The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 8 October 2007
by A. S. Byatt
Frederica Potter was the heroine of Byatt's Babel Tower (or one of the heroes). Here, her story continues, her thread tying together a sprawling tale of late 1960s countercultural England. Frederica is now dabbling in the early days of chatshow television, playing the host of an intellectual discussion group. She is having an affair with John Ottokar, who also appeared in Babel Tower, and who, early in the novel, leaves Frederica to take a job way up at North Yorkshire University (UNY). Meanwhile, Joshua Ramsden is released from a mental institution to partake in an innovative therapeutical community. Ramsden, whose story takes up a long dark passage in the book, is quite nuts, a result of his disturbing childhood mixed up with murder and religion. He goes on to dominate the group, morphing it into a cult. John Ottokar's twin brother Paul, who likes to be called Zag, joins the cult. At the university, the Chancellor's wife joins Ramsden's cult, as well, but also participates in a smelly hippie "anti-university" where she teaches astrology as part of a countercultural revolution against the staid traditions of UNY. There is going to be a Mind-Body conference at the university, too, and a couple of controversial figures have been invited to give lectures. Follow all of this so far? Throughout the book, dozens of characters weave through the various plots, tying the story together with their actions, and with the several philosophical and cultural threads on which Byatt hangs her story, some of which is taut and compelling, some of which is meandering and dense. Byatt seems to be putting together here several concepts of family or social unit. We have Frederica and Agatha and their children living in one house together. Ramsden's own family has collapsed, but he heads the family of his Manichaean cult after living within the family of an institution. The hippies of the anti-university are a family of sorts, as is the culture of the univeristy itself. And couples pair off and separate, finding their way through life by forming tiny knots of family themselves. Through them, Byatt explores the nature of our lives (or those in the late 60s), how thought and feeling spring from physical or spiritual processes. The nature of thought in an iconoclastic era. And the paths we take, based on our history, toward our various goals of cultural and spiritual satisfaction. The book casts a wide net over characters and ideas. Frederica often falls far into the background, and the character we know the best turns out to be insane Joshua Ramsden, starving himself into the novel's climactic scenes. At points the story and its philosophy are overwhelming, but there's a strong forward motion to Byatt's writing. At other times, the story is insightful and poetic. A broad conglomeration of ideas and events.
Also by Byatt: [Babel Tower] [The Matisse Stories]