Ο Πύργος της Βαβέλ

The Frederica Quartet #3

by A.S. Byatt, Λίλη Ιωαννίδου (Translator)

O Πύργος της Bαβέλ είναι ένα μεγαλόπνοο επίτευγμα, μια περιγραφή όλων των ιδιωτικών και δημόσιων παθών της Bρετανίας τη δεκαετία του 1960. Στην καρδιά του υπάρχουν δύο περιπέτειες: η οδυνηρή αγωγή διαζυγίου και η δίωξη ενός "άσεμνου" βιβλίου. H Φρεντερίκα, η ανεξάρτητη νεαρή ηρωίδα των προηγούμενων μυθιστορημάτων της Mπάιατ, έχει αιφνιδιάσει τους φίλους της με το γάμο της μ' ένα νεαρό εφοπλιστή και μέλος της τοπικής αριστοκρατίας. Eνώ εκείνη και ο γιος της ζουν έγκλειστοι στο περιφραγμένο τους αγρόκτημα, ο γαμπρός της, ο Nτάνιελ, ακούει απελπισμένες φωνές από το τηλέφωνο, στην κρύπτη μιας αγγλικής εκκλησίας.
Nιώθουμε την υποβόσκουσα αμηχανία, τα υπόγεια ρεύματα σεξουαλικότητας και βίας. H ένταση ξεσπάει με αφορμή ένα βιβλίο· μια αφήγηση στημένη σε κάποια παρελθούσα επαναστατική εποχή, όπου μια ομάδα ανθρώπων αποσύρεται σ' έναν πύργο για να ιδρύσει την ιδανική κοινότητα. Σ' αυτό το βιβλίο, όπως και στα δικαστήρια, στα σεμινάρια ενηλίκων ή στην επιτροπή για "τη διδασκαλία της γλώσσας", οι άνθρωποι λειτουργούν όλο και πιο ομαδικά. Σε πολλούς έχει γίνει έμμονη ιδέα η προστασία των νέων, αλλά η αντίληψη του συρμού που θέλει τα παιδιά αθώα κι ελεύθερα σιγά σιγά αρχίζει να φαντάζει ευσεβής πόθος και δη επικίνδυνος. Γύρω από τη Φρεντερίκα και τους φίλους της περιδινούν σύννεφα από μισοσχηματισμένες θεωρίες από τη θεολογική αντίληψη για το Θάνατο του Θεού και την ψυχολογία του Λενγκ μέχρι τη γέννηση της γλώσσας των υπολογιστών. Bρισκόμαστε στη δεκαετία όπου λαμβάνουν χώρα γεγονότα όπως η υπόθεση της Λαίδης Tσάτερλι, το σκάνδαλο Προφιούμο και η πρώτη κυβέρνηση Xάρολντ Oυίλσον. Στο όραμα της Mπάιατ η κυρίαρχη μεγαλοφυΐα της δεκαετίας του 1960 μοιάζει να είναι μια διασταύρωση μεταξύ Mαρκήσιου Nτε Σαντ και Xόμπιτ. H σύγχυση που επακολουθεί, χαρτογραφημένη με μεγαλοφυή και ευφάνταστη συμπάθεια, είναι εξίσου κωμική, όσο και απειλητική και παράδοξη.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Novels, Historical

906 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

A.S. Byatt (Antonia Susan Byatt) is internationally known for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize winner Possession, The Biographer’s Tale and the quartet, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman, and her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, Elementals and her most recent book Little Black Book of Stories. A distinguished critic as well as a writer of fiction, A S Byatt was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999.

BYATT, Dame Antonia (Susan), (Dame Antonia Duffy), DBE 1999 (CBE 1990); FRSL 1983; Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), 2003 , writer; born 24 Aug. 1936;

Daughter of His Honour John Frederick Drabble, QC and late Kathleen Marie Bloor

Byatt has famously been engaged in a long-running feud with her novelist sister, Margaret Drabble, over the alleged appropriation of a family tea-set in one of her novels. The pair seldom see each other and each does not read the books of the other.

Married
1st, 1959, Ian Charles Rayner Byatt (Sir I. C. R. Byatt) marriage dissolved. 1969; one daughter (one son deceased)
2nd, 1969, Peter John Duffy; two daughters.

Education
Sheffield High School; The Mount School, York; Newnham College, Cambridge (BA Hons; Hon. Fellow 1999); Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, USA; Somerville College, Oxford.

Academic Honours:
Hon. Fellow, London Inst., 2000; Fellow UCL, 2004
Hon. DLitt: Bradford, 1987; DUniv York, 1991; Durham, 1991; Nottingham, 1992; Liverpool, 1993; Portsmouth, 1994; London, 1995; Sheffield, 2000; Kent 2004; Hon. LittD Cambridge, 1999

Prizes
The PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Of Fiction prize, 1986 for STILL LIFE
The Booker Prize, 1990, for POSSESSION
Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize, 1990 for POSSESSION
The Eurasian section of Best Book in Commonwealth Prize, 1991 for POSSESSION
Premio Malaparte, Capri, 1995;
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, California, 1998 for THE DJINN IN THE NIGHTINGALE''S EYE
Shakespeare Prize, Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, 2002;

Publications:
The Shadow of the Sun, 1964;
Degrees of Freedom, 1965 (reprinted as Degrees of Freedom: the early novels of Iris Murdoch, 1994);
The Game, 1967;
Wordsworth and Coleridge in their Time, 1970 (reprinted as Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge in their Time, 1989);
Iris Murdoch 1976
The Virgin in the Garden, 1978;
GEORGE ELIOT Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings , 1979 (editor);
Still Life, 1985
Sugar and Other Stories, 1987;
George Eliot: selected essays, 1989 (editor)
Possession: a romance, 1990
Robert Browning''s Dramatic Monologues, 1990 (editor);
Passions of the Mind, (essays), 1991;
Angels and Insects (novellas),1992
The Matisse Stories (short stories),1993;
The Djinn in the Nightingale''s Eye: five fairy stories, 1994
Imagining Characters, 1995 (joint editor);
New Writing 4, 1995 (joint editor);
Babel Tower, 1996;
New Writing 6, 1997 (joint editor);
The Oxford Book of English Short Stories, 1998 (editor);
Elementals: Stories of fire and ice (short stories), 1998;
The Biographer''s Tale, 2000;
On Histories and Stories (essays), 2000;
Portraits in Fiction, 2001;
The Bird Hand Book, 2001 (Photographs by Victor Schrager Text By AS Byatt);
A Whistling Woman, 2002
Little

Reviews

[Davide · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Ero così sicura della vita, una volta. Volevo.»

