Not as brilliant as I thought it was going to be, 31 Oct 2008
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it was a man booker prize winner and I have always been an avid reader of the runners up and winners and usually been impressed. Sadly I was disappointed. I felt JB concentrated more on the lengthy chunks of prose, describing things in great detail with a plot as an afterthought. His prose was like poetry and some of it very beautiful. The plot had a bizarre twist and was trying to compete with an 'Ian McEwan'type novel. Together it just did not work. Well written but not well crafted.

There is more to this than meets the eye, 25 Oct 2008
The Sea is a very odd little book. On the surface, it is very simple. An elderly man, Max Morden (Morbid - geddit?), revisits the dingy little town where he grew up, recalling his relationship with an odd family that holidayed there, and the recent death of his wife.

On my first reading, I found the novel disappointing. I am a Banville fan. I've read several of his books, and this has given me a sense for what he is about. Even so, The Sea seemed weak at first encounter. I imagine that readers drawn to him for the first time, perhaps seduced by the MAN Booker prize award, will be deeply perplexed as to what is going on.

Banville's books seem to be connected in a loose sequence, and this is the latest installment. Though the characters all have different names, they are all very similar, progressively aging males. They share an interest in art criticism, though not as creators themselves. This is significant, I feel. These people are all fascinated by the creation of artifice. They are not to be taken at face value.

And all speak with very similar voices. Some people find Banville's dense language off-putting. I've read enough of his work to say - I THINK - that this stuffy, affected tone is a deliberate ploy on his part, not merely him being monotonous. His characters use language as a shield or a disguise - often shielding themselves from themselves as from the outside. But when Max faces up to his grie in The Sea, he expresses it in short and brutally obscene spurts of grief.

So, what of the book itself? On my first reading, I think I fell for Max's trick. The whole novel is an exercise in misdirection, as Max tries to focus our attention - and his - on the long dead past. Don't be fooled by him. His grief is raw and deeply felt, but hidden under a miasma of postures and fine words.

Overall, a very effective, subtle novel. It may not be rewarding on a first reading, or to those unfamiliar with Banville's work, but it is worth getting to know.

Perhaps poetry but no plot, 14 Oct 2008
The first thing that struck me as I was reading this on holiday recently was the number of words used that I've never come across before! As an avid reader since childhood this is a bit unsettling. Am I really that illiterate or does John Banville scour his thesaurus looking for unfamiliar language that has the reader scrabbling for the dictionary? I'd genuinely love to know. I'm still not sure what to make of this to be honest. If you're going to read it you may be best forewarned that nothing really happens in it and as mentioned in other reviews it is unashamedly self-indulgent. I haven't read any of John Banville's other books so I've no idea if this is typical of his style, but for me a prize-winning novel should have something compelling about it and this certainly didn't, for all it's verbal posing.

No more Banville for me, 02 Oct 2008
In terms of writing style, Banville is pompous, baroque and wordy. This damages his writing irredeemably. There is an overwhelming sense that Banville is trying to impress you with his vast arsenal of words. Every page hits you with this heavy weight. The over use of unusual adjectives, similes, etc does not make you clever or a good writer. I am not at all convinced that The Sea is good writing, let alone "a work of art" as Banville claimed it was when he won the 2005 Booker. It's a shame because the story and the premise of the Sea was in fact worthy and compelling. This would have been better as a 100 page novella. Really, this 260 page novel would have been vastly improved had someone said listen, all this verbiage is not necessarily beautiful lyrical prose at all, slash it down to 100 pages, less of the outrageous florid nonsense and we'll see if we publish it. The contrast in style between Banville and his fellow Wexford man Colm Toibin could not be starker. Toibin has a deserved reputation as one of the finest novelists writing in English. I am struggling to understand why Banville enjoys the reputation he does.

Oh dear the price of the internal dialogue!, 20 Aug 2008
Imagine you are considering the plot for your next blockbuster novel and after much consideration you settle on the story of an ageing, curmudgeonly academic who has very recently experienced spouse bereavement through a long drawn out cancer. Driven by this riveting idea you set the book against a return visit to the scene of a childhood holiday where the, then pubescent, hero tasted his first salty kiss and revelled in his relationship with a weird family of jolly psychopaths, most notably with their heavily disturbed twins. Indeed as you surmise gentle reader, your publisher would be turning pale at the thought of perpetrating such poetic literary violence against the unsuspecting mass of Oprah Book Club enthusiasts awaiting the Booker Prize longlist. So is 'The Sea' a book for the beach? I fear not. No, better that those dark, narcissistic, internal monologues of poor Max Mordern are read on a bench in the local cemetery, among the stones and under a leaden sky.
For though the prose heaves and flows like the roiling sea itself, and though the master John Banville writes like an angel; dear reader, this is like wading through beautiful, jewel-encrusted, literary, slurry. One of many beautiful quotes from this novel- "We fight in order to be real."

Not as brilliant as I thought it was going to be, 31 Oct 2008
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it was a man booker prize winner and I have always been an avid reader of the runners up and winners and usually been impressed. Sadly I was disappointed. I felt JB concentrated more on the lengthy chunks of prose, describing things in great detail with a plot as an afterthought. His prose was like poetry and some of it very beautiful. The plot had a bizarre twist and was trying to compete with an 'Ian McEwan'type novel. Together it just did not work. Well written but not well crafted.

There is more to this than meets the eye, 25 Oct 2008
The Sea is a very odd little book. On the surface, it is very simple. An elderly man, Max Morden (Morbid - geddit?), revisits the dingy little town where he grew up, recalling his relationship with an odd family that holidayed there, and the recent death of his wife.

On my first reading, I found the novel disappointing. I am a Banville fan. I've read several of his books, and this has given me a sense for what he is about. Even so, The Sea seemed weak at first encounter. I imagine that readers drawn to him for the first time, perhaps seduced by the MAN Booker prize award, will be deeply perplexed as to what is going on.

Banville's books seem to be connected in a loose sequence, and this is the latest installment. Though the characters all have different names, they are all very similar, progressively aging males. They share an interest in art criticism, though not as creators themselves. This is significant, I feel. These people are all fascinated by the creation of artifice. They are not to be taken at face value.

