Babel Tower

Rating:
Summary: Very lengthy but worth it in the end...
Review: *Babel Tower* is my first experience with A.S. Byatt, and I think it was worth the undertaking. My commute recently tripled, and the extra time permitted me time to pick up some of the "doorstops" I'd been avoiding for some time. Almost immediately, I detected a striking similarity to Margaret Atwood's *The Blind Assassin*, in that there is a story-within-a-story. The suspense of each plot thread kept me entertained throughout, though admittedly there were many times when I thought about scanning on to the next section.

Set in England during the early 60's, Byatt's characters are almost all intellectuals finding their way into the hippie generation, with some more conservative folks along for the ride. Frederica, having been introduced and studied in previous Byatt novels, is likely a familiar friend, though she finds herself in an unhappy and violent prison of a marriage with only her beautiful son, Leo, to smooth the edges.

Between Frederica's existence as she departs the marriage with Leo in tow and her attempts to regain independence and work again, there is a fiction story of a fabled Utopia. Culvert and Lady Roseace lead a group of a former society to a new land, where any and all desires and needs are fulfilled. Later, we learn that the story is actually written by one of Frederica's acquaintances, Jude Mason. The rest of the novel depicts Jude's fight to keep the novel in publication, despite the accusation of its obscenity.

The story is long, with many quotes from other novels and authors and critics. A literature fanatic can't miss this novel as there are several mentions of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series and a serious discussion of *Lady Chatterley's Lover*'s merits. It wasn't the most 'fun' novel I've read this summer, but I enjoyed living with Frederica and her friends and lovers.

Rating:
Summary: What Fiction was Meant to Be
Review: A. S. Byatt's Babel Tower integrates one woman's complicated journey into the story of the troubled 1960's with masterful results. Frederica has married an upper-class gentleman who expects her to stay at home and take care of their child without exercising her intellectual gifts or being allowed to see her friends. When he turns violent, she flees with her son back to London and her artistic peer group. In her part-time job reading unsolicited manuscripts, she comes across a vibrant, disturbing book called Babbletower and recommends it for publishing. The rest of the novel deals with Frederica's divorce trial and the prosecution of the novel for obscenity. All of it is set, however, in the swirling, chaotic upset of the 1960's and the redefinition of an entire culture's values.

Byatt is a masterful fiction writer. The many voices of the novel - Frederica's, the fanatic recluse author's, the liberal clergyman's, even Anthony Burgess' - are rendered in believable and splendid detail. We believe them all, whether they repulse us or not. The surrounding culture mirrors Frederica's changing identity - reading the Hobbit to her son, short skirts, hash brownies, happenings. Excerpts of Babbletower indeed read like a work of subversive genius - and it's all created by Byatt. I believe the English have an edge on the subtle development of character and plot. Read this great one to know how it's done.

Rating:
Summary: A woman and literature, both on trial
Review: Even though "The Babel Tower" is the third volume in a tetralogy, one need not have read the first two books to enjoy it. (I hadn't read any other novels by Byatt, and I dove right into this one.) This entry has been described as a novel of the Sixties, but such a characterization is misleading. Byatt never really leaves the ivory tower: the turbulence of the streets, the counterculture, the mod scene, the social upheavals all remain on the periphery throughout. The novel depicts more calm than storm, exploring instead the far narrower (but still interesting) milieu of the literati.

Byatt presents two parallel plots. After the death of her sister, Frederica (the subject of all four novels) is trapped in a marriage that quickly seems unsuitable, eventually becomes oppressive, and finally turns violent. Since it's 1964, a divorce is not simply for the asking; after escaping with her son, she finds her suitability as a mother on trial (both literally and figuratively). The scenes describing the spousal abuse are among the most harrowing I've read, even though, compared with similar episodes in other works, the horror is more psychologically distressing than physically violent. Byatt explicitly links Frederica's subsequent emotional and legal ordeal with Lady Chatterley's trial (both of the book and of the character); Frederica represents a late-twentieth-century woman judged by lingering puritanical nineteenth-century standards.

The second story concerns a thematically similar trial: the ban of "Babbeltower," a book recommended to a publisher by Frederica that is subsequently deemed pornographic by the British government. Tame by today's standards (and even when compared to "Last Exit to Brooklyn," which served as Byatt's model), this fable portrays a sexually uninhibited utopia that evolves into a masochistic and totalitarian dystopia. The recently concluded obscenity trial of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" lingers in the background, although the prosecution asserts that "it was Lady Chatterley herself who was on trial, for the fact of her sexuality. In the case of 'Babbeltower' it is the prisoner in the dock who is on trial, his imagination, the world he created, the tendency of the messages he offers."