Confesso di essermi messo con un po’ di timore a rileggere – diciassette anni dopo la prima volta – uno dei miei libri preferiti. Ma mi sbagliavo: lo trovo ancora bellissimo.
E forse stavolta capisco meglio quanto il titolo alluda a una delle questioni fondamentali dell’opera di Byatt: il rapporto tra linguaggio e mondo.
E leggendolo per la prima volta nella giusta sequenza temporale mi rendo conto che Byatt è arrivata al terzo romanzo di Frederica Potter, una ventina d'anni dopo il primo, diventando solo ora pienamente “sé stessa”; ossia dopo essere passata anche attraverso Possessione e Angeli e insetti.
Il cambiamento più vistoso è dato dal fatto che prima non era ancora così viva la compresenza di diverse narrazioni, la moltiplicazione degli autori interni, l'incastro tra livelli di testo diversi, tra forme diverse di scrittura che si rispecchiano e si respingono, si riprendono e si approfondiscono a vicenda.
La Torre di Babele è quindi più ambizioso dei due precedenti "romanzi di Frederica": intreccia subito non solo le diverse storie dei personaggi che già conoscevamo ma anche le pagine di un altro libro, pubblicate con un carattere diverso e aperte da una piccola conchiglia a segnare l’inizio del diverso statuto della scrittura. Sono infatti pagine di quel «libro che tanto trambusto avrebbe provocato, ma che all’epoca non era che un mucchio di appunti scarabocchiati, e un pullulare di scene, immaginate e ri-immaginate».
Si tratta di una «riuscita rappresentazione di un mondo in parte fiabesco, in parte distopico», come lo definirà Alexander in uno dei due grandi processi finali (una specie di doppio finale alla Fratelli Karamazov, dove tra i testimoni compare persino Anthony Burgess...); una vicenda ambientata nel periodo del Terrore, in Francia, quando un gruppo di persone raggiunge un luogo isolato dal mondo, la Tour Bruyarde, per costruire un «mondo nuovo almeno per questi pochi eletti» e creare una «nuova vita» come «esperienza di libertà», «vivendo in amicizia vite appassionate e ragionevoli».

Ma questo è solo l'esempio più eclatante: altre scritture interne si susseguono: ad esempio, Frederica inizia a comporre artigianalmente un volume, che intitola Laminazioni, dove esercita il cut-up alla Burroughs sulla pelle viva delle scritture che più pesano sulla sua esistenza, come le lettere degli avvocati relative al proprio divorzio; oppure ci sono parti legate alla commissione parlamentare sull'insegnamento della lingua inglese, che visita scuole, incontra studenti e insegnanti in tutto il paese; e poi una complessa favola raccontata a puntate a un gruppo di bambini (e già si profila Il libro dei bambini)....

Insomma, ancora una volta, leggere queste pagine fa venire voglia di rileggerle, di leggerne altre che qui sono richiamate, di cercare altri libri; addirittura di studiarli e di insegnarli:

«- Ignoravo cosa fosse insegnare. Pensavo che fosse arido. Ma non lo è. Rende le cose più reali… un altro mondo, che è anche questo mondo, rende le cose più reali in questo mondo, chi l’avrebbe detto.» (così dice a un certo punto Frederica a suo padre: l'irrequieta Frederica che nel primo libro voleva voleva voleva... a cominciare dall'allontanarsi dal padre, che ha dedicato la vita all'insegnamento della letteratura).

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am revisiting and expanding this review because I am currently reading The Blind Assassin, which reminded me of this book.

I recommend the Frederica quartet to any serious reader with enough time to read it, and this, the third volume, is probably the best. As always with Byatt, it is brimming with ideas and erudition, but she never loses track of her characters and their development.

Frederica has escaped from her disastrous marriage, and is now working in publishing. As in The Blind Assassin, much of the story takes the form of a book within a book - a fantasy set in a utopian community which becomes the subject of an obscenity trial. There is also quite a lot about education, and how education policy is formed by liberal committees - this subplot is explored in more depth in the final part of the quartet A Whistling Woman, and allows Byatt to create some entertaining caricatures, particularly the pop poet.

The first two parts of the quartet are The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jsnk

Description: Babel Tower follows The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life in tracing Frederica Potter, a lover of books who reflects the author's life and times. It centers around two lawsuits: in one, Frederica -- a young intellectual who has married outside her social set -- is challenging her wealthy and violent husband for custody of their child; in the other, an unkempt but charismatic rebel is charged with having written an obscene book, a novel-within-a-novel about a small band of revolutionaries who attempt to set up an ideal community. And in the background, rebellion gains a major toehold in the London of the Sixties, and society will never be the same.

Frederica has given up her care-free, independent Cambridge lifestyle. Will settling down bring happiness? Stars Indira Varma.

Daniel gets an urgent phone call about his daughter and has to face up to the consequences of his actions. Stars Shaun Dooley.

Frederica's fraught marriage is put under even greater strain when she makes a shocking discovery.

Nigel goes in search of Frederica, who has left, taking Leo with her. But was that the correct decision? Stars Mark Bazeley.

Frederica visits the doctor and makes a major decision. Daniel learns the identity of his mystery caller. Stars Shaun Dooley.

Frederica's estranged husband Nigel demands to see his son Leo and she finds a new love interest.

The day of Frederica's divorce finally arrives and she learns whether she has won custody of her son, Leo.

[Bloodorange · Rating 5 out of 5]

Babel Tower, the third volume in the ‘Frederica Quartet’ series, was, to me, the easiest one to read and the most engaging one - possibly because Frederica is now getting closer to me in age, and I am interested in other women’s bookish motherhoods.

Some notes on this novel:

1. It is set in England, during the Swinging Sixties, at the time of vast social changes. The events defining the book’s moral landscape, and at the same time reinforcing its central theme of judgment, are Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial of 1960, Sexual Offences Act of 1967, and the Pill and Frederica’s divorce/ child custody trial in between.

(A glimpse of what is to be expected: at some point, a single mother explains she is a public servant because women in public service are allowed to have up to two illegitimate children, no questions asked.)

2. Each book in the Quartet has a different art in its centre. This novel’s central art is language; Byatt shows language, reading and crafting narratives as ways of self-expression, world perception, making sense of the world (the novel itself has a fairy-tale structure).

Reading and telling stories are familiar and understandable to Frederica – people she feels most comfortable around, ‘her people’, are people who need narratives; she even starts writing one, non-linear and collage-like, herself. Reading is presented as way of achieving upward mobility, a form of escapism (Frederica’s excessive reading in her husband’s secluded house at the beginning of the novel is a sign of her trying to maintain her identity), something not commended in mothers (at some point, Frederica has a completely unparanoid feeling that reading too much might hurt her chances of securing child custody).

Yet Frederica meets new people – she moves from her husband, Nigel, who has no words, no language, to lovers whose brains are wired in a different way than hers (is that a part of the attraction? I understood, quite early, that I wouldn’t be happy with a man as bookish as myself). Professionally, she starts teaching literature, and meets people – artists, mathematicians - for whom it is a new, and often obscure, form of expression. (They understand the language of clothing, though – in this novel, what one wears is often consciously used to express or conceal one’s image, affiliation, interests - the Ottokars, Jude, doll-like art students, Frederica, Nigel.)