And all speak with very similar voices. Some people find Banville's dense language off-putting. I've read enough of his work to say - I THINK - that this stuffy, affected tone is a deliberate ploy on his part, not merely him being monotonous. His characters use language as a shield or a disguise - often shielding themselves from themselves as from the outside. But when Max faces up to his grie in The Sea, he expresses it in short and brutally obscene spurts of grief.

So, what of the book itself? On my first reading, I think I fell for Max's trick. The whole novel is an exercise in misdirection, as Max tries to focus our attention - and his - on the long dead past. Don't be fooled by him. His grief is raw and deeply felt, but hidden under a miasma of postures and fine words.

Overall, a very effective, subtle novel. It may not be rewarding on a first reading, or to those unfamiliar with Banville's work, but it is worth getting to know.

Perhaps poetry but no plot, 14 Oct 2008
The first thing that struck me as I was reading this on holiday recently was the number of words used that I've never come across before! As an avid reader since childhood this is a bit unsettling. Am I really that illiterate or does John Banville scour his thesaurus looking for unfamiliar language that has the reader scrabbling for the dictionary? I'd genuinely love to know. I'm still not sure what to make of this to be honest. If you're going to read it you may be best forewarned that nothing really happens in it and as mentioned in other reviews it is unashamedly self-indulgent. I haven't read any of John Banville's other books so I've no idea if this is typical of his style, but for me a prize-winning novel should have something compelling about it and this certainly didn't, for all it's verbal posing.

No more Banville for me, 02 Oct 2008
In terms of writing style, Banville is pompous, baroque and wordy. This damages his writing irredeemably. There is an overwhelming sense that Banville is trying to impress you with his vast arsenal of words. Every page hits you with this heavy weight. The over use of unusual adjectives, similes, etc does not make you clever or a good writer. I am not at all convinced that The Sea is good writing, let alone "a work of art" as Banville claimed it was when he won the 2005 Booker. It's a shame because the story and the premise of the Sea was in fact worthy and compelling. This would have been better as a 100 page novella. Really, this 260 page novel would have been vastly improved had someone said listen, all this verbiage is not necessarily beautiful lyrical prose at all, slash it down to 100 pages, less of the outrageous florid nonsense and we'll see if we publish it. The contrast in style between Banville and his fellow Wexford man Colm Toibin could not be starker. Toibin has a deserved reputation as one of the finest novelists writing in English. I am struggling to understand why Banville enjoys the reputation he does.

Oh dear the price of the internal dialogue!, 20 Aug 2008
Imagine you are considering the plot for your next blockbuster novel and after much consideration you settle on the story of an ageing, curmudgeonly academic who has very recently experienced spouse bereavement through a long drawn out cancer. Driven by this riveting idea you set the book against a return visit to the scene of a childhood holiday where the, then pubescent, hero tasted his first salty kiss and revelled in his relationship with a weird family of jolly psychopaths, most notably with their heavily disturbed twins. Indeed as you surmise gentle reader, your publisher would be turning pale at the thought of perpetrating such poetic literary violence against the unsuspecting mass of Oprah Book Club enthusiasts awaiting the Booker Prize longlist. So is 'The Sea' a book for the beach? I fear not. No, better that those dark, narcissistic, internal monologues of poor Max Mordern are read on a bench in the local cemetery, among the stones and under a leaden sky.
For though the prose heaves and flows like the roiling sea itself, and though the master John Banville writes like an angel; dear reader, this is like wading through beautiful, jewel-encrusted, literary, slurry. One of many beautiful quotes from this novel- "We fight in order to be real."

Brilliant, 04 Feb 2008
This is shockingly good writing. I had to slow myself down reading it to savour every page.

A dark, gritty and compelling read., 16 Mar 2007

This is my second Banville, after `The Untouchable', and third if I include `Christine Falls' written under his nom de plume - Benjamin Black. Much comment has been made regarding JB's style and the need for the reader to have a dictionary/thesaurus close at hand to unearth the meaning of a word here and there. I am no exception in that regard; whilst I read widely I do not consider myself to be particularly well-read and yet enjoyed looking up the odd word/expression and found it enhanced the meaning. I also suspect he is having a bit of fun: an example being the description of Montgomery's post-coital state as being `...balanic, ataraxic bliss...'

Lots of words would describe the story: dark, gritty, compelling . All somewhat clichéd and unbanvillian for which I apologise, but a great read nevertheless.

I am delighted to have discovered this author and have no hesitation in giving this book, along with `The Untouchable' a 5-star rating and am looking forward to his others.


A different opinion..., 20 Jan 2006
I'm going to get burned for this review, but...

I hated it. The characters were an inexplicable mix of misfits and pariahs and Banville's contempt for ordinary folk is simply horrid. The turgid plot is dragged along with Mogadon-esque speed towards a predictable, and it felt to me, almost unreachable end. The lead character shows a bi-polar mix of intellectual sophistication and almost insane stupidity and I just felt utterly, utterly bored with his life. What Frederick needed was a good, five to ten minute kicking and a hobby: what a loser.

The prose makes Henry James read like The Beano and Banville is so addicted to his thesaurus that I had to stop every ten minutes to look up some utterly mindless alter word for a milk jug...or gate or something. Even Joyce was more enjoyable than this.

I gleaned nothing from this book and had to read Farewell to Arms again afterwards just to reaffirm my faith in literature. Booker prize nominated? Your 'avin' a larf.

A modern classic, 01 Feb 2002
John Banville is one of the best writers of the twentieth (and hopefully twenty-first!) century. Freddie Montgomery is a monster, but Banville somehow succeeds in winning the reader over, despite the very unorthodox behaviour of his narrator!

