Obscure Puzzles

Possession is a tour de force.  There are parallel love stories – one today and one in the 1800s.  In today’s, Roland, a young scholar studying the poet Robert Ash stumbles upon the original drafts of Ash’s letter to poet Isabel LaMotte. Roland seeks advice from a LaMotte scholar, herself young and beautiful (played by Gwenyth Paltrow in the movie). Together they follow the clues of old letters and journals to discover a month-long tryst between the two Victorian poets with far-reaching consequences.

It’s a lovely story and, with lots of skimming, can be read just for that. Or – the reader can ponder the many ways the author presents the idea of “possession.”  What and who exactly is being possessed? Plus, there is the gorgeous language:  “…the sighing song of the West Wind, full of fine rain and glancing sunshine, streaming clouds and driven starlight, netted him around and around.”

On the downside – this is a dense book, slow to start and full of pages-long tedious poetry, purportedly written by Ash and LaMotte. There are mystical fairy tales; there are flowery Victorian letters full of obscure allusions.  Byatt was an intellectual and proud of it. 

The book is beautifully written, has very engaging characters, a plot with a mystery to be solved, a satisfying ending.  The reader can choose just how much of the “richness” Byatt has provided to read.  If you want the poetry and letters, they are there to enjoy; if they get tiresome, just skip them and read on.

Bennie Salazar was a bass player in a teenage rock ‘n roll band that he managed with his buddy Scotty, a talented lap steel guitar player.  Bennie wasn’t a good musician, but he had an ear for music and a sense of what would work. He is discovered and mentored by thrice married producer Lou who loves music and women in their 20’s.  For a time, Bennie’s capable assistant is Sasha, but she steals – often, is fired, and eventually finds herself penniless in Naples.

The story is not chronological; time fluctuates from the 90s to the 70s to the future. Characters are close to one another, they separate, and years later reconnect.  Different chapters have different main characters; a minor character may star in a later chapter – but the time of that chapter is earlier.  I think that Egan may be replicating memory which surfaces in unpredictable ways. She is interested in the passage of time and wants us to compare the ideals of the young with the behavior of the mature (in age). 

The settings are vivid and memorable – the drug-soaked music world, the snobbish white tennis club, the lions in the African bush.  Nevertheless, keeping track of the different scenes and characters is a challenge and I’m not sure that such difficulty is necessary to fulfill her aims.

Through them, we get a glimpse of her childhood, her first jobs teaching in China and Saudi Arabia, her developing love of music, especially opera and Handel, and a late life interest in bee keeping.  What we don’t get is anything remotely personal.  After finishing this memoir, I have no idea if she ever married, had a partner, had an affair, had a child.  She refers to dinner parties and having a best friend but gives no more information than that.  There is a casual mention of being a “crime writer” but nothing about her huge success with Venetian mysteries and the much-loved Brunetti.

Well…this is not an autobiography.  I had to look up the difference and this book is rightly called a memoir – a series of things chosen by the writer to make a point, perhaps in this case, to illustrate the joys of a certain way of living.  It is not meant to be a complete story of her life. Once I realized this, I was much happier with the book.

Too many technical musical terms, too many obscure references, too many Italian phrases without translation, too many mistresses!  This book may appeal to a musician or researcher, but I’m sticking with the old crew at the Venice Questura.

It stars Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and Sara Paretsky.  Each is interviewed so we get a peek at her personal life and hear her speak about her relationship with the sleuth she has created.  The three together were among the innovators.  Their main characters are not helpless females waiting to be rescued by the hard-boiled male police chief or detective.  Rather, they are the detectives, capable, resourceful 20^th century women solving crimes on their own. 

The movie is a thought-provoking discussion about the changes female detectives have brought to the genre. It is dated as Sue Grafton has since died, but both Muller and Paretsky, in their 70s, are still writing and bringing Sharon McCone and V. I. Warshawski into the 21^st century.

I watched this on Kanopy, our free library streaming service. I also found Possession at the library, but it was a DVD.