While "Babel Tower" is often riveting and stimulating, if Byatt herself were on trial, she might be found guilty of excess. Byatt's most obvious mentor is Iris Murdoch, whose influence she confirms in both the text and the acknowledgments. Murdoch, however, doesn't always spell out her many cultural, philosophical, and literary references; she leaves it for the reader to discover or disregard. Byatt, in contrast, seems to believe that her audience is not well-read; she assumes the role of literary critic for her own work. Her characters quote a dizzying parade of passages to each other, to themselves, or to the reader. Sometimes this approach works, but the technique reaches its nadir when she reprints Frederica's scrapbook, a collage of excerpts and scrambled texts(which Frederica herself correctly disparages as unsatisfying and incoherent). There's also a bizarre and not entirely satisfying subplot which evokes Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" but can't match its creepiness; it involves identical twins, one of whom courts Frederica, while the other is a jealous psychopath.

Despite these excesses, Byatt still succeeds with her portrait of the young woman artist whose confusion is aggravated by clashes between desires and expectations, nonconformity and morality, literature and society.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Great characters and a love for language and the life of the mind. There is nothing desiccated about Byatt's imagination. I couldn't get through *The Satanic Verses* by Rushdie, Roth's *Operation Shylock* was narrative torture. Byatt doesn't do that to us. She has weird surprises for us but is never self-indulgent. Confusion for confusion sake ain't her favorite means of showing how "profound" she is. This is how Dickens and George Eliot would write if they were fused into one person and brought by time machine into the present. Think of an Atwood without the nostalgia for Fellow Travelers or all the feminist paranoia.

Rating:
Summary: I thought it would never end!
Review: I am nearing the end of this large 600 page book.

Byatt could have had a better book if she had reduced this
book by about 300 pages.

There are a few parts of the book that I found interesting
but it became a chore to read rather than a delight.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps not as tight as Still Life or The Virgin...
Review: I found A.S. Byatt's elegant portraits of the late fifties in The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life immensely satisfying, and had wondered for some time before the publication of Babel Tower how she might approach the sixties. Babel Tower seems to represent a change of direction in her Yorkshire series. While its focus on the publication and subsequent prosecution of Babbletower is reminiscent of the dramatic chaos surrounding Astraea, which drives the narrative of The Virgin in the Garden, Babel Tower contains much more overt cultural analysis. At times this detracts from the Potter family narrative developed over the preceding books, however it seems neccessary in order to allow Byatt to evade a simplistic satire of the period. Her interweaving of cultural, social, political and environmental concerns of the time provides a valuable backdrop to Frederica's and Daniel's continued stories.

Character development is perhaps not as strong in this book as in The Virgin in the Garden or Still Life, although Leo Reiver and Agatha Mond represent useful additions to the cast. I was pleased to see peripheral characters-Jacqueline, Ruth and Thomas Poole-take on greater importance. However Ruth's retreat into religion was not entirely convincing and I felt that her increasing entanglement with Gideon's sect could have been better developed. Hopefully this sub-plot will be continued in the next installment.

On the whole, Babel Tower lacks some of the coherence of The Virgin... and Still Life, but it is worth noting that the events and period that Byatt documents in this work are not as easily defined as those of the previous two. She does very well with difficult material, and maintains the emotional force apparent in the rest of the series. Definitely a worthwhile read, and lovers of Byatt's incredible attention to detail would be well advised give it a second and third reading as well.

Rating:
Summary: It gets better every time!
Review: I read and loved The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life and I couldn't wait to read more of Frederica Potter and her eccentric, intellectual family. Babel Tower centers on Frederica's struggles to free herself from her rich, abusive husband. She is now in a custody battle that could well end in disaster. As she regains her independence and begins to work as a teacher in London, Frederica ponders on the reasons she married someone with a different social and intellectual background. There is another legal fight in the story. Jude Mason, a rebellious man who is described as a hippie before his time, is sued for writing an "obscene book." What transpires is a story centered on the laws and prejudices in sixties London.

Babel Tower is my favorite part of this literary series. A.S. Byatt focuses on Frederica and her plights here more than on the previous novels. And the references to art and literature in this offering are especially engaging and insightful. I did miss the other members of the Potter family, but I loved reading about Frederica one more time. This is one beautiful novel and I so look forward to reading The Whistling Woman with utmost anticipation.

Rating:
Summary: I thought it would never end -- utterly tedious.
Review: I'm not sure Byatt had in mind as a prospective readership for this novel. I read a lot and am not a stranger to the world of literary criticism, but this tome was virtually unbearable once I hit about the halfway point. The first half was somewhat interesting and I had high hopes. But as the book quote-unquote progressed, there just was more and more nothin'. Endless, lengthy quotations and, frankly, boring observations. I'm not sure I have anything of value to comment on, specifically, but I would like to forewarn readers: this is one of the most trying, pretentious, uninteresting books I have ever read, and I think it would not likely appeal to the vast majority of readers. It could conceivably appeal to lit crit buffs but even then. Yuck.