He Murdered Her Because He Could, 07 Dec 2000
John Banville's novel, The Book of Evidence, is a short grim first-person narrative by an accused murderer. That narrator, Frederick Montgomery, tells his life story and about his crime as he awaits his trial in jail. Freddie committed two crimes; he stole a Dutch master painting and murdered the maid who caught him in the act. He simply murdered the girl because he was physically able to do so, however, he can only wonder why the painting had moved him so much. Through Freddie, Banville captures both the admirable and the hellish sides of human nature. Frederick speaks of Bunter, the evil side to every human. It was because of Bunter, that he was able to murder the maid. From the beginning, Frederick proclaims his guilt, however, Banville lay's many subtle hints to the whole story being the mere imagination of a madman, as Frederick states in the closing sentence, "True, Inspector? . . . All of it. None of it. Only the shame." In closing, Mr. Banville has accomplished the near impossible; he created a monster the reader could love.

A brilliant, engaging and highly literate espionage-cum-existential novel, John Banville's The Untouchable concerns the suddenly-exposed double agent Victor Maskell, a character based on the real Cambridge intellectual elites who famously spied on the United Kingdom in the middle of the 20th century. But Maskell--scholar, adventurer, soldier, art curator and more--respected and still living in England well past his retirement from espionage, looked like he was going to get away with it when unexpectedly, in his 70s and sick with cancer, he is unmasked. The question of why, and by whom assumes less importance for Maskell than the soul-searching questions of who, ultimately, he really is, why he spied in the first place, and whether his many-faceted existence adds up to an authentic life.

Not as brilliant as I thought it was going to be, 31 Oct 2008
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it was a man booker prize winner and I have always been an avid reader of the runners up and winners and usually been impressed. Sadly I was disappointed. I felt JB concentrated more on the lengthy chunks of prose, describing things in great detail with a plot as an afterthought. His prose was like poetry and some of it very beautiful. The plot had a bizarre twist and was trying to compete with an 'Ian McEwan'type novel. Together it just did not work. Well written but not well crafted.

There is more to this than meets the eye, 25 Oct 2008
The Sea is a very odd little book. On the surface, it is very simple. An elderly man, Max Morden (Morbid - geddit?), revisits the dingy little town where he grew up, recalling his relationship with an odd family that holidayed there, and the recent death of his wife.

On my first reading, I found the novel disappointing. I am a Banville fan. I've read several of his books, and this has given me a sense for what he is about. Even so, The Sea seemed weak at first encounter. I imagine that readers drawn to him for the first time, perhaps seduced by the MAN Booker prize award, will be deeply perplexed as to what is going on.

Banville's books seem to be connected in a loose sequence, and this is the latest installment. Though the characters all have different names, they are all very similar, progressively aging males. They share an interest in art criticism, though not as creators themselves. This is significant, I feel. These people are all fascinated by the creation of artifice. They are not to be taken at face value.

And all speak with very similar voices. Some people find Banville's dense language off-putting. I've read enough of his work to say - I THINK - that this stuffy, affected tone is a deliberate ploy on his part, not merely him being monotonous. His characters use language as a shield or a disguise - often shielding themselves from themselves as from the outside. But when Max faces up to his grie in The Sea, he expresses it in short and brutally obscene spurts of grief.

So, what of the book itself? On my first reading, I think I fell for Max's trick. The whole novel is an exercise in misdirection, as Max tries to focus our attention - and his - on the long dead past. Don't be fooled by him. His grief is raw and deeply felt, but hidden under a miasma of postures and fine words.

Overall, a very effective, subtle novel. It may not be rewarding on a first reading, or to those unfamiliar with Banville's work, but it is worth getting to know.

Perhaps poetry but no plot, 14 Oct 2008
The first thing that struck me as I was reading this on holiday recently was the number of words used that I've never come across before! As an avid reader since childhood this is a bit unsettling. Am I really that illiterate or does John Banville scour his thesaurus looking for unfamiliar language that has the reader scrabbling for the dictionary? I'd genuinely love to know. I'm still not sure what to make of this to be honest. If you're going to read it you may be best forewarned that nothing really happens in it and as mentioned in other reviews it is unashamedly self-indulgent. I haven't read any of John Banville's other books so I've no idea if this is typical of his style, but for me a prize-winning novel should have something compelling about it and this certainly didn't, for all it's verbal posing.

No more Banville for me, 02 Oct 2008
In terms of writing style, Banville is pompous, baroque and wordy. This damages his writing irredeemably. There is an overwhelming sense that Banville is trying to impress you with his vast arsenal of words. Every page hits you with this heavy weight. The over use of unusual adjectives, similes, etc does not make you clever or a good writer. I am not at all convinced that The Sea is good writing, let alone "a work of art" as Banville claimed it was when he won the 2005 Booker. It's a shame because the story and the premise of the Sea was in fact worthy and compelling. This would have been better as a 100 page novella. Really, this 260 page novel would have been vastly improved had someone said listen, all this verbiage is not necessarily beautiful lyrical prose at all, slash it down to 100 pages, less of the outrageous florid nonsense and we'll see if we publish it. The contrast in style between Banville and his fellow Wexford man Colm Toibin could not be starker. Toibin has a deserved reputation as one of the finest novelists writing in English. I am struggling to understand why Banville enjoys the reputation he does.

Oh dear the price of the internal dialogue!, 20 Aug 2008
Imagine you are considering the plot for your next blockbuster novel and after much consideration you settle on the story of an ageing, curmudgeonly academic who has very recently experienced spouse bereavement through a long drawn out cancer. Driven by this riveting idea you set the book against a return visit to the scene of a childhood holiday where the, then pubescent, hero tasted his first salty kiss and revelled in his relationship with a weird family of jolly psychopaths, most notably with their heavily disturbed twins. Indeed as you surmise gentle reader, your publisher would be turning pale at the thought of perpetrating such poetic literary violence against the unsuspecting mass of Oprah Book Club enthusiasts awaiting the Booker Prize longlist. So is 'The Sea' a book for the beach? I fear not. No, better that those dark, narcissistic, internal monologues of poor Max Mordern are read on a bench in the local cemetery, among the stones and under a leaden sky.
For though the prose heaves and flows like the roiling sea itself, and though the master John Banville writes like an angel; dear reader, this is like wading through beautiful, jewel-encrusted, literary, slurry. One of many beautiful quotes from this novel- "We fight in order to be real."

