MixedThe Independent (UK)Any reader seriously interested in Russian literature should approach this book with caution ... It leaves the reader still not knowing why this book demanded to be written ... Many other works of fiction besides Russian novels feature in The Possessed. The free-ranging enthusiasm for literature produces refreshing encounters with texts, but sometimes on familiar theoretical territory. So boundaries between fiction and reality are fluid, and books are about other books? ... Batuman\'s writing is at its most entertaining when recording what readers must presume to be her experiences, and most dull when paraphrasing plots, or re-hashing biographical facts and scholarly opinions ... Batuman has a sharp eye for the absurdities of academics while benefiting, one can\'t help feeling, from their gullibility. She writes funny accounts of various literary conferences, though her humour can seem brashly cruel when directed at the old and infirm.