3. Another major theme in the novel is nature vs. nurture; the power of education, the questionable nature of ‘innocence’, what children taught and children left to themselves are capable of, books' power to corrupt readers.

A great volume in a great and highly recommended series.

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

AS Byatt's Babel Tower is the third book in The Frederica Quartet preceded by The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life chronicling the Potter family and Frederica Potter in the 1950s. However, this ambitious undertaking of Babel Tower follows the life of Frederica Potter Reiver during the turbulent 1960s London with all of its attendant societal upheaval. At the heart of this novel are two law cases, one involving a painful divorce and custody proceedings in which Frederica has filed for divorce against her wealthy and powerful husband; the other case one of obscenity charges brought against a publisher of a book as well as the author, flamboyant and unkempt character as questions about the Marquis de Sad. This novel within a novel is named Babbeltower is about a small band of revolutionaries who take over a castle and attempt to set up an ideal community.

"In the days before Babel, before God punished the human race for its presumption in raising its winding structure towards Heaven by dividing its tongues, by setting confusion amongst its speech--in the days before Babel, the occult tradition went, words had been things and things had been words, they had been one, a man and his shadow perhaps are one, or a man's mind and his brain. Afterwards, after the fall of the tower, language and the world had not coincided, and the languages of men had become opaque, secret, enfolded in an incomprehensible and unpiercable skin of idiosyncrasies."

There are a lot of intricate and diverse threads and social concerns in this gripping book during the Sixties decade seeing the explosion of popularity of The Beatles, the death of God, and the beginnings of computer language, feminism, and political scandals. It is in the midst these turbulent times that are mirrored in the personal and legal struggles of Frederica, there is a powerful and lyrically told story unfolding that kept me turning the pages. I am looking forward to reading the final volume of The Frederica Quartet soon.

[Zanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember this long book being gloriously nebulous and complicated, spreading tendrils into the many subjects that interest its curious-minded protagonist. I read it almost constantly over several days while I was doing some extremely elaborate hair extensions on myself, and the hours flew by as I wandered through the layers of Frederica's life. Maybe another read is in order...

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

AS Byatt is a goddess of language. This book was sharp and dangerous in its exploration of human desire, education, language, love, and power. It was a bit of a shock after Still Life, in which the language was warm, full, sonorous - Still Life was complete and still, like Stephanie; Babel Tower is edgy and driven like Frederica. Jude Mason's book was difficult to read, but Byatt makes you believe in its value. If ever there was a book that encompasses everything that is important, I think this would be it. Reading it you become so submerged in its reality that the line between fiction and non- becomes rather faint. Byatt's overwhelming literary, cultural and (sometimes) scientific knowledge blaze through the pages of this book, and her brulliant use of literary allusion not only shows the absolute relevance of literature to life but also form a sort of literary puzzle for readers to interpret (no matter how much of it you think you recognize, you can be sure she's always got one more allusion hidden just past your view...) This is my favorite series of books and of them BT is in some ways the best so far. (Anyone interested in this book: I recommend that you read Virgin in the Garden and Still Life first!)

[Karl Steel · Rating 5 out of 5]

You get:

* Charles Fourier vs. Sade (in the novel, babbletower, within a novel)
* An affectionate send-up of the medievalism and attractions to Apocalyptic Blake in 60s counterculture (and a perhaps less affectionate send up of the countercultural psychology of Laing and Marcuse)
* A wondering exploration of the 60s developments in pedagogy
* a harrowing feminist account of domestic violence
* TWO courtroom dramas (first divorce, and then an obscenity charge, during which Anthony Burgess (!) appears)
* the birth of environmentalism

Merits repeated rereadings.

[Katerina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Есть ли разумное объяснение тому, что квартет про Фредерику не переведен на русский? Как говорить об этом ОШЕЛОМИТЕЛЬНОМ (нет, не преувеличиваю) романе без спойлеров? Откуда она все знает?!

Эти и другие вопросы без ответов, преследующие меня уже который день.

"Вавилонская башня" - текст, в котором эрудиция дружит с эмпатией, а интеллект - с сюжетом, где все продумано до мелочей, где все герои разные, но все правдивые, а внутри этой правды - страшная сказка, которой мог бы позавидовать любой патентованный ужасописатель.

Спасибо Вам, дама Антония, и здоровья Вам крепкого, еще книжки на четыре, как минимум, пожалуйста.

P.S. On a more personal note, эта книга плюс Still Life - гениальный трактат о материнстве.
"Do you love him?"
"More than anything else, including myself, including my books, whether I want it or not. It's just the nature of things. It's a ridiculous question."

[Feather C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite of the four - intense and fun to read.

From the Publisher
At the heart of the novel are two law cases, twin strands of the Establishment's web, that shape the story: a painful divorce and custody suit and the prosecution of an "obscene" book. Frederica, the independent young heroine, is involved in both. She startled her intellectual circle of friends by marrying a young country squire, whose violent streak has now been turned against her. Fleeing to London with their young son, she gets a teaching job in an art school, where she is thrown into the thick of the new decade. Poets and painters are denying the value of the past, fostering dreams of the rebellion, which focus around a strange, charismatic figure - the near-naked, unkempt and smelly Jude Mason, with his flowing gray hair, a hippie before his time. We feel the growing unease, the undertones of sex and cruelty. The tension erupts over his novel "Babbletower," set in a past revolutionary era, where a band of people retire to a castle to found an ideal community. In this book, as in the courtrooms, as in the art school's haphazard classes and on the committee set up to study "the teaching of language," people function increasingly in groups. Many are obsessed with protecting the young, but the fashionable notion of the children as innocent and free slowly comes to seem wishful, and perilous. Babel Tower is the third, following The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life, of a planned quartet of novels set in different mid-century time frames. And so the personal and legal crises of Frederica mirror those of the age. This is the decade of the Beatles, the Death of God, the birth of computer languages. In Byatt's vision the presiding genius of the 1960s seems to be a blend of the Marquis de Sade and The Hobbit. The resulting confusion, charted with a brilliant imaginative sympathy, is as comic as it is threatening and bizarre.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - The Frederica Quartet:

16/30: Frederica has given up her care-free, independent Cambridge lifestyle. Will settling down bring happiness? Stars Indira Varma.

17/30: Daniel gets an urgent phone call about his daughter and has to face up to the consequences of his actions.

18/30: Frederica's fraught marriage is put under even greater strain when she makes a shocking discovery.

19/30: Nigel goes in search of Frederica, who has left, taking Leo with her. But was that the correct decision?

20/30: Frederica visits the doctor and makes a major decision. Daniel learns the identity of his mystery caller.

21/30: Frederica's estranged husband Nigel demands to see his son Leo and she finds a new love interest.