Brilliant, 04 Feb 2008
This is shockingly good writing. I had to slow myself down reading it to savour every page.

A dark, gritty and compelling read., 16 Mar 2007

This is my second Banville, after `The Untouchable', and third if I include `Christine Falls' written under his nom de plume - Benjamin Black. Much comment has been made regarding JB's style and the need for the reader to have a dictionary/thesaurus close at hand to unearth the meaning of a word here and there. I am no exception in that regard; whilst I read widely I do not consider myself to be particularly well-read and yet enjoyed looking up the odd word/expression and found it enhanced the meaning. I also suspect he is having a bit of fun: an example being the description of Montgomery's post-coital state as being `...balanic, ataraxic bliss...'

Lots of words would describe the story: dark, gritty, compelling . All somewhat clichéd and unbanvillian for which I apologise, but a great read nevertheless.

I am delighted to have discovered this author and have no hesitation in giving this book, along with `The Untouchable' a 5-star rating and am looking forward to his others.


A different opinion..., 20 Jan 2006
I'm going to get burned for this review, but...

I hated it. The characters were an inexplicable mix of misfits and pariahs and Banville's contempt for ordinary folk is simply horrid. The turgid plot is dragged along with Mogadon-esque speed towards a predictable, and it felt to me, almost unreachable end. The lead character shows a bi-polar mix of intellectual sophistication and almost insane stupidity and I just felt utterly, utterly bored with his life. What Frederick needed was a good, five to ten minute kicking and a hobby: what a loser.

The prose makes Henry James read like The Beano and Banville is so addicted to his thesaurus that I had to stop every ten minutes to look up some utterly mindless alter word for a milk jug...or gate or something. Even Joyce was more enjoyable than this.

I gleaned nothing from this book and had to read Farewell to Arms again afterwards just to reaffirm my faith in literature. Booker prize nominated? Your 'avin' a larf.

A modern classic, 01 Feb 2002
John Banville is one of the best writers of the twentieth (and hopefully twenty-first!) century. Freddie Montgomery is a monster, but Banville somehow succeeds in winning the reader over, despite the very unorthodox behaviour of his narrator!

He Murdered Her Because He Could, 07 Dec 2000
John Banville's novel, The Book of Evidence, is a short grim first-person narrative by an accused murderer. That narrator, Frederick Montgomery, tells his life story and about his crime as he awaits his trial in jail. Freddie committed two crimes; he stole a Dutch master painting and murdered the maid who caught him in the act. He simply murdered the girl because he was physically able to do so, however, he can only wonder why the painting had moved him so much. Through Freddie, Banville captures both the admirable and the hellish sides of human nature. Frederick speaks of Bunter, the evil side to every human. It was because of Bunter, that he was able to murder the maid. From the beginning, Frederick proclaims his guilt, however, Banville lay's many subtle hints to the whole story being the mere imagination of a madman, as Frederick states in the closing sentence, "True, Inspector? . . . All of it. None of it. Only the shame." In closing, Mr. Banville has accomplished the near impossible; he created a monster the reader could love.

Tiresome, 19 Jan 2008
The characters of Victor Maskell aka Anthony Blunt and all his arrogant mates are so deeply unsympathetic, that after the first hundred pages the story turns tedious. Banville is a brilliant writer but the verbal fireworks give no warmth. One senses him plodding through the true story of Anthony Blunt which at certain point simply gets boring. I understood the mechanism of the 'how' these Cambridge students became involved in the spy ring, but I really didn't understand the 'why.' Unless I am to understand that the why is something monstrous, and in that case, Banville has managed to make this emptiness at the core a tedious thing to contemplate. However, I suspect the author fell in love with his subject, and therefore allows himself some pompous pathos now and then -- equally tedious! I'd say if you are fascinated by the Cambridge spies, you will definitely want to read this book, but otherwise.. I will be hard pressed to read another book by Banville after this one.

The Cambridge camp, 05 May 2007
I haven't read the biographies of the people this novel includes under fictional names but as someone interested in spies and in the nineteen thirties and forties this seemed to me an utterly convincing romp described through of a bitter, disillusioned and highly camp and mannered Maskell/Blunt. What makes it for me is the almost casual, amateurish, shallow, damaged and often comical nature of those who populated the world of the Cambridge spies and their Soviet masters which I think is a useful counter to more the dark and serious le Carre mode with its master spies and seriousness. An entertaining and yet profound read about that well worked theme betrayal but here give new life and interest.

Perplexing Magic, 23 Nov 2005
I enjoyed this book tremendously. The character of Victor Maskell (the "mask" in Maskell representing a persona of Anthony Blunt) is complex and believable; the story is suspenseful, and Banville's prose can only be described as both luminous and effortless: "A huge, bone-white moon hung above the prostrate sea, and the ship's wake flashed and writhed like a great silver rope unravelling behind us." [p. 57]

And yet, since I have read biographies of Anthony Blunt and Louis MacNeice's autobiographical "The Strings are False" (not to mention every available book on the Cambridge Spies), I feel rather like Dorothy of Oz, who has glimpsed "that man behind the curtain" who should be ignored, if the magic is to be believed.

Those who have not read the literature on the Cambridge Spies will enjoy the book without reservation. Those who have will discover that "The Untouchable" represents a fascinating roman à clef. The boisterous Boy Bannister, who haunts the Gryphon [read Gargoyle] club, can only be Guy Burgess; Philip MacLeish, the "dour Scot" code named Castor [read Homer] can only represent Donald Maclean. Other characters are more equivocal. For instance, one detects a bit of MacNeice not only in Maskell but also in the character of Nick Brevoort. Furthermore, Banville's use of names of actual people who figured in Blunt's real Cambridge life (e.g. Leo, Victor, Sykes, Alistair) as ingredients mixed into his narrative, from which they emerge reborn into new characters, contributes to the verisimilitude of Maskell's character. Except for Boy Bannister, however, the other spies are composites. For instance, Alistair Sykes (who seems to be puffing on Kim Philby's pipe) is given a job at what passes for Bletchley Park, and he suffers Alan Turing's tragic demise. One is not so naïve, however, as to suppose that any resemblance between the "department" bureaucrat Querell, who finds Catholicism and writes "The Orient Express," the first of many "overrated Balkan thrillers" [p. 76], and SIS officer Graham Greene, who underwent a similar religious enlightenment and wrote "Stamboul Express," is strictly coincidental.

