Possession: a Romance, by A. S. Byatt

I first read Possession when it came out in 1990, then again for my book club a few years later.  Now, a quarter of a century later still, I have revisited this favorite book in order to discuss it with a much younger, but much more erudite, friend.  The rewards of rereading it were substantial.  The basic plot is that two contemporary scholars, working independently, discover a possible very personal connection between two famous Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte.  Within the framework of the 1980s story, we learn through the poets’ letters, poems, and fairy tales, as well as others’ diaries and modern-day scholarly research– all written by Byatt and all excellent – how their connection developed, how in influenced their work, and what the startling outcome of their relationship was.  Soon other scholars and interested parties begin to get wind of this possible discovery, which will change everything they believed they knew about these writers.  And a chase is on.  Weaving together mythology, spiritualism, Victorian sensibility, Pre-Raphaelitism, natural history, and modern-day scholarship and feminism, Byatt skillfully keeps all these balls in the air while at the same time creating an engaging love story and convoluted mystery.  You do have to have a certain tolerance for a lot of long poetry and flowery letters – I loved them all.  To get the most out of the novel, don’t skip anything!  Just ravishing!  555 pp.

Educated: A Memoir

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, 334 pages.

Westover tells the fascinating story of her life. She grew up on a mountain in Idaho, the daughter of two survivalist parents, who members of a very fundamentalist group of Mormons. Her father was a man driven to conform to the very narrow path that he believed God wanted him and his family to follow. The government in all its forms had a plan to control everyone, and school was a part of that plan, so Westover and her siblings were homeschooled. Well, not exactly schooled. More like left in a room with some books. Westover tells compelling stories of the hard work they did, helping their father scrap cars, buildings, and machinery, with her father making each job more difficult and more dangerous than it needed to be with his frantic energy and cost-cutting schemes. Cuts, minor amputations, falls, and explosions were all part of her young life. She also talks about her relationships with her siblings, all of them suffering under her father's strict rules. Westover's brother Shawn, bipolar, manipulative, and, to a degree, evil also made her suffer quite a bit. Westover makes some difficult decisions as she grows up, deciding to pursue an education that takes her from BYU to Harvard and to Cambridge. This path, and her confronting some of the realities of her family's actions strains her relationships with her mother and father.
A compelling book. Well-narrated by Julia Whelan.

Pioneers: The First Breach

Pioneers: The First Breach by S. An-sky, translated from the Yiddish by Rose Waldman, 221 pages.
Set in the 1870s during the time of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, this was written in 1903 and published in different forms several times in the early 20th Century, Waldman's translation is the first in English for this novel by the prolific Jewish writer (most famous, perhaps, for his play The Dybbuk). 
Zahman Itzkowitz was an orphan who found a new, though not altogether comfortable, home as a Yeshiva student. Naturally curious and relatively bright, he, along with almost all of his fellow students in the Yeshiva at Vitebsk,  became interested in learning more about the world outside of their community as the Haskalah swept through Jewish communities. Turning away from their religious studies, the boys at the Vitebsk Yeshiva risk being seen as heretics by their community. When Itzkowitz is forced to leave Vitebsk and the Yeshiva he travels to Miloslavka and becomes a tutor to the children of the village, teaching Russian, Yiddish, math, a little geography and anything else that will bring in a few kopecks. As he settles in Milslavka Itzkowitz must decide who he is and what he believes.