22/30: Frederica discovers that her new lover, John, has an unhinged brother and Paul makes a dramatic statement.

23/30: The day of Frederica's divorce finally arrives and she learns whether she has won custody of her son, Leo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jsnk

[Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Na de 2 vorige delen van het Frederica-kwartet gelezen te hebben, kan AS Byatt bij mij niet veel meer verkeerd doen.
En ik hoef hier zelfs niet coulant te zijn want dit is weer een top-boek met enkele briljante stukken.

Waarom is dit nooit vertaald naar het Nederlands???

[Iryna Chernyshova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Це було як діабетику опинитися з разгону всередині торта.

Фірмова баєттівська барокова надлишковість всією вагою падає на читача, змушуючи періодично спливати на поверхню, жадібно хапаючи повітря без книг, слів і букв.

Три історії (декадентський порнороман в романі, одна казка на ніч), два суда, близнюки, одна улюблена дитина, безліч цитат з класичної англійської літератури, протофемінізм в Лондоні 60-х років, митці, письменники і просто люди. Конструкція роману ну дуже громіздка, власне як та сама башта, тож від заключної книги перепочину рочків пару (якщо не читати попередні дві книги квартету сенсу все це поглинати ніякого нема).

Обкладинка формою равлика влучно дає натяк на Вавілонську башту, хоча є і про равликів в тексті, звичайно.

[Lois Keller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I don't have a very high opinion of this book, but I think a good part of that derives from the fact that I felt like I missed the point to this book. Babel Tower seemed unduly long to me (by about 400 pages), with quotations from other books and trivial conversations filling up the bulk of the book. It also is written, in my opinion, incongruously, the storyline fluctuating rapidly and character's actions unjustified. For example, it irked me that in Frederica's trial that the fact that Nigel assaulted her father and her brother in law was largely disregarded (it was mentioned once) and instead the court focused on the hearsay evidence about Nigel throwing an axe at Frederica. Why wasn't her family in court defending her? Why wasn't the instance when Nigel came to her family's home and called her a bitch mentioned? Nigel is allowed 3 witness who clearly would never side against him, while Frederica has no one (but her family is 'supportive' of her). It makes no sense, and I chalk it up to a flaw in the author to present a fictional reality as she saw fit, rather than a work of fiction based in reality.
The story line itself had potential, Frederica is the epitome of a 'modern' woman in the late 1960s, well educated, career driven, and sexually free, and after filing for divorce with her husband, she demands custody of her child, who it is questionable how much she loves him and would actually provide a good home at times. There are definitely two sides of the coin: Nigel, a violent and unstable wealthy man, could provide Leo (their son) with a stable and loving environment between him and his three stables. However, Nigel is gone for long stretches of time, and as I mentioned before, he is of a violent nature, prone to temper tantrums, and would use Leo as bait to bring Frederica back.
Yet, Frederica, although emotionally stable and affectionate towards Leo, is barely financially stable and has questionable morals (it isn't a stable environment for a child if you are sleeping with different men based on your mood). I wouldn't want Leo to live with either of them, honestly, but if I had to choose, I would probably choose Frederica just on the premise that she lives with Agatha and Saskia, who are a stable and happy mother daughter pair and would provide a positive influence for Leo.
The book also goes into another subplot about a controversial book published at the same time. Honestly, I didn't follow that plot line as well because it seemed to just be 'added' on later in the book to add more excitement.
I honestly wouldn't recommend this book to people who follow my literary tastes. I guess if you like books about human emotions (and not necessarily their veracity) and drama, this might be a good read for you.

[Mag · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a novel of ideas. It was a pleasure to read, and I could go back to the beginning right away, start reading again and still find interesting issues to think about. It reflects and discusses issues which were topical in the 60s, like women's rights, new trends in education, changes in what was designated obscene and sexual revolution. It is also paradise for those who like literary analysis, and discussions in philosophy and ethics. It is dense with ideas on and from Nietzsche, Blake, Fourier, D. H. Lawrence, Kafka, Forster and the Marquis de Sade. Blake is quoted and referred to most extensively, and I find it not accidental. The book itself is an extended Song of Innocence into Song of Experience on many levels.
It's about the "innocence and experience" of Frederica, the main character, who finds out what is important in her life, and of a group of people who isolate themselves to practice sexual and social freedom. The idea of the society of `freedom' is tackled by a book within the book: _Babbletower_- a utopian/dystopian tale in which a group of nobles are trying to build a utopian society based on the premise that everyone should do what brings him pleasure. But, what if somebody finds cruelty bringing him pleasure?

The author of the book within the book is put on trial for obscenity. At the same time the main character of the novel, Frederica, finds herself in divorce and custody proceedings. Both trials borrow extensively from the real trials that took place in England at the time.

[Noits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Babel Tower: an apt name. The idea of striations/laminations/layers that permeates this novel is crucial. It's intertextuality is breathtaking. Each successive passage raises as many thoughts and questions in the reader, as it attempts to answer. Rich, intoxicating and unpretentiously "literary", this #3 in the Frederica Potter Quartet is the best yet. The polyphonic narrators at times compete for the reader's attention, in a discordant babble, but this does not deter or infuriate as it might do. It motivates the reader to attune their ears and eyes more sharply to Byatt's intellectual idiom.

I loved it. I can also understand someone who loathed it ... It inspires one to emotional extremes ... Nice/good are not words to be relied upon when assessing a novel of this nature. We are in the realm of despicable brilliance!


For a particularly pertinent and identifiable rant on Britishness turn to page 567 to hear about indignation. Satirically sharp, emotionally wringing and well worth the trouble it takes to get through it.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

weird divorce novel

[Emiliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Yo no entendía lo que significaba enseñar. Pensaba que era árido. Pero no lo es. Vuelve todo más real… Es otro mundo que también es este mundo, hace todo más real en este mundo."

"Conservará los árboles en la memoria para las imágenes de su visión interior, y las imágenes para los árboles."

Seis años después, los swinging '60 con su ruido, apertura y confusión. Ruido y confusión para Frederica, tratando de salir de una horrible emboscada, y también para nosotros mismos con esta estructura en láminas, en collage (con pasajes hilarantes), con amplios extractos de libros (uno de ellos, La torre del Blablablá, escrito para la ocasión y que juega un importante papel), la comisión sobrela enseñanza del lenguaje, la etnometodología, los estudios sobre la memoria y dos procesos legales, los dos asediando a nuestra Potter favorita y los dos como representación de esa bisagra entre lo viejo y lo nuevo, entre la visión y lo oculto, entre el paternalismo y la capacidad. No hay un momento en que desfallezca la tensión ni nuestra ansia de seguir, entre las capas de significados y sugerencias que construyen la armoniosa espiral de la helix con sus reveladoras franjas.

La autora nos demuestra una vez más cuán ambiciosa es su escritura, y cuán lograda y deslumbrante es la plasmación de ese juego de prestidigitadora entre personajes y lugares perfectamente perfilados, funambulistas de vida y metáforas, esta lucha entre lenguajes que encarnan ante nuestros ojos distintos modos de entender la realidad y el mundo, nuestro querido mundo.