In Victor Maskell, Banville has portrayed a tragic anti-hero, grafting the life and persona of poet Louis MacNeice onto that of the art historian and (need one mention?) Soviet agent Anthony Blunt; both of their fathers were clergymen. Furthermore, Banvile has given Victor Maskell not only MacNeice's mentally challenged brother but also his stepmother, and his domineering governess; he has likewise provided him with MacNeice's Irish nationality, and he has even given him MacNeice's wife, Mariette, whom we meet in Maskell's wife, the enigmatically perverse "Vivienne." Banville also takes Maskell and Brevoort on a pre-war trip to Spain, a journey that Blunt actually took with Louis MacNeice. Banville's literary transplant, however, results in a beautifully rounded characterization that Blunt, whose personality was severely compartmentalized, could never have hoped to achieve in real life. Since MacNeice and Blunt were such close friends at Marlborough School, one can only imagine that as far as the character of Victor Maskell is concerned, Anthony Blunt would have been rather pleased with Banville's finished product.

An "anquished, seething in the heart.", 21 Oct 2003
Victor Maskell takes us step by (often debauched) step through what passes for his life. Maskell, a thinly disguised Anthony Blunt, is one of several by now well-known Cambridge spies from the thirties and forties. Banville vividly recreates not only the political and social turmoil of the period but also the intellectual experimentation and the search for values spawned by these turbulent times.

The depiction of decadence, drunkenness, sexual depravity, and social snobbery, combined with intellectual arrogance and political naivete, all show the reader how someone could have been seduced into becoming a willing spy. Though it is difficult to feel any real sympathy for Maskell, one can understand his need for significance--for something bigger in his life--and equally, his eventual need to reject that role. In prose that is astonishing in its facility and virtuosity, Banville sweeps away the fustiness of previous journalistic accounts of the Cambridge spies and creates flawed, breathing humans. Mary Whipple

A fine piece of biographical fiction, 16 Jan 2002
I don't know what the official name of this genre is, probably general fiction. But there is no doubt that this is the story of the Cambridge spy ring as told in the words of Anthony Blunt - the fourth man. I spent most of this book trying to identify the characters who represented Maclean and Philby. I have to say I enjoyed this novel and was intrigued by Banville's technique of using fiction to explain and elaborate on the few facts that are known of the fifty years that the group passed British and American secrets to the soviets.

Not as brilliant as I thought it was going to be, 31 Oct 2008
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it was a man booker prize winner and I have always been an avid reader of the runners up and winners and usually been impressed. Sadly I was disappointed. I felt JB concentrated more on the lengthy chunks of prose, describing things in great detail with a plot as an afterthought. His prose was like poetry and some of it very beautiful. The plot had a bizarre twist and was trying to compete with an 'Ian McEwan'type novel. Together it just did not work. Well written but not well crafted.

There is more to this than meets the eye, 25 Oct 2008
The Sea is a very odd little book. On the surface, it is very simple. An elderly man, Max Morden (Morbid - geddit?), revisits the dingy little town where he grew up, recalling his relationship with an odd family that holidayed there, and the recent death of his wife.

On my first reading, I found the novel disappointing. I am a Banville fan. I've read several of his books, and this has given me a sense for what he is about. Even so, The Sea seemed weak at first encounter. I imagine that readers drawn to him for the first time, perhaps seduced by the MAN Booker prize award, will be deeply perplexed as to what is going on.

Banville's books seem to be connected in a loose sequence, and this is the latest installment. Though the characters all have different names, they are all very similar, progressively aging males. They share an interest in art criticism, though not as creators themselves. This is significant, I feel. These people are all fascinated by the creation of artifice. They are not to be taken at face value.

And all speak with very similar voices. Some people find Banville's dense language off-putting. I've read enough of his work to say - I THINK - that this stuffy, affected tone is a deliberate ploy on his part, not merely him being monotonous. His characters use language as a shield or a disguise - often shielding themselves from themselves as from the outside. But when Max faces up to his grie in The Sea, he expresses it in short and brutally obscene spurts of grief.

So, what of the book itself? On my first reading, I think I fell for Max's trick. The whole novel is an exercise in misdirection, as Max tries to focus our attention - and his - on the long dead past. Don't be fooled by him. His grief is raw and deeply felt, but hidden under a miasma of postures and fine words.

Overall, a very effective, subtle novel. It may not be rewarding on a first reading, or to those unfamiliar with Banville's work, but it is worth getting to know.

Perhaps poetry but no plot, 14 Oct 2008
The first thing that struck me as I was reading this on holiday recently was the number of words used that I've never come across before! As an avid reader since childhood this is a bit unsettling. Am I really that illiterate or does John Banville scour his thesaurus looking for unfamiliar language that has the reader scrabbling for the dictionary? I'd genuinely love to know. I'm still not sure what to make of this to be honest. If you're going to read it you may be best forewarned that nothing really happens in it and as mentioned in other reviews it is unashamedly self-indulgent. I haven't read any of John Banville's other books so I've no idea if this is typical of his style, but for me a prize-winning novel should have something compelling about it and this certainly didn't, for all it's verbal posing.

No more Banville for me, 02 Oct 2008
In terms of writing style, Banville is pompous, baroque and wordy. This damages his writing irredeemably. There is an overwhelming sense that Banville is trying to impress you with his vast arsenal of words. Every page hits you with this heavy weight. The over use of unusual adjectives, similes, etc does not make you clever or a good writer. I am not at all convinced that The Sea is good writing, let alone "a work of art" as Banville claimed it was when he won the 2005 Booker. It's a shame because the story and the premise of the Sea was in fact worthy and compelling. This would have been better as a 100 page novella. Really, this 260 page novel would have been vastly improved had someone said listen, all this verbiage is not necessarily beautiful lyrical prose at all, slash it down to 100 pages, less of the outrageous florid nonsense and we'll see if we publish it. The contrast in style between Banville and his fellow Wexford man Colm Toibin could not be starker. Toibin has a deserved reputation as one of the finest novelists writing in English. I am struggling to understand why Banville enjoys the reputation he does.

