This is a real page-turner, which is almost the last thing I expected. I've no ear for poetry so I thought it might be a slog, but Byatt has crafted an intriguing mystery around research being conducted into two 19th century poets, with a layer of romance over top. Perhaps it's the echoes of my own genealogical forays that made it interesting to me, or maybe it's Byatt's incredible evocation of two entirely fictional poets (Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte), brought so vividly to life that I was at first certain they must actually have lived. I've as little ability to critique poetry as I do appreciation for it, but their fabricated work certainly sounds convincingly like what I'd expect from poets of that era.

What my compulsion could not have been due to is any kind of stakes, which I felt were practically non-existent. True, the main characters have minor personal issues to work out but it does seem as if they could carry on as-is without great harm. It also seems as though their discoveries will be preserved and shared for posterity no matter whose hands they fall into, so there's no threat there. I was forced to face the fact that I was being drawn in by the same snoopy eagerness as the modern characters have to see what they'd tripped across and what it might contain, nosing into others' private secrets. Byatt addresses this directly, challenging the reader to wonder why this is so compelling and what it says about people. From this, the stakes do emerge - and they were there all along, Byatt was only waiting for me to see it.

In retrospect, I can see that it is brilliantly constructed. It is also a romance without any of the tropes that annoy me in that genre; a romance for the non-romantically-inclined. With every page I loved it more and more, and became more and more sorry about A.S. Byatt's death last autumn. She's left us an enormous treasure. ( )

This was a difficult read but I'm glad I made it through. I would characterize it as a literary romantic mystery. Two literature scholars work together to determine if two Victorian poets had an otherwise unknown romance, using letters, journals and poems to discover the truth. Some of what made it difficult for me included the poems (many quite long, covering multiple pages), which included some clues (and to be completely honest I did not completely read every poem...) and also the fact that while the scholars lived in the 80's, the way they talked made me think they were also from the Victorian era.

The mystery was worth it though, and the author managed to include some suspense by arranging a bit of UK/US competition over the rights to the discovery. ( )

Just couldn't make it through this one. Felt a bit like mental masturbation to start with. I just couldn't get a feel for the characters and the plot seemed to be stagnating. I made it more than half way through, so it isn't like I didn't give it a chance. I have too many other books to read to waste my time with this one. ( )

I loved this book when I read it, but it did not hold up to a reread (for me at least).

Byatt's evocation of nineteenth-century literature is genius, and the epistolary passages at the heart of the book were very enjoyable to reread. However, the mystery / satire / melodrama, while fun and engaging the first time through, wasn't meaty enough to capture my attention this time around.

As a novel of ideas, it may have more going on than I give it credit for; I wasn't in the mood to think deeply about literary criticism and cultural paradigms. Instead I wanted complex characters and that's really not what this book is trying to do. ( )

Yes, I must confess my initial dismissal of this novel (10 years ago) has evolved quite a lot, from 2 stars to a solid 4 stars. Marvellous stuff that is far warmer than perhaps I gave it credit for in my nebbishly intellectual youth. ( )