"—Que a uno le ocurran cosas y vivir… —replica Frederica; vuelve a comenzar—. No es lo mismo. Supongo que debería ser lo mismo. Antes estaba muy segura acerca de la vida. Quería. La frase no tiene complemento ni fin, al parecer."

"Es al atardecer cuando se experimenta esa sensación con más intensidad… respecto a las casas… cuando aún hay luz en el cielo pero también hay luces dentro."

"Nuestro deber es reconocer las verdades. Incluidas las verdades a medias."

"Le traen el recuerdo de lo que ella era, discutidora, apasionada, tonta, inteligente."

"—Uno de los pocos beneficios de hacerse viejo —le dice— es descubrir quién ha hecho el camino con nosotros, con quién compartimos de verdad recuerdos."

"las palabras eran las cosas y las cosas eran las palabras, ambas eran uno, así como son quizá uno un hombre y su sombra, o la mente de un hombre y su cerebro. Más tarde, tras la caída de la Torre de Babel, el lenguaje y el mundo ya no coincidían, y las lenguas de los hombres se volvieron ininteligibles, secretas, envueltas en un manto incomprensible e impenetrable de idiosincrasias."

"—Una novela —explica—, por ejemplo Mujeres enamoradas, consiste en un largo hilo de lenguaje, como un tejido, más denso o más ligero por partes. Se crea en la mente y tiene que ser recreado en la mente por quienquiera que lo lea, que siempre lo rehará de un modo diferente. Está conformado por personas cuyo destino resulta más interesante para el creador que el de sus amigos o amantes, pero que probablemente constituyan un intento de comprender a sus amigos o amantes. Las personas están hechas de lenguaje, pero son mucho más que eso. Una novela está conformada también por ideas que conectan a las personas como otra capa de hilos entretejidos: Mujeres enamoradas es una novela sobre la decadencia, sobre el amor y la muerte, sobre thanatos como lo opuesto a Eros. Las ideas están hechas de lenguaje, pero son mucho más que eso. Esta novela está conformada por imágenes visuales (los farolillos de luz, la luna, las flores blancas) que podríais considerar imágenes pintadas pero que no lo son, porque para ser impactantes tienen que ser imágenes visibles no vistas. Están hechas de lenguaje, pero son mucho más que eso. Todos debemos imaginar el círculo quebrado de la luna, y el poder de la imagen surge de nuestras figuraciones, de todo lo que tienen en común y lo que tienen de diferente."

"Y se le llenaron los ojos de lágrimas por el implacable discurrir del tiempo, por la piel y la sangre que se arrugaban y resecaban, por la singularidad de un hombre encerrado en su piel mientras el tiempo le absorbe la médula de los huesos."

"Así, citando a Forster y Margaret, «conectamos» la prosa y la pasión, en imaginativos remolinos lingüísticos de conjeturas y comentarios, comprensión y desconcierto."

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was wondering why this book is so long and tedious (it's not without its great moments but yikes, so much ephemera!) and then I read an interview with Byatt saying this was her ode to Proust. I've never read Proust but I hear he harps on tiny details of life. Presumably he also has a lot of narrative dead ends, as Byatt sure does. Here is a non-exhaustive list of random things mentioned that go nowhere:
- Lots of build up to meeting the publisher's wife, Melissa, and...she chats at a party and is never heard from again
- A lot of time devoted to early drafts of protagonist's book called Laminations, which seems like a ripoff of The Golden Notebook - disappears after too many pages and is never mentioned again
- A lot on the Steering Committee that really fizzles out. Why is Alexander the protagonist for a few chapters?
- Much hinting about roommate's love life and hidden past but we never find out anything about it
-Snail biology and Frederica's brother's love triangle. I like snails as much as the next person but this is totally irrelevant and boring. I didn't feel that the thrush anvils were a great metaphor for anything much (but Byatt sure did). I suppose we're all snails, never knowing when the thrush of fate may swoop down, pick us up and dash us on the rocks? Gag.

In a way, all these dead ends are a lot like life - we may speculate about our roommate's baby daddy and never find out and eventually no longer care. However, I expect a little more thematic structure in a novel. Maybe that's very unProustian of me.

Besides the structure, I found the depiction of the 1960s a little flat. Byatt lived through them (though as a stay-at-home-mom, not as a writer) so presumably she knows what she's talking about, but the book seemed to lack the immediacy of time and place that The Golden Notebook does so well. Come to think of it, The Golden Notebook is (to me) a perfect example of the Borgian ideal: perfectly encapsulate a time and place without resorting to "local colour." Notebook features no discos, no hippies, nothing typical of its time and place and yet somehow totally captures the life of a Communist woman of letters in the early 60s. Lessing, you're a genius.

The other thing I found strange was the discussion about censorship in the context of some authorial censorship. The book centres around the censorship of a book that includes a lot of graphic sex (not all concensual), violence, pedophilia, cruelty among children, etc. However, the excerpts in the book are pretty tame. For example, we see a character get caught trying to escape and see her former lover describe the torture device he built for her, but her torture is not described. I presume Byatt meant to imply that the torture scene is really awful and graphic but she chose not to include it. It's hard to imagine why "And then someone got tortured." would be grounds for censorship, but it's hard to imagine why the author chose to not show the really graphic scenes, which apparently were OK for a 1960s but not 1990s audience. (That said, I have no love for torture porn so...maybe the right decision?)

After all that negativity, I do want to say that the main character is really well represented. I'd love to see more not-pretty, arrogant, smart women as literary protagonists. The depiction of spousal violence is really painful to read and comes off incredibly realistic. Should be mandatory reading for people who blame battered wives for "staying." (The protagonist's pretty much outright forgiveness and willingness for her son to spend summers with a violent man do seem dated and unrealistic now, though.)

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il romanzo è essenzialmente un lavoro sul tema della comunicazione, dell'educazione e della libertà, donde il titolo: molteplici personaggi secondari operano in questo campo e, tanto per esemplificare, la compagna di casa di Frederica è la segretaria di una commissione ministeriale sull'educazione scolastica che esegue ispezioni conoscitive e il cui dibattito interno, sempre incentrato sul dualismo regole/libertà, occupa interi capitoli del libro dando modo all'autrice di sfoggiare la notevole erudizione che ne caratterizza l'opera, così come già appariva evidente nel suo libro più famoso, Possessione (1990).

Le digressioni hanno dunque la duplice conseguenza, da un lato di raffreddare il pathos del racconto che rimane comunque intrigante anche se non vuole essere avvincente, dall'altro di avviluppare il testo in un virtuosismo di stili, di punti di vista, di materiali che la Byatt maneggia con grande padronanza, sorprendendo non di rado il lettore con improvvise e vertiginose virate, degne di un poliziesco.