Oh dear the price of the internal dialogue!, 20 Aug 2008
Imagine you are considering the plot for your next blockbuster novel and after much consideration you settle on the story of an ageing, curmudgeonly academic who has very recently experienced spouse bereavement through a long drawn out cancer. Driven by this riveting idea you set the book against a return visit to the scene of a childhood holiday where the, then pubescent, hero tasted his first salty kiss and revelled in his relationship with a weird family of jolly psychopaths, most notably with their heavily disturbed twins. Indeed as you surmise gentle reader, your publisher would be turning pale at the thought of perpetrating such poetic literary violence against the unsuspecting mass of Oprah Book Club enthusiasts awaiting the Booker Prize longlist. So is 'The Sea' a book for the beach? I fear not. No, better that those dark, narcissistic, internal monologues of poor Max Mordern are read on a bench in the local cemetery, among the stones and under a leaden sky.
For though the prose heaves and flows like the roiling sea itself, and though the master John Banville writes like an angel; dear reader, this is like wading through beautiful, jewel-encrusted, literary, slurry. One of many beautiful quotes from this novel- "We fight in order to be real."

Brilliant, 04 Feb 2008
This is shockingly good writing. I had to slow myself down reading it to savour every page.

A dark, gritty and compelling read., 16 Mar 2007

This is my second Banville, after `The Untouchable', and third if I include `Christine Falls' written under his nom de plume - Benjamin Black. Much comment has been made regarding JB's style and the need for the reader to have a dictionary/thesaurus close at hand to unearth the meaning of a word here and there. I am no exception in that regard; whilst I read widely I do not consider myself to be particularly well-read and yet enjoyed looking up the odd word/expression and found it enhanced the meaning. I also suspect he is having a bit of fun: an example being the description of Montgomery's post-coital state as being `...balanic, ataraxic bliss...'

Lots of words would describe the story: dark, gritty, compelling . All somewhat clichéd and unbanvillian for which I apologise, but a great read nevertheless.

I am delighted to have discovered this author and have no hesitation in giving this book, along with `The Untouchable' a 5-star rating and am looking forward to his others.


A different opinion..., 20 Jan 2006
I'm going to get burned for this review, but...

I hated it. The characters were an inexplicable mix of misfits and pariahs and Banville's contempt for ordinary folk is simply horrid. The turgid plot is dragged along with Mogadon-esque speed towards a predictable, and it felt to me, almost unreachable end. The lead character shows a bi-polar mix of intellectual sophistication and almost insane stupidity and I just felt utterly, utterly bored with his life. What Frederick needed was a good, five to ten minute kicking and a hobby: what a loser.

The prose makes Henry James read like The Beano and Banville is so addicted to his thesaurus that I had to stop every ten minutes to look up some utterly mindless alter word for a milk jug...or gate or something. Even Joyce was more enjoyable than this.

I gleaned nothing from this book and had to read Farewell to Arms again afterwards just to reaffirm my faith in literature. Booker prize nominated? Your 'avin' a larf.

A modern classic, 01 Feb 2002
John Banville is one of the best writers of the twentieth (and hopefully twenty-first!) century. Freddie Montgomery is a monster, but Banville somehow succeeds in winning the reader over, despite the very unorthodox behaviour of his narrator!

He Murdered Her Because He Could, 07 Dec 2000
John Banville's novel, The Book of Evidence, is a short grim first-person narrative by an accused murderer. That narrator, Frederick Montgomery, tells his life story and about his crime as he awaits his trial in jail. Freddie committed two crimes; he stole a Dutch master painting and murdered the maid who caught him in the act. He simply murdered the girl because he was physically able to do so, however, he can only wonder why the painting had moved him so much. Through Freddie, Banville captures both the admirable and the hellish sides of human nature. Frederick speaks of Bunter, the evil side to every human. It was because of Bunter, that he was able to murder the maid. From the beginning, Frederick proclaims his guilt, however, Banville lay's many subtle hints to the whole story being the mere imagination of a madman, as Frederick states in the closing sentence, "True, Inspector? . . . All of it. None of it. Only the shame." In closing, Mr. Banville has accomplished the near impossible; he created a monster the reader could love.

Tiresome, 19 Jan 2008
The characters of Victor Maskell aka Anthony Blunt and all his arrogant mates are so deeply unsympathetic, that after the first hundred pages the story turns tedious. Banville is a brilliant writer but the verbal fireworks give no warmth. One senses him plodding through the true story of Anthony Blunt which at certain point simply gets boring. I understood the mechanism of the 'how' these Cambridge students became involved in the spy ring, but I really didn't understand the 'why.' Unless I am to understand that the why is something monstrous, and in that case, Banville has managed to make this emptiness at the core a tedious thing to contemplate. However, I suspect the author fell in love with his subject, and therefore allows himself some pompous pathos now and then -- equally tedious! I'd say if you are fascinated by the Cambridge spies, you will definitely want to read this book, but otherwise.. I will be hard pressed to read another book by Banville after this one.

The Cambridge camp, 05 May 2007
I haven't read the biographies of the people this novel includes under fictional names but as someone interested in spies and in the nineteen thirties and forties this seemed to me an utterly convincing romp described through of a bitter, disillusioned and highly camp and mannered Maskell/Blunt. What makes it for me is the almost casual, amateurish, shallow, damaged and often comical nature of those who populated the world of the Cambridge spies and their Soviet masters which I think is a useful counter to more the dark and serious le Carre mode with its master spies and seriousness. An entertaining and yet profound read about that well worked theme betrayal but here give new life and interest.

