基本信息·出版社：Vintage ·页码：670 页 ·出版日期：1997年04月 ·ISBN：0099839407 ·条形码：9780099839408 ·装帧：平装 ·外文书名：巴别塔/通天 ...
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Babel Tower |
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基本信息·出版社：Vintage
·页码：670 页
·出版日期：1997年04月
·ISBN：0099839407
·条形码：9780099839408
·装帧：平装
·外文书名：巴别塔/通天塔
内容简介 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.
作者简介 A.S. Byatt is the author of
Possession, winner of the Booker Prize and a national bestseller. The two novels leading up to
Babel Tower, which trace the fortunes of Frederica and her family through the 1950's, are
The Virgin in the Garden and
Still Life. Byatt's other fiction includes
The Shadow of the Sun,
The Game,
Angels and Insects and two collections of shorter works:
Sugar and Other Stories and
The Matisse Stories. She has also published three volumes of critical work, of which
Passions of the Mind is the most recent. She has taught English and American literature at University College, London, and is a distinguished critic and reviewer. She lives in London.
媒体推荐 书评
Amazon.com 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.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly One does not usually associate Byatt, who has often worked on a small-even miniature-scale, with the notion of an epic novel; but that, in terms of scope and ambition, is just what she has created here. It is an invigorating spectacle, as well as a welcome reminder of how a fine novelist can illuminate a whole era in ways not even the most skilled social historian can. Set in England in the mid-1960s, the novel focuses on Frederica, an attractive, highly intelligent and bookish young woman who cut a swath at Cambridge University, then married Nigel Reiver, a well-to-do member of the landed gentry with a country house, two doting sisters and a way of life that soon seems utterly stifling to Frederica. Her small son, Leo, passionately loved by both parents, is soon the only vital element in her existence; and when friends from her former life come calling, and are rudely rebuffed by Nigel, Frederica rebels. When Nigel, ever apologetic, but convinced it is for her own good, starts knocking her about, Frederica flees to London, with Leo clinging to her in desperation. Thereafter, the book is an account of the drawn-out custody battle over Leo, climaxing in a divorce hearing that exquisitely renders the issues of a woman''s independence. More impressively, it is a riveting account of changing mores, as England begins to emerge from its ancient certainties into the shifting priorities, freedoms and follies of the "Swinging Sixties." Among the manifestations of such changes is a book written by an eccentric, Nietzschean acquaintance of Frederica''s-a fantasy, with sado-erotic overtones, about the pleasures and limits of freedom. This book (a reprise of the book-within-a-book device Byatt employed in Possession) becomes the focus of another court case when its author is prosecuted for obscenity. Through the two cases (which leap from the page much more enthrallingly, convincingly and thought-provokingly than most legal thrillers) Byatt represents a whole society trying to come to terms with new values. The narrative is mesmerisingly readable, except for long excerpts from Babbletower, the prosecuted novel, and Frederica''s own rather hermetic attempts at self-expression-though even these are perfectly believable in their own right. In many ways, this is a book about language, and how it is used to conceal and reveal (there is a wonderfuly satirical subplot about a commission examining English educational methods). But it also employs language, brilliantly, to create a large cast of characters whose struggles, anxieties and small triumphs are at once specific to a time and place, and universal. Simultaneous Random AudioBook; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal Against the heady backdrop of the swinging Sixties, Byatt''s sprawling new novel contrasts the hopefulness of the era of youth, drugs, and rock''n''roll with the cynicism engendered by the Cuban Missile Crisis, early nuclear warning systems, and the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. At the dawning of the new feminist age, Frederica, a Cambridge-educated intellectual, finds herself in a stifling marriage to Nigel River, confined to his country estate and caring for her small son in the company of a severe housekeeper and hostile sisters-in-law. She finally bolts the oppressive household and her increasingly violent husband for London, where she takes refuge with understanding friends and in writing and teaching. Among her new acquaintances is Jude Mason, a troubled recluse, who is the author of "Babel Tower," the novel within this novel. Both stories portray a group of idealists intent on exploring the notion of freedom in a new world order. For Byatt''s many fans who have been waiting for a follow-up novel as rich, intense, and multilayered as the prize-winning Possession (LJ 11/1/90), the wait is over. Highly recommended.?Barbara Love, Kingston P.L., Ontario
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. The New York Times Book Review, Ann Hulbert Chronicling a cultural watershed, Ms. Byatt has tackled a very large--and yet also a notably self-reflexive--subject: What exactly can a novel hope to do these days? She shows her usual impressive command of slippery ideas and the solidest of details.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From The Boston Review This hugely ambitious novel, the third volume of a projected tetralogy, continues the tale of Frederica Potter, erstwhile Yorkshire schoolgirl and Cambridge undergraduate, now immured in her villainous husband''s "moated grange," by returning her in a harrowing escape to the London world of letters where she must make her way as lecturer, reviewer, and single mother. But it is even more a tale of the 1960''s and, above all, an exploration of language, its powers and its limitations. Accordingly Byatt intersperses Frederica''s story and its host of voices with extended sections of a novel, "Bsabbletower," transcripts of the obscenity trial that it occasions, transcripts of Frederica''s divorce and child custody trials, and selections from her "laminations" or commonplace book. In the ''60s, as Byatt evokes them in almost overwhelming profusion, the traditional limits of decency and discourse are explored, strained, shattered. . . and babble reigns. Future historians will be grateful for her lavish portrait. Present readers will be gratified.