Eccellenti sono a questo proposito le descrizioni dei due processi, dove la dialettica accusa-difesa, giudice-imputato-testimone, fa continuamente dimenticare che l'oggetto della disputa non è un omicidio o una tragedia, ma un "banale" conflitto coniugale o un'accusa di oscenità di un testo. Molto precise sono le caratterizzazioni dell'intelligenza e dell'oratoria dei due accusatori che, sebbene siano posti a contrapposizione dei personaggi cui il lettore è portato ad immedesimarsi (sicuramente Frederica, ma anche Jude o quanto meno coloro che si contrappongono alla censura), non possono non lasciare affascinati per la capacità professionale.

Apparentemente un libro freddo, secondo lo stereotipo della letteratura inglese, ma nel quale covano pulsioni proprie del passaggio epocale in cui la vicenda si svolge che comincia allorchè una donna emancipata e non scevra da errori e un giovane artista fantasioso, il cui aspetto vuole suscitare repulsione, sembrano destinati a soccombere ma alla fine resuscitano mentre la società, anche attraverso le imprevedibili sentenze dei suoi tutori, sta rapidamente mutando pelle poichè sullo sfondo comincia a comparire il nuovo mondo, con i Beatles, le minigonne, la libertà sessuale e gli altri segnali di libertà che pervadono la swinging London.

Quasi inutile ricordare che la Byatt, fatte salve tutte le caratteristiche peculiari sopra descritte e tutte le differenze (di sesso, età e stile) che la separano dai suoi connazionali McEwan, Coe, Hornby, Amis, come costoro scrive in modo eccellente...

[Rowland Pasaribu · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Babel Tower continues the story of Frederica, begun in The Virgin in the Garden and continued in Still Life, it readily stands on its own. It is a large book, and its sprawl is not necessarily inviting. It does not offer itself as easily to the reader as, say, Possession did, and so our praise comes with the warning that this is not for everyone. The setting is the 1960's, and it is a novel about that decade -- though from a very intellectual point of view (a vista that has not provided many insights into the decade, as even the intellectuals preferred to pretend they were mucking about as everyone else was). Intertwined are the stories of Frederica and her messy divorce from her completely unsuitable husband and Babbletower, a book from which we are presented extensive excerpts.

Babbletower is written by the obscure Jude, a man who lives at the fringes of society and whom Frederica befriends. Frederica is to some extent responsible for getting the book published. It is soon banned on grounds of indecency, and a sizable portion of the novel is devoted to the court proceedings. (Another courtcase, over custody of her son, is also a prominent part of the novel).

Byatt is at her best when she devotes herself to questions of literature and art. Her arguments, interjected forcefully into the novel as a record of the court proceedings, are well-reasoned and interesting, though not all readers enjoy such debate in the pages of their novels. Her characters, though rich, also have some unsatisfactory voids. Worse is that Byatt spends considerable amounts of space on certain characters and they then just fade away, without our knowing what comes of them. Perhaps they'll reappear in the next volume ?

We enjoyed the book, but it can try one's patience. It is well written, and it is a thoughtful book. It is an important contribution as a picture of the 60's (really -- we haven't seen this particular view so well presented previously). It is also a book that is very well constructed -- she is a clever writer -- and it lends itself to a second reading, to enjoy the pleasure of uncovering all the connections she has artfully built in.

[Madelynp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, although it's difficult to get started. Very much about the lyrical value of language, which sounds pretentious, but only because it matches the pretension in the book. Frederica, the heroine, is at once likeable and disagreeable, and yet you cheer for her throughout. Within the book, you have two trials--one of Frederica's divorce, the other involving a book called "Babeltower" which is on trial for obscenity. Many references are made to the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial. On top of this, you have Frederica's "Laminations," which is a collection of pertinent and not-so-pertinent quotes, letters, and vignettes that seem to be collected in something of a common place book.

One of the reasons that I was drawn to this book in the first place was the beginning, where Byatt introduces the novel in several ways (and as someone who is unfamiliar with the rest of the series, none of them made sense at the time). I didn't really know where she was going, but the prose is excellent, and when I got to Hugh Pink's thoughts on pomegranates, I was hooked.

Because of Byatt's ability to write so well, there are parts of the book that are really difficult to get through. For example, the very descriptive domestic violence was hard to read, although I appreciate that the most brutal act of violence is not described in such detail. I don't like to think of myself as a prude, but I was also repulsed by the description of break-through bleeding and her love-making with Paul (or was it John?) Ottakar.

I would highly advise this to a) a professor of English, looking for something to analyze; b) a 20-something with academic dreams (me!!!); or c) a retiree with a great deal of patience. Otherwise, the book requires a great deal of time and effort to get through (see: I read the book with a dictionary at my side). That said, I ended up passing this book on to one of my neighbors (he fits into the retiree with a great deal of patience category) and then handed it off to one of my more precocious high school students. Based on her emails, I believe that she is enjoying the book quite a bit, although the domestic violence gave her some trouble.

[Susan Dehn Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the words of Byatt's character, Jude Mason, "they're words you react to...which will leave a trace on your memory..." Babel Tower tests the reader's attention, stomach, and patience. Yet if one perseveres, the threads are woven into a tapestry that, at long last, makes sense of a unique moment in history and lures you into wholly believing her characters might actually have drawn breath in the 1960s.

[Megan Kirby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am mad that I read this book. I am mad that it took me so long. I am mad that it was 80% self-important maundering about the purpose of art. I am mad that there were pages and pages and pages of Byatt quoting other authors, so that it often felt like I was reading an extended academic essay instead of a novel.

Mostly, I'm mad that it was 600+ pages.