Perplexing Magic, 23 Nov 2005
I enjoyed this book tremendously. The character of Victor Maskell (the "mask" in Maskell representing a persona of Anthony Blunt) is complex and believable; the story is suspenseful, and Banville's prose can only be described as both luminous and effortless: "A huge, bone-white moon hung above the prostrate sea, and the ship's wake flashed and writhed like a great silver rope unravelling behind us." [p. 57]

And yet, since I have read biographies of Anthony Blunt and Louis MacNeice's autobiographical "The Strings are False" (not to mention every available book on the Cambridge Spies), I feel rather like Dorothy of Oz, who has glimpsed "that man behind the curtain" who should be ignored, if the magic is to be believed.

Those who have not read the literature on the Cambridge Spies will enjoy the book without reservation. Those who have will discover that "The Untouchable" represents a fascinating roman à clef. The boisterous Boy Bannister, who haunts the Gryphon [read Gargoyle] club, can only be Guy Burgess; Philip MacLeish, the "dour Scot" code named Castor [read Homer] can only represent Donald Maclean. Other characters are more equivocal. For instance, one detects a bit of MacNeice not only in Maskell but also in the character of Nick Brevoort. Furthermore, Banville's use of names of actual people who figured in Blunt's real Cambridge life (e.g. Leo, Victor, Sykes, Alistair) as ingredients mixed into his narrative, from which they emerge reborn into new characters, contributes to the verisimilitude of Maskell's character. Except for Boy Bannister, however, the other spies are composites. For instance, Alistair Sykes (who seems to be puffing on Kim Philby's pipe) is given a job at what passes for Bletchley Park, and he suffers Alan Turing's tragic demise. One is not so naïve, however, as to suppose that any resemblance between the "department" bureaucrat Querell, who finds Catholicism and writes "The Orient Express," the first of many "overrated Balkan thrillers" [p. 76], and SIS officer Graham Greene, who underwent a similar religious enlightenment and wrote "Stamboul Express," is strictly coincidental.

In Victor Maskell, Banville has portrayed a tragic anti-hero, grafting the life and persona of poet Louis MacNeice onto that of the art historian and (need one mention?) Soviet agent Anthony Blunt; both of their fathers were clergymen. Furthermore, Banvile has given Victor Maskell not only MacNeice's mentally challenged brother but also his stepmother, and his domineering governess; he has likewise provided him with MacNeice's Irish nationality, and he has even given him MacNeice's wife, Mariette, whom we meet in Maskell's wife, the enigmatically perverse "Vivienne." Banville also takes Maskell and Brevoort on a pre-war trip to Spain, a journey that Blunt actually took with Louis MacNeice. Banville's literary transplant, however, results in a beautifully rounded characterization that Blunt, whose personality was severely compartmentalized, could never have hoped to achieve in real life. Since MacNeice and Blunt were such close friends at Marlborough School, one can only imagine that as far as the character of Victor Maskell is concerned, Anthony Blunt would have been rather pleased with Banville's finished product.

An "anquished, seething in the heart.", 21 Oct 2003
Victor Maskell takes us step by (often debauched) step through what passes for his life. Maskell, a thinly disguised Anthony Blunt, is one of several by now well-known Cambridge spies from the thirties and forties. Banville vividly recreates not only the political and social turmoil of the period but also the intellectual experimentation and the search for values spawned by these turbulent times.

The depiction of decadence, drunkenness, sexual depravity, and social snobbery, combined with intellectual arrogance and political naivete, all show the reader how someone could have been seduced into becoming a willing spy. Though it is difficult to feel any real sympathy for Maskell, one can understand his need for significance--for something bigger in his life--and equally, his eventual need to reject that role. In prose that is astonishing in its facility and virtuosity, Banville sweeps away the fustiness of previous journalistic accounts of the Cambridge spies and creates flawed, breathing humans. Mary Whipple

A fine piece of biographical fiction, 16 Jan 2002
I don't know what the official name of this genre is, probably general fiction. But there is no doubt that this is the story of the Cambridge spy ring as told in the words of Anthony Blunt - the fourth man. I spent most of this book trying to identify the characters who represented Maclean and Philby. I have to say I enjoyed this novel and was intrigued by Banville's technique of using fiction to explain and elaborate on the few facts that are known of the fifty years that the group passed British and American secrets to the soviets.

Subtle and Impressive, 07 Nov 2007
Unlike other reviewers, I came to 'Ghosts' without knowledge of the previous books. I doubt my enjoyment could have been greater if I had read its predecessors.

'Ghosts' is an imaginative and poetic meditation on repentance and atonement, on self-identity and self-estrangement. It follows the thoughts of an ex-convict released after serving time for murder as he spends his days reforming his tattered existence on a secluded island inhabited by the mysterious 'Professor' and the equally elusive 'Licht'. The nameless narrator experiences a whole tapestry of fleeting emotions and terrors finally culminating in a dream-like retrospective of the day he was released.

Banville's language is, as ever, finely judged but those looking for a traditional plot or character interactions would do better to look elsewhere. Recommended.


It still haunts me, 19 Aug 2001
Less a plot novel than The Book of Evidence (of which it is the sort-of sequel), Ghosts nevertheless has an artistry that neither BOE nor any other book I've read in recent years can touch. The imagery isn't merely beautiful; it is staggering, and the mood that Banville conjures will hold any reader with an imagination.

Book of wonders, 19 Aug 2001
Banville's 'Ghosts' wasn't originally conceived as a sequel to 'The Book of Evidence', but apparently mutated into this whilst being written.

It takes the form of a series of memories and re-interpretations of the main characters past (the ghosts of the title) as he tries (largely without sucess) to figure out the motivations behind both his actions and his very "self".

'Ghosts' is also peopled with characters from Banvilles earlier masterpiece, 'Mephisto', and to read 'Ghosts' without first having read 'Mephisto' and 'The Book of Evidence' would undoubtedly be a severely diminished experience...But to read it in the context of Banvilles other work is to become utterly immersed and seduced by his world.

