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Babel Tower - A.S. Byatt
Babel Tower
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3.92 65
In Babel Tower a cast of striking characters play out their personal dramas amid the clashing politics, passionate ideals and stirring languages of the early 1960s. Frederica (the heroine of Virgin in the Garden and Still Life) now teaching English at an art college, is hiding herself and her son... show more
In Babel Tower a cast of striking characters play out their personal dramas amid the clashing politics, passionate ideals and stirring languages of the early 1960s. Frederica (the heroine of Virgin in the Garden and Still Life) now teaching English at an art college, is hiding herself and her son Leo from a violent husband; her urge towards freedom later leads to an angry, humiliating divorce case. Hers is not the only struggle; her friend Jude writes a novel, Babbletower, which is tried for obscenity; her broth in law Daniel becomes involved in new movements for London's poor and distressed. Their crises mirror those of the age-abroad, this is the decade of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the death of J F Kennedy; at home it is the era of the Lady Chatterley case, of the Beatles, of Mods and Rockers, art school riots, the Profumo scandal. Moving and absorbing and full of comedy as well as strife, this superb novel brings our own recent past to vivid, and disturbing life.From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780517277744 (0517277743)
Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
Pages no: 619
Edition language: English
Series: The Frederica Quartet (#3)
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Community Reviews
shell pebble
shell pebble rated it
4.0 Literary feasting
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 ...
Books etc.
Books etc. rated it
Let this book shimmer out of sight. Cleaning shelf, reducing guilt, giving it another chance another time.------------------------------------------with my exquisite and accurate instinct i managed to buy this 3rd book in frederica tetralogy and not the 1st and 2nd book, although i've had them in sh...
so many books, so little time
so many books, so little time rated it
5.0 Babel Tower
Many contemporary novelists shy away from using a big canvas. Not A.S. Byatt, so that there is a retro sort of pleasure in reading her books, as if there was one more Eliot or Forster work that turned up. BT is wonderful brain candy in its many explorations of language--not only the what and the way...
Our Intrepid Heroine
Our Intrepid Heroine rated it
5.0 Babel Tower
This is the only book to cause me to miss my stop on the train. I was so engrossed that I blew right past my station and had to call my mother to come pick me up.Possession will always be my favorite of Byatt's - partly because it was the novel to introduce me to the author, partly because it's a ma...
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