Do yourself a favor. Read Possession if you want to hang out with Byatt, and don't pick this one up.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about love, literature, it its quite entangled and a reason for a great headache but it doesn`t push it, it just flows in its subtle comparisons, inequities, quotes, misery, anxiety, ambivalence. As a story it is mainly segmented in 5 stories that free themselves from their main corpse as they again and again build it. Frederica, who fights for the custody of her son, Leo and her own decisions that are unknown and frighten her in her runaway from her beloved, aggresive ex-husband, Nigel. She is a well educated woman and wants to go on being like this, whereas the society stops her from doing so, on the grounds of its own rules of correctitude (the woman caring only for her child, cooking, pleasing others, talking about dishwashers and clothes). Frederica is more than this and she acknowledges this the hard way; she is on the contrary a mean of hatred for other women who know how it is to suffer, to be neglected (the individuality of women can not be achieved, the individuality of human beings shock those who relinquish it for the sake of others). On the other hand, there is Jude Mason, a suicidal aspiring artist who uses Daniel (a clergyman, Frederica`s brother-in-law) as a way of salvation from his own "neutrality of senses". He does not want anything, apart from being the one who shows the sickening part of the humanity; doing so by writing "Babel Tower", the story of the ones who whished to find a better place, without ranks, loathing, cut short desires and the Oneness that prevail in this whole story on different leves of itch. The Babel Tower`s human beings tried their best to updo themselves which is physically, sexually, psychologically impossible as people can not be One, they have different yearnings which they achieve in divergent ways; trying to bring them closer will just bring them closer to their own dehumanization, a state of natural abstract ambivalence which can not be fought against. They began their own sessions of cruelty, of loathsome divided cravings. Culvert the Projector is the one that firstly coughs up his true nature when he is blinded by his homosexuality: "you can do what you want and I can assure you that what you want is what I want". Jude and Frederica confront their naysayers, the lies that alter their behaviour: Frederica`s pure feelings for her son are shadowed by his aunts` motherhood, whereas there are various types of showing your love and Frederica knows this, they can convince her that she is the one to blame for thinking only about herself and conceal her beneath their own complexes. On the other hand, Jude brings Frederica`s suffering on a higher scale where we are all participants, we are our own monsters, but when we explain ourselves, the language intimidates us so that we hide behind the conventions (that the Babel Tower`s community highly disagreed with) such as church, family, education. The ones that persuade Jude to run again from the outter world, that bruised his already anxious heart, are the ones who obscure their bleachness on behalf of a better world which everyone spoils more or less. The other characters, even though I do not explain their story in a aforementioned manner, are the ones that bring us back to the reality that is not quite far away from the ficticious background of "La Tour Bruyarde". Daniel is the one that offers help with a sense of impartiality that seems the best way of dealing with suicidal thoughts (Jude Mason is one of his "pacients" who calls him and asks for his indirect help by mocking him), Frederica`s friends are the example foundation of the new wave of people to come: not ashamed, who can talk freely about their sexual life, who can have fun and do what they want, Frederica`s ideal, they are all man just to emphasise the feminist part of this story (which I decided not to speak subjective about in this review). Agatha (Frederica`s only female friend), Frederica, Phyllis Pratt (female writer with strong views), Saskia (Agatha`s daughter) and Lady Roseace are the ones who keep it all flowing, with their independence they struggle to receive more than they are meant to have, they manage more or less to escape: Lady Roseace died, while the other female characthers survived in a society that with years passing grant and slobber over its insanity, which in analogy with the forgotten restrains, is the war of discongruity. The ending is a revelation, is a nod:" yes, we are going to hell whether you find a rope or burn your arse trying to catch one", no the monks won`t help us, we will become more and more extravagant, we will change the meaning of words, we will change our language, we will have so many ways of expressing ourselves that we will stop fighting the urge of strangling ourselves. This book is a book in a book, you may not find the first resemble to the first or vice-versa, but the strickening Oneness will blow you. The language and the body, what we want and what we have, philosophy and church, people and people, man and man, woman and woman, shit and shit, children and grown ups, purity in falsity or purity in the uninhibited, the Oneness is not possible, we cry for it, we beg for it, we imagine it in forms and shapes, in sweat, blood and semen, but even in ourselves the Oneoness we believe we are will race against itself. We are a biped mixture, we can talk all our lives about ourselves, we can, we can! Highly recommended book!

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

much of book is very, very dry

[Aleksandra Bekreneva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Я дочитала третий роман Антонии Байетт из «Квартета Фредерики» и у меня началась паника, что я не найду больше ничего такого же крутого… (лично для меня)

Произошло 100% совпадение с автором и абсолютное попадание в цель, и именно то, что сейчас было мне нужно и что со мной созвучно в плане литературы.

Если первая книга фокусируется на взрослении, вторая — на университете и первых жизненных трагедиях, то третья — уже про становление личности в социуме, в том числе, про юридические его аспекты.

Профессиональный статус, общественный статус, не про материнство, а вообще, про понимание того, какой может быть мать (разной).

Издательские дела, судебные процессы — книжные, за право издать смелую и свободную книгу, и личные — бракоразводные, когда ложь и кишки летят во все стороны…

Вообще, вот именно в третьей книге самим книгам отведена главная роль.

О них пишут рецензии, о них рассказывают на литературных курсах, их обсуждают, сжигают, запрещают, издают и разрешают…

Когда в конце книги описывается 1967 год с его счастливыми переменами, честно, хочется плакать.

Вспоминается «Винляндия» Пинчона и его выводы о том, что мы сделали со свободой 60-х (не то, что нужно было).

А ещё Антония поднимает неловкую тему того, что будет, если важные жизненные решения принимать в состоянии эмоционального раздрая, или не подумав, на авось, и неловкую тему того, что не только мужчины, но и женщины иногда думают вовсе не головой.

С учётом до сих пор живее всех живых живущих стереотипов о том, кто такой мифический «настоящий мужчина», кто такая мифическая «настоящая женщина» — книга не в бровь, а в глаз.

Не такие уж мы разные в том, какими разными мы можем быть...

PS Как вы понимаете, ждать перевода я не буду и начинаю читать четвёртую книгу «Квартета...»

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the targets of my ongoing self-indulgent re-reading spree has been A.S. Byatt's novel Babel Tower. This is the third book in a tetraology that also includes The Virigin in the Garden, Still Life, and A Whistling Woman and that takes place in the England of the '50s and '60s. I used to like the earlier books better than the later ones, but perhaps this wasn't fair of me; each book seems to improve as I get closer to Frederica's age in it.

The first two books followed all three children of the Potter family, but the second two are really only about Frederica, the middle child, who in this book is unhappily married to an uncultured, brutish nob, whom she would leave if it weren't for their small son.( Her reasons for marrying him are hard to explain without spoiling the second book of the series, but it seems that their relationship was based on sex and his apparently unique ability to stand up to her daunting intellect.) Once they are married, he expects her to stay home and do nothing while he works and travels. After a series of "marital disputes" which culminate in Nigel throwing an ax at her, Frederica disappears back to London, where she finds various scraps of work thanks to her plugged-in friends. She files for a divorce and Nigel counters by seeking custody of their son.

In the meantime, Frederica "discovers" a new author, well-read but personally repugnant, who has written a book called Babbletower. The blurb on my paperback describes this as either "an exercise in Sadeian pornography or a corrosive fable of the consequences of pure freedom" (which is better than anything I could come up with). The publication of this book and the ensuing obscenity trial unfold alongside Frederica's attempts to understand her marriage and explain (to herself and the courts) why she has to escape it. The novel, therefore, is preoccupied with the fine line between strong love and cruelty; the ways people inflict pain on each other, either intentionally or inadvertantly; self-abnegation in relationships; and the attempt to reconcile the differing goals and methods of love and lust.

This is the first book in the tetraology that Byatt wrote after Possession, and it contains the same sort of interpolated texts (in this case, Babbletower and an adventure story for children) but without the academic dryness that undermined Possession for me. Here, Byatt more convincingly blends the life of the mind with everday life. The layers and "laminations" and stories build up in rather baroque fashion, but there is something seamy, complicated, and visceral at the heart of this novel, unlike the previous two, that I don't think I could approach the first time I read this (when I was barely out of high school).

