Babel Tower.

When A.S. Byatt's novel Possession appeared here in 1990, I doubt many Americans had beard of the English writer. But in fact, when Byatt wrote that Booker Prize-winning work she was hardly a new author. In addition to literary criticism, she had previously published five works of fiction, including The Virgin in the Garden (1978) and Still Life (1985), the first two novels in a planned quartet. Babel Tower is the third.

This series centers on Frederica Potter, an intelligent, intellectual, self-important young woman who comes of age in Yorkshire and at Cambridge University in the first two volumes. Like all of Byatt's work, these early novels are infused with ideas; she …