Copyright © 1996, Boston Review. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From AudioFile A. S. Byatt wows audiences again. Frederica''s agonizing personal life merges with the angst-ridden literary world of the 1960''s as she tries to make a life for herself after divorce in the midst of a lawsuit against an "obscene" book on which she''s working. BABEL TOWER has a large and diverse cast, which Eileen Atkins handles with aplomb. Even beyond her command of varying accents of the British Isles, she conveys the ever-present, undulating hysteria of Frederica; the gruffness of her abusive husband; the delightful foppishness of Jude, author of the chastised book. In all, this entertaining audiobook is a feast of fine content and presentation. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist Byatt is phenomenal; words seem to flow from her fingertips as effortlessly as leaves emerge from branches, but, like nature, there is nothing simple about her verdancy. She has perfected the art of combining the trite plot lines of romance with lush intellectual and cultural analysis. Her newest novel, which follows two delectable shorter works,
Angels & Insects (1993) (the basis for a new film) and the stunning
The Matisse Stories , is the third volume in a projected quartet that includes
The Virgin in the Garden (1979) and
Still Life (1985), and it''s the wildest yet. Byatt''s aristocratic heroine, Frederica, regrets her marriage to Nigel, a wealthy bluebeard who becomes so enraged over her Cambridge friends (all men) that he goes after her with an ax. Frederica flees under the cover of a suitably misty night, her son Leo clinging to her with an anima insistence. Eager to return to the literary life, she teaches part time and reads manuscripts for a publisher, including a bizarre, Marquis de Sade^-like novel entitled
Babbletower, a work eventually deemed obscene by the courts. Byatt interrupts her central narrative with excerpts from this lurid tale, as well as a host of other alternative texts, all aimed at expressing her observations on language, sexual mores, pornography, and the gestalt of the "swinging sixties," the novel''s time frame. Extravagantly clever, Byatt entertains on a grand, even maddening scale, but her prose is both impeccable and sexy, her perspicacity astonishing.
Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Kirkus Reviews An ambitious, intelligent work that, while aiming to get Britain''s swinging ''60s down pat, unfortunately scants the usual fictional elements, putting in their place a mordant and always perceptive historical critique. This third installment in Byatt''s planned quartet (after The Virgin in the Garden, 1979; Still Life, 1985) is set in that small, cozy Brit world where everyone knows everyone else because they''ve all been to prep school or Oxbridge together. They''re insular people, smug about their politics, their unbelief, and their intellectual acumen, which, paradoxically perhaps, makes them particularly vulnerable to change. In 1964, as the story begins, Frederica, married to Nigel and the mother of four-year-old Leo, wants to put her Cambridge English degree to use. But Nigel, a quick-tempered male chauvinist, won''t hear of it, of course, so after he''s roughed her up a couple of times, Frederica flees with Leo to London. There, old Cambridge pals find work for her, and she begins to make a life. Revolution, however, is in the air: Students test the limits, drugs are omnipresent, grammar is under assault, the environment is polluted, nuclear war threatens, and sexual freedom is a given--all of which is crystallized in a work of fiction, Babbletower: A Tale for the Children of Our Time, that Frederica reads for a publisher and recommends. Written by Jude, a homeless vagrant with a pedigree, the novel--chapters of which are excerpted here--graphically describes a dystopia where freedom has reached its ultimate and nihilistic limits. Clever, with moments of wit and insight, but a somewhat lumbering dance to the music of time. Not Byatt''s best. --
Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
