lightreads

Thank you for articulating exactly how I felt about Possession, as I've never been able to do. I'd heard so many things about it, and I so wanted to like it because it seemed like exactly my sort of thing, and it is incredibly clever, but - yeah. I think if I reread it now that I, too, am immersed in English Lit. academia, I would be even more impressed by the clever bits (I didn't recall the passage you quoted above, but it's very good), but it still wouldn't click with me. The lack of laughter, yes - one only has to compare it with Dorothy Sayers: the only sin that passion can commit is to be joyless, and this sort of is.