Obsessed (novel)

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Obsessed is a 1990 novel by AS Byatt ; in Germany it was published in 1993 by Insel Verlag . The original English title of the work, which at the same time depicts a love story and a crime story, is Possession. A romance .

Content and appreciation

The picture "The Beguiling of Merlin" by Edward Burne-Jones , which takes up the motif of the legendary figure Nimue , similar to the Melusine , was used for the book cover of the American first edition.

In Great Britain in the 1980s, the two literary scholars Roland Michell and Maude Bailey researched writers from the Victorian era : while Roland tries to find out more about the life of the famous writer Randolph Henry Ash, Maude deals independently with the little-known Christabel LaMotte . In her research it becomes increasingly clear that LaMotte and Ash must have known each other. During the research, which develops into an exciting crime story, a love affair begins between Roland and Maude.

On a second narrative level, the novel tells the story of Ash and LaMotte and their relationship to one another. This narrative level is mainly represented by the reproduction of (fictional) correspondence and diary entries , not only by the two authors. In addition, literary works (also fictional) by the two main characters of the nineteenth-century storyline are inserted, which are related to the storyline. The dominant themes here are, on the one hand, the importance of art and (literary) science, whereby the latter in particular is questioned, and on the other hand, the obsession that gives it the title . Above all, the obsession with the past, as experienced by the two scientists, plays a major role. A basic motif of the storyline around Christabel LaMotte and RH Ash is the legend of Melusine . In addition, questions of feminism are always present: the independent Christabel LaMotte had to struggle in 19th-century Europe just as Maude had to assert himself in the male-dominated scientific community in the 20th century.

Through the use of the diary and letter form, the interweaving of complete poetic works as well as (popular) scientific treatises, which also come from two very different centuries, the structure of the novel is very complex, but at the same time of postmodern character.

Even if Byatt gives her novel the appearance of historical verifiability by including many apparently authentic documents, the characters are fictional . The poet figures, however, have concrete historical models: Ash can be compared with Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) and Robert Browning (1812-1889). Christabel LaMotte is similar to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) and Christina Rossetti (1830–1894).

Possession is an exemplary success story as far as marketing is concerned: after the novel won the Booker Prize in October 1990 , sales figures soared. Although Possession can be described as an “English” book through and through, it also caught on very well in the United States of America. The combination of detective story , romance novel and intellectual claim made it interesting for many target groups.

filming

In 2002, playwright Neil LaBute filmed the novel As Possessed . Gwyneth Paltrow as Maude and Aaron Eckhart as Roland starred in the lead roles . Ash was portrayed by Jeremy Northam , Christabel by Jennifer Ehle . The relationship between the writers and their researchers is shown in parallel. The film adaptation differs significantly in its plot from the novel.

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