3.5
Babel Tower
ByPublisher Description
The Booker Prize-winning author of Possession presents an extraordinary story set against the backdrop of the 1960s—a turbulent decade of clashing politics, passionate ideals, and shifting sexual roles.
At the heart of Babel Tower 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 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 children as innocent and free slowly comes to seem wishful, and perilous.
In Byatt's vision, the presiding genius of the day seems to be a blend of the Marquis de Sade and The Hobbit. Peopled with weird and colorful characters, charted with brilliant, imaginative sympathy, Babel Tower is as comic as it is threatening and bizarre.
At the heart of Babel Tower 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 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 children as innocent and free slowly comes to seem wishful, and perilous.
In Byatt's vision, the presiding genius of the day seems to be a blend of the Marquis de Sade and The Hobbit. Peopled with weird and colorful characters, charted with brilliant, imaginative sympathy, Babel Tower is as comic as it is threatening and bizarre.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesBabel Tower Reviews
3.5
aannafischer
Created 4 months agoShare
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“as with possession, i deeply enjoyed byatt’s intellectual prose and academic curiosity. reading about academics always excites me about the intellectual space — reading, learning, discussing, etc. but even though it is a heavily academic novel (with constant references and discussions of d.h. lawrence, kafka, wilde, etc) very rarely did it feel dry. the characters were enticing and the plot was engaging, and the intellectual discussions regarding literature and sex were vastly interesting. however, i found that i had the same problem with babel tower as i did with possession: it all felt like it dragged a little bit in the middle. i think it could have been trimmed about 100 pages in the middle and been a much tighter novel, and better for it. but overall, i thoroughly enjoyed the read”
Camix
Created about 2 years agoShare
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ani
Created about 3 years agoShare
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Arina
Created over 4 years agoShare
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“It's too much postmodernism and too much procedural for me. I felt that the characters were peripheral, and the plot line is maximum of 1/3 of the book. It's beautifully written of course but it doesn't make it more engaging.”
About A. S. Byatt
A. S. Byatt was the author of numerous novels, including The Children’s Book, The Biographer’s Tale, and Possession, which was awarded the Booker Prize. She also wrote two novellas, published together as Angels & Insects, five collections of short stories, and several works of nonfiction. A distinguished critic and author, and the recipient of the 2016 Erasmus Prize for her “inspiring contribution to ‘life writing,’” she died in 2023.
Other books by A. S. Byatt
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