85
historical characters.
Possession celebrates the capacity of fiction to offer hard truth,
expressing Byatt’s commitment to reclaiming meta-narratives.
With touches of irony,
Possession satirises the dullness of its postmodern characters’
lives, particularly compared to their Victorian counterparts - the dead who are far
more alive than the living. The scholars are invigorated by the study of the past. As
they learn more, they become possessed by a desire for knowledge that is fundamental
and so strong that it undercuts their postmodern mindsets. They suspend their
scepticism as they reach for knowledge and history.
Juxtaposing the campus novel genre
and the genres of medieval, modern and
nineteenth century romance,
Possession explores the possibilities
of these fictional
styles. The novel is at times self-consciously tedious, pointing to the dullness of
postmodern fiction that is dominated by theory and theoretical stances. The novel
restores a balance of humanism into a mode of fiction that is becoming increasingly
intellectual.
Possession is not simply about battles of ideas, but rather about the life of
people whose worlds revolve around words, reading, writing and history.
Possession
and
The Biographer’s Tale question the possibility of a ‘readable’ novel in a
postmodern age, asking the professional reader what it is they are looking for in a
work of fiction.
Possession is a meronymic novel that blends contradictions
in styles and types to
offer a coherent, pleasing whole. It provides the readers with closure that eludes them
in real life, using romance that allows more than one happy ending. Justice is meted
out to the characters, where the ‘bad guys’ get their come-uppance, and the ‘good
86
guys’ find the treasure they have been searching for.
Although this is distinctly
unrealistic, it is pleasurable for both reader and character to achieve this kind of
closure. The resolution the postscript provides fulfils the readers’ curiosity to know
what happens. It brings the novel to an ending, offering a fragment of hard truth that
is immensely satisfying and pleasurable for the readers
as well as emotionally
affective.
Possession plays with the idea that “the pleasure of fiction is narrative
discovery” (“Introduction” xiii), inviting the reader to travel on the journey of
discovery and allowing them to know all.
Possession offers the reader balance in an
unbalanced world, celebrating the capacity of a fictional text to offer closure and the
pleasures of happy endings. The novel offers readers and characters an opportunity to
escape into a world outside of themselves.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: