres and forms, Possession is going to force your brain to fire on all cylinders.
The novelincludes elements of detective fiction and mystery stories, medieval romance (a kind of quest narrative), contemporary love stories, cultural satire, epistolary fiction (stories told through letters, telegrams, or emails), folk tales, fairy tales, and various forms of poetry written in popular nineteenth-century styles.
To top it all off, it ties together characters and events from Victorian England and England in the 1980s, and it draws connections between them and archetypes from lots of other tales, myths, and legends.
Sound like a lot?
Well, sure, it is, but the beauty of Possession is that Byatt fuses all of these elements, characters, events, and connections seamlessly, welding them together with the hot blowtorch of her brain. She's basically the Tony Stark of novel writing, but don't tell her we said so.