Rating:
Summary: Pretentious and affected
Review: Psyched Fugitive
Reflections on Byatt A.S's work ---Babel Tower

The huge book with the cover of 'Sade' cluttered with a motely of trans-human figures opens eerily, as one traverses through the translyvanian pages.

The opening isn't daunting anymore; the lamb bleats in the silence of an ordinary setting that starts of the story.

The thread idylic in discourse is a beginning so mellow and placid- the threads, rummage, pilferand plunder themselves to a scavenging in a myriad of narratives, arched in differences but seemingly in themselves to a oneness that wants to be called source.

The sheer beauty of each word in prose and poetry, lulls the reader to stay captivated and confused, trying hard to pierce the damoclian tips gorging itself in moments but does not, as the looking seems to be glasses many in oblivion.

The vison of cambridge hangs heavily on Fredirica, knitting the fabric of a cloak that is replusive to commerce, subversive in its attachment to the stratified part of the status called culture. The boorish Nigel and the intelllectual Fredrica are chaotically brought to a oneness of the body flowing in a wave of juices. The drying out is constant in wearying out of the body with the intellect in personas unreconciled. The minds and bodies weren't forced to attraction but attracted as unlike forces repeling like ones.

Semiotic underpinning of Nietzsche's theology -'Death Of God' is an excorsist translated into the existential of "Birth Of the Body"; The "Birth Of the Body" weaves through the penelopian folds of the labile, circumambulating into Sade's garden of mid-wifery. Sade and Nietzsche combine into 'ero-theistic' syncretism furling and unfurling the narrative in to the diffident and conservative anglicanism and the anomie-morphic renegades seeking else where to live in the confinement of eudaemonism. Though God couldn't be killed in grammer, the exercise of the same in imagination becomes palsy in retrospective gnome-gammonics.

The phalanstry of being broken away from the came-bridgian and the by chance meetimg of a lost poet in the wilderness of contraption, poses the dilemma of being fallible to the choices of being there as a being , being there as being for non being as being, as a being as Steins 'laughterIstic in the writorick.

Beauty to Fredricka is intellect in the momenteriness of being bodies and the eclipse of response in Nigel shadows the male triggered puerility of the possessor with the possessed.

Trajectory of being displaced of displacement dissloves Fredricka into the vagabond tramp whose independence is etched as the pleasure in making the ends meet. Individual dynamism of the societal in independence is the solitude of the gender longing in a bliss evolving evolution.

Social and political life is microscopically drifted on the canoe of the individual, struggling to be the mode

to be continued

Rating:
Summary: Read it, it's great
Review: When people talk about Byatt, they tend to dwell on her academicism, on her allusions and quotes, on her historicism. But if this were all there were to Byatt, no one would read her. What makes Byatt a wonderful writer is that she has a tremendous sense of how the world works, how situations and relationships that seemed promising slowly unravel, how smart people can do stupid things, and how things and people who at first seem hopeless can wind up being wonderful. She understands process, and she understands complexity.

Babel Tower is about how people devoted to the life of the mind can survive in a society which is hostile to that life. Much of the book is taken up with trials, because a major character in this book is "society", which may be personified by juries, by expert witnesses, by journalists. Her character, Frederica, escapes from a marriage which first stultifies her mind, and then threatens to kill her. On a meagre living, she constructs a life and a support system that will give her young son what he needs, mentally and physically. But her husband is wealthy, and what he offers the boy seems superficially more wholesome, so in the trials for divorce and custody, Frederica is judged essentially for her surface, for what her life looks like from the outside.

In a parallel subplot, the writer Jude Mason has written a book that is judged for obscenity. But Mason wrote it as a moral book which tells the lessons he has learned in life. He is a vagrant. He was sexually abused in childhood. He understands how people torture those they love. In the book's obscenity trial, Mason, his neuroses, his appearance, and his intentions are judged and condemned; when his book is banned, he himself is banned.

And in the early part of the book, we have a debate about how children should be educated, and what they should learn. The proponents of throwing out classical and grammatical training win, and it is a blow for the life of the mind. In the end of the book we see the results.

Babel Tower has several interesting themes: 1) the way society reduces and [clouds] a person's identity, and the effect it has on them; 2) depravity and sadism as an integral part of human nature, where cruelty is the backside to love; 3) gender and class double-standards; 4) the debate of what constitutes a good education; 5) the impossibility of creating coherency between the disparate elements of your life, and what this does to you.

Byatt is a wise, courageous thinker who can turn a battle of ideas into an enthralling page-turner. But her understanding of life is what makes her work great.

Babel Tower was a great book. But you should read its prequel first, Still Life.