AS Byatt and *those* poems

Dolly keeps a Secret
Safer than a Friend
Dolly’s Silent Sympathy
Lasts without end.

Friends may betray us
Love may Decay
Dolly’s Discretion
Outlasts our Day.

Could Dolly tell of us?
Her wax lips are sealed.
Much has she meditated
Much – ah – concealed.

Dolly ever sleepless
Watches above
The shreds and relics
Of our lost Love
Which her small fingers
Never may move.

Dolly is harmless.
We who did harm
Shall become chill as she
Who now are warm
She mocks Eternity
With her sly charm.

– A. S. Byatt / Christabel LaMotte from Possession

In December 2014 I went to see Booker Prize-winning novelist A. S. Byatt ‘in conversation’ with Matthew Beaumont and John Mullen at University College London. Her best-known novel Possession was much discussed. Especially the poetry interspersed with the prose. By the sound of it, nobody involved in getting the book to market thought the poetry was very commercial. If I recall correctly, Byatt said that the support of fellow novelist and fellow former UCL lecturer Alan Hollinghurst was critical, in that it convinced her she should insist that the poems be retained. I have my doubts as to whether *any* editor could have convinced Byatt to leave the poems out, but that’s another post.

I’ve read Possession more than once and in my opinion it would have been an act of vandalism to tear any of the poetry out of the book – on the other hand, ‘Swammerdam’, ‘Mummy Possest’, and that one about the golden apples are definitely rather tiresome…

Anyway, the inclusion of the poem above was surely uncontroversial. It’s clever and pointed and fits perfectly with the plot, and with the character in the book who is supposed to have authored it. If you want to know why, you’re just going to have to read Possession.

Bonus info: I asked Byatt what she thought about the abysmal film adaptation of Possession. She half-dodged the question, mentioned a film adaptation of one of her works that she did actually like (by way of implicit comparison), and said that the Possession movie had paid for her swimming pool. So there you go.