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Babel Tower by A S Byatt is a long book. It is also a difficult book in that it presents its reader with multiple perspectives, a novel within a novel, a marriage break-up, a flirtation with religion and philosophy, various intellectual discussions, plus intellectual, social and psychological comment. All this is wrapped outside the life of Frederica, Babel Tower’s principal character, who features in some form or other throughout Byatt’s tetralogy, in which Babel Tower comes third. On previous occasions, I have tried to read this novel, and I found its apparent meanderings distracting. As a result I have given up trying to read it. Suddenly, it seems, I understand what the novelist is trying to do and now the experience of finishing Bible Tower Leaves me moved in a way that no other novel has ever provoked. The experience is stunning, but overall the whole experience is, if anything, disquieting for reasons I will outline.

First the bones of the book. Frederica is married to Nigel. They have a son, Leo, and they live in a big historical house - a family seat with a moat, no less - in the west of England. Nigel, the husband, is in business and is often away, leaving Frederica and Leo in the capable hands of two unmarried sisters and a housekeeper, all of whom live in and help to care for Leo. Frederica is desperately unhappy, lonely, and feeling constrained because Nigel has discouraged her from having a life of her own, except for that of a stay-at-home wife and mother. A literature graduate, she feels the need for participation in academic pursuits.

Things come to head when, by chance, she meets an old college friend who happens to be on a hiking holiday. There are other friends, who call round to the family home. Nigel becomes jealous. There are altercations and Frederica leaves, taking her son. She tries to set up a home, a new life in London, sharing accommodation because she can’t afford her own, and doing part-time work to make ends meet. Both she and Nigel file divorce proceedings, The custody of Leo is of course at issue.

We are in the early and mid-1960s. Dope smoking, a Labour government, LSD and flower power, plus “happenings” are all happening. Frederica does some part-time work, teaching a literature class to adults and art students, because the diploma course they enrolled upon has been upgraded to a degree. She also reads slush manuscripts for a publisher to see if there might be anything of value in the unsolicited pile.

Jude models for life classes in the same college. He is a strange person who will not only rarely washes, but he also smells. It turns out that he has written a book, inspired by Fourier, Sade and Nietzsche. It is a fantasy set just after the French Revolution, where ideas of freedom, free love and idealism are tried out in a community, under the “leadership” of someone called Culvert. The novel is called, interestingly, Babbletower, implying that it is “babble” or drivel, but the publisher thinks it has merit and may sell. Frankly, it is the kind of “fantasy” novel that nowadays occupies many shelf metres in airport bookshops. The text of Babbletower is delivered in chunks within Babel Tower, and the shift from sometimes overpowering reality to fantasy land is a transition that many readers might find tiresome. But the text of Babbletower is important for Babel Tower because the book is eventually subject to legal action to ban it as obscene and likely to corrupt its readers. It is worth remembering that the setting is the mid-60s.

Thus two court cases form the later part of the novel. First, there is the divorce of Frederica and Nigel, and then the obscenity trial against Jude’s Babbletower. There is, of course, much more going on in this novel and the only way to appreciate it’s breadth is to read it. But the divorce, with its claim and counter claim by Frederica and Nigel, and then the obscenity trial, with references to Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and also occasionally to Tolkien’s Ring fantasy, the Hobbit and bedtime stories are crucial. In the divorce proceedings, there are testimonies by Frederica and Nigel, of course, but also from Nigel’s two sisters and the housekeeper. In the obscenity trial, there are contributions from “experts” of various kinds, each of which in theory is designed to offer a different perspective on the merits or otherwise of the book. The outcomes of these trials are the very substance of Babel Tower.

But it is the characters who make this book such a success and underpinning all of them is their intellectual life. This, along with the assumptions that this forces upon them, mean that they all see events from their own perspectives. All of them seem to lack the vision to see beyond their own point of view, and some of the “expert” analyses reveal themselves to be no more than self-obsession.

Byatt often describes physical attributes in detail, often concentrating on clothing. For instance, she describes how the art students in Federica’s literature class “are all uniformly different” in their appearance, implying that the role they play creates an unwritten but understood need to conform. Often, she manages to convey class and professional associations through the clothes that her characters wear. Indeed, she often notices and records every detail the women’s clothes, whereas the men are often in “dark suits”, implying their desire for anonymity, despite their controlling influence.

Frederica is a young woman who enjoys sex and regularly seeks it out. Her behaviour is contrasted with the free love of the Babbletower fantasy and of course becomes an issue in the divorce proceedings. A biologist at one point (speaking of snails) describes sex as “a blind drive… like … antibodies breeding found diseased cells, or viruses hurrying along in our blood.” Frederica lives this description, though there is often emotional involvement as well. But the reader has a feeling that these characters are enacting the only lives that for them are possible. They are not constrained by their genes, but they do live them.

When we reach the two trials, we find that each testimony is given from the standpoint of “me”, whoever that might be. In the whole book, there does not seem to be a single character - save occasionally Frederica’s brother-in-law, Daniel - who ever sees anything from a point of view that is not their own. Daniel, a clergyman, has deserted his own Yorkshire-based children after his wife’s death and lives to offer support on a telephone crisis service in London. He too is therefore revealed, despite his overt concern for others, to be primarily fulfilling his own selfish needs. Indeed, Frederica, towards the end of the book observes the following: “…what she thought was a grown-up world, and believed to operate by logic, operates in fact according to the system created out of its own prejudices and emotions, which cannot be second-guessed.” Everyone behaves selfishly, because that is the way we are.

Thus, we have in AS Byatt’s Babel Tower a shared project, called human life, where each of the participants pursue their own personal agenda, dealing with others by only seeing themselves reflected and essentially living a purely selfish existence. This is why Babel Tower is so profound and why it packs a powerful intellectual and emotional punch. The reader can identify with all of these, deeply human, deeply selfish people.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A very well written, clever, intelligent, sometimes humorous, dense, long, character based novel set in England in the 1960s. It follows the life Frederica Potter. Frederica is clever, intelligent, hungry for knowledge, married and has one son, Leo. Frederica begins feeling trapped in her married life in a big house in the country, unable to mix with her friends or pursue her literary academic interests. Another story thread is about censorship. Frederica is employed reading manuscripts and recommends one work for publication. The novel, 'Babbletower' is published by Frederick's friend, Rupert Parrott. A court case ensues against the publisher on the question of whether the publisher is guilty of publishing an obscene article and whether the book's literary and other merits outweigh the alleged obscenity of the book.

There are many references to well known authors like D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Thomas Hardy, and many others.

This book was first published in 1996. It is the sequel to ‘Still Life’, but can be read as a standalone novel. I thought this book was a little better than the very good 'Still Life' as there is more plot momentum. Highly recommended. A book worth rereading.