Babel Tower

A good argument against book-banning, simply because it shows that controversial books require both sides to think and engage. Byatt gives honest consideration to the pornography debate, which, in my experience, has been given far too little attention.

This is a long and difficult book for a reviewer to tangle with, and I can only do so by breaking it into parts. But, ere I do so, let me make one urgent and important comment for the prospective reader on this, the third book in Byatt's "Yorkshire Tetralogy": THE BOOK IS VERY DISTURBING. Those reviewers here who dismiss it as boring or what not are only exposing their own obtusity, in all sorts of ways. They are in fact demonstrating as true the T.S. Eliot quote from "Burnt Norton" here (p.482) that "human kind cannot bear very much reality." - I, personally, would not trust someone who is not disturbed by this book - Because, as I'll come around to shortly, anyone who is not at first horrified then titillated then horrified at their own titillation in the spectacle of Lady Roseace's death in the book within the book here is simply not a sensitive or aware human being, aware of the cruelty latent in his/her sexuality, whether s/he likes it or not.----And we don't like it, generally. So on to Part1.) The book "Babbletower" within "Babel Tower." - This layering is what makes the book as a whole so thematically powerful. Yes, the character, Jude Mason's, book is in part a rehash of how utopias become dystopias and part a commentary on the Sixties. But, primarily, as in the two previous novels in the tetralogy, it's about human nature, particularly human nature as manifested in sexuality, a theme Byatt doggedly pursues throughout her works. And for Byatt, and for most of us when we consider it, the religious impulse is inextricably intertwined with the sexual. This observation is nothing new. All one has to do is read about the religious rites as practiced by the Ancient Greeks, for example. But it's somehow different when one thinks of one's own religious or spiritual impulses in the modern world. As a church official puts it here: "The Church has ALWAYS been about sex, dear, that's what the problem is. Religion has always been about sex. Mostly about denying sex and rooting it out, and people who are trained to deny something and root it out become obsessed with it, it becomes unnaturally monstrous..." (p.25) Thus, Culvert's discovery of the paintings of the suffering Christ in the tower marks the dawn of his awareness that there is a pleasure, a sexual pleasure, in cruelty. And this discovery leads, ultimately, to the monstrous way in which Lady Roseace is tortured and killed. At first I didn't make too much of this scene, too over the top I thought, but it's difficult to get the imagery and disgust out of one's mind, where it dwells, and eventually one eventually finds oneself responding to it in a sexual manner, because really, of course, as Culvert intended, Roseace's execution is more about sex than death. The moment one undergoes a sexual response in oneself to this horrid imagery and comes to an awareness that part of one takes pleasure in it is the moment one realises what a bewildering and disorienting book this is. Like all literature, it stirs deep things other works leave to convention and causes one to rethink basic assumptions about what one is all about in this world. On to Part2.) Frederica - I don't like her. I like her husband even less. But that's beside the point. The problem with not liking Frederica and her distrust of emotion and her way of trying to think through everything and put everything into "laminations" is that one realises that, to a great extent, the person one truly dislikes is Byatt. But it has to be said for Byatt that she (unlike Iris Murdoch, who draws a moral lesson from her own proclivities in her books and makes them intolerable reading, to me anyway) is fully aware of Frederica's, ahem, her own, shortcomings and shrewdly points them out, which makes Frederica bearable, if not exactly likeable.3.) The book as a whole - Is too full of parody. The scene on the moors where Federica departs her dashing husband is straight out of Wuthering Heights, rescribed for the modern reader. And then parody breaks out all over: Modern poetry, contemporary education, English divorce law proceedings (before no-fault divorces were commonplace) and on and on. The saving grace here is that Byatt parodies her own parodies, making Frederica's "laminations" as much of a shipwreck as her life is at times here, thus making them and her palatable. What the none-too-subtly named Magog says in the trial about the Babbletower is more true of Babel Tower, that, "it is a text that twists round and round itself like the snake around the tree. What IS its true message?" p.586One might well wonder. And go on wondering, for, despite certain reservations on my part, this is a rare book indeed, one not just to think and ponder over, but to WONDER over.

Byatt does a good job in lifting a mundane, sordid, humiliating and ugly and yet somewhat ordinary divorce story into a page turner by attempting to elevate the episode into an epic proportion by relying on simultanous narrative of Babeltower, an obscenity book case.

Babel Tower is an exploration of England in the 1960's, when so many things in society changed. It focuses on two plots. The first is the story of Frederica. She had been an intellectual child who went to Cambridge when that was still not the norm and became very popular and the center of attention of a group of young men. Afterwards, rather than marrying one of them and becoming an author as everyone expected, she instead married a man from the landed gentry, Nigel. Her sister had died in a freak accident and she wanted a complete break from what she had known. The couple had a son, Leo. But country life in a house full of Nigel's relatives soon palled. Frederica felt stifled and that her intellectual life was stymied. When she met her old crowd by happenstance, things came to a head. Nigel forbade her to see them and when she didn't agree, started to physically abuse her. She fled in the night, taking Leo with her.Nigel insists he wants her back and storms around trying to find her and terrorizing her friends and family. The book explores the themes of women who want to work outside the home, the difficulty of doing so as a single mother, spousal abuse, society's changing mores about women, religion, sex, education, the best environment for a child and work.The other subplot is about freedom in literature and the changing setting of society and what it will accept in the name of freedom of expression. It revolves around a novel written by a thoroughly unpleasant man named Jude Mason. The novel is about a dystopian society that falls into one of sexual excesses and cruelty and is considered obscene and charged as such. There is a trial in which the limits of society are explored. The Moors Murders case of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley serves as backdrop for this case. It was the most prominent child murder case of its time and many considered it a bellwether of how society changes were taking the world into dark, wretched places.This is a huge novel that attempts to explain all of life in a specific time period. Readers may or may not like Frederica who is not a very sympathetic character but she is a model of how society has changed in considering a women's role. Most facets of society are portrayed along with the changes the sixties brought to each. The author, A.S. Byatt, won the Booker Prize for her novel Possession and that intellect and ability to explore society is a real reason for her success. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

This is the third novel in the Frederica Quartet. It is now the 1960s and Frederica is married with a child and already missing her world of books, work and intelligent friends. When I wrote about The Virgin In The Garden I referred to Frederica as "obnoxious" and after Still Life I said she was "clever but irritating". But now she has become a much more attractive character - likeable, questioning, thoughtful and passionately devoted to her son. The violent breakdown of her marriage and the subsequent divorce are both shockingly documented.But Babel Tower is much more than the story of one woman - it is a splendid evocation of the sixties. Byatt draws on things we remember so well - the music, clothes, furnishings, education and food of the time - but it also reminds us of the abusive divorce laws of the time and the ludicrous obscenity trials.There are many layers within the book including another novel Babbletower which is an Orwellian fantasy about a community seeking happiness but instead creating a cruel and wicked dystopia. I don't usually warm to fantasy but Babbletower was gripping - as was the subsequent trial of its author for obscenity. There are observations on the meaning of words and text, on freedom and liberalism, on love and passion - and so much more.....It is challenging in parts but is nonetheless a wonderful read. Although (I think) it would be better to read the earlier two books first Babel Tower can be seen as a stand alone novel. I look forward to A Whistling Woman and am already wondering if Agatha's wonderful children's story will be continued in it?

Try it

This book is excellent - I had previously lent my original copy to a friend who never returned it so this was just a replacement. It arrived on time and I have no complaints. However, if you have not read this series of books, you really should I cannot rate them highly enough.