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A review by marathonreader
Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"'I only get angry because I love you. You are here because I do love you, Frederica.' He has learned what a surprising number of men never learn, the strategic importance of those words... Much of what he says, Frederica has noticed without yet thinking about it, is dictated by the glaze of language that slides over and obscures the surface of the world he moves in, a language that is quite sure what certain things are... Language in this world is for keeping things safe in their places" (40-41)
A woman's husband, in a fit of anger, chases her and chucks an axe at her. She runs away, and her son wants to come with her, and so they flee. She was not allowed anything as a wife, and now she returns to her love of school and her friends. She loves academia, and becomes a professor. Her friends are all male. These all irritate her husband to no end.
He also denies he ever threw the axe. His family come to his defence.
This goes to court.
Frederica's friends are mostly male, though she mostly has platonic relationships with them. Some complications in terms of once, long ago, sleeping with each other and another who has a crush on her, but still. She's involved with this other guy, who, as it happens, was one of her students. But of course, all this is used as ammunition in court.
Behind all this, one of her friends, Jude Mason (a play on Hardy's Jude the Obscure) writes a book called Babbeltower that is under fire for basically being immoral. HIs publisher defends him vehemently. We see, if I understood it correctly, passages of this through the narrative; but for my first read, I wasn't reading this part too closely.
Babel Tower is for ANY WOMAN. Particularly any woman who has had to fight for her independence, fight to BE a woman.
I procrastinated writing this review because I don't have the words to due justice to how moved I was by this text, and how grateful I am to have found it and read it and to have it. Perhaps one day I will go through my tags in this book and annotate them in more detail, and then return to flesh out this review.
A woman's husband, in a fit of anger, chases her and chucks an axe at her. She runs away, and her son wants to come with her, and so they flee. She was not allowed anything as a wife, and now she returns to her love of school and her friends. She loves academia, and becomes a professor. Her friends are all male. These all irritate her husband to no end.
He also denies he ever threw the axe. His family come to his defence.
This goes to court.
Frederica's friends are mostly male, though she mostly has platonic relationships with them. Some complications in terms of once, long ago, sleeping with each other and another who has a crush on her, but still. She's involved with this other guy, who, as it happens, was one of her students. But of course, all this is used as ammunition in court.
Behind all this, one of her friends, Jude Mason (a play on Hardy's Jude the Obscure) writes a book called Babbeltower that is under fire for basically being immoral. HIs publisher defends him vehemently. We see, if I understood it correctly, passages of this through the narrative; but for my first read, I wasn't reading this part too closely.
Babel Tower is for ANY WOMAN. Particularly any woman who has had to fight for her independence, fight to BE a woman.
I procrastinated writing this review because I don't have the words to due justice to how moved I was by this text, and how grateful I am to have found it and read it and to have it. Perhaps one day I will go through my tags in this book and annotate them in more detail, and then return to flesh out this review.