This is imaginative writing of the very highest order, dripping with wonder and insight, not, perhaps, as immediately exciting as'The Book of Evidence', but ulimately a much deeper and more profound work.

Like all of Banvilles books 'Ghosts' is also tremendously witty. With the author at his most Nabokov-ian numerous passages demand to be read out-loud to anyone within ear-shot!

So, to sum-up, this is one of the best (possibly the very best) works by a writer who stands head and shoulders above all his other other Anglo-Irish literary contemporaries...need I say more?

Think James Joyce...not James Herriot..., 09 Aug 2001
Spectacular dream novel, that, far from being "plotless" uses the framework of (sometimes unreliable) memory to tell the stories of how the characters came to where we now find them.

If you like your works of fiction to be stricly linear and action-based then look elsewhere. If, however, you're more interested in reading one of the world's greatest living writers at the peak of his imaginative powers, and challenging the conventions of story-telling then dive in and be richly rewarded.

This has to be read as part of the trilogy, 05 Feb 2001
This book can appear plotless and extremely confusing. But, if read in context as the central book of Banville's trilogy, then it really works. This trilogy is loosely constructed and has a very clear Beckettian echo - it is not meant to be a linear narrative and the protagonist in all three books is not necessarily the same character; just as Samuel Beckett's central character in 'Molloy', 'Malone Dies' and 'The Unnamable'. Banville writes about art and about 'painting the perfect world': his trilogy illustrates an ideal concept of life and at the same time undermines it very deftly. 'Ghosts' is a painting, which comes together only at the end. I think it is a masterpiece, but it loses out on being read on its own.

John Banville's novels have a reputation for their linguistic flair and carefully observed description. His latest novel, Eclipse, is no exception in this regard. It tells the story of Alexander Cleave, a dramatic actor with "the famous eyes whose flash of fire could penetrate to the very back row of the stalls". Cleave has however recently experienced an actor's ultimate fear--"he died, corpsed in the middle of the last act and staggered off the stage in sweaty ignominy just when the action was coming to its climax".

The impact upon Cleave of the collapse of his acting career is devastating and leads him to reassess his entire life. Looking back on his childhood, he realises that "acting was inevitable. From earliest days life for me was a perpetual state of being watched". Cleave flees to the house in the country where he grew up and, as he sinks into a depressed torpor, he realises that the house is inhabited by both ghosts from the past, as well as more furtive and tangible presences from the moment. Visited by his anguished wife Lydia, and obsessing on his fractured relationship with his academically gifted but disturbed daughter Cass, Cleave reflects with great emotional intensity on "the terror of the self, of letting the self go so far free that one night it might break away".

Eclipse is a beautifully written but dark and introspective novel. It often almost completely dispenses with plot, as Banville (author of Booker short-listed The Book of Evidence to The Untouchable) probes deeper into Cleave's disturbed reflection on his life, his family, his past and his present, all of which culminates in a desolate and unexpected ending. Eclipse is an elegiac, mournful novel, linguistically brilliant but somewhat unrelenting. --Jerry Brotton

Not as brilliant as I thought it was going to be, 31 Oct 2008
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it was a man booker prize winner and I have always been an avid reader of the runners up and winners and usually been impressed. Sadly I was disappointed. I felt JB concentrated more on the lengthy chunks of prose, describing things in great detail with a plot as an afterthought. His prose was like poetry and some of it very beautiful. The plot had a bizarre twist and was trying to compete with an 'Ian McEwan'type novel. Together it just did not work. Well written but not well crafted.

There is more to this than meets the eye, 25 Oct 2008
The Sea is a very odd little book. On the surface, it is very simple. An elderly man, Max Morden (Morbid - geddit?), revisits the dingy little town where he grew up, recalling his relationship with an odd family that holidayed there, and the recent death of his wife.

On my first reading, I found the novel disappointing. I am a Banville fan. I've read several of his books, and this has given me a sense for what he is about. Even so, The Sea seemed weak at first encounter. I imagine that readers drawn to him for the first time, perhaps seduced by the MAN Booker prize award, will be deeply perplexed as to what is going on.

Banville's books seem to be connected in a loose sequence, and this is the latest installment. Though the characters all have different names, they are all very similar, progressively aging males. They share an interest in art criticism, though not as creators themselves. This is significant, I feel. These people are all fascinated by the creation of artifice. They are not to be taken at face value.

And all speak with very similar voices. Some people find Banville's dense language off-putting. I've read enough of his work to say - I THINK - that this stuffy, affected tone is a deliberate ploy on his part, not merely him being monotonous. His characters use language as a shield or a disguise - often shielding themselves from themselves as from the outside. But when Max faces up to his grie in The Sea, he expresses it in short and brutally obscene spurts of grief.

So, what of the book itself? On my first reading, I think I fell for Max's trick. The whole novel is an exercise in misdirection, as Max tries to focus our attention - and his - on the long dead past. Don't be fooled by him. His grief is raw and deeply felt, but hidden under a miasma of postures and fine words.

Overall, a very effective, subtle novel. It may not be rewarding on a first reading, or to those unfamiliar with Banville's work, but it is worth getting to know.

Perhaps poetry but no plot, 14 Oct 2008
The first thing that struck me as I was reading this on holiday recently was the number of words used that I've never come across before! As an avid reader since childhood this is a bit unsettling. Am I really that illiterate or does John Banville scour his thesaurus looking for unfamiliar language that has the reader scrabbling for the dictionary? I'd genuinely love to know. I'm still not sure what to make of this to be honest. If you're going to read it you may be best forewarned that nothing really happens in it and as mentioned in other reviews it is unashamedly self-indulgent. I haven't read any of John Banville's other books so I've no idea if this is typical of his style, but for me a prize-winning novel should have something compelling about it and this certainly didn't, for all it's verbal posing.

No more Banville for me, 02 Oct 2008
In terms of writing style, Banville is pompous, baroque and wordy. This damages his writing irredeemably. There is an overwhelming sense that Banville is trying to impress you with his vast arsenal of words. Every page hits you with this heavy weight. The over use of unusual adjectives, similes, etc does not make you clever or a good writer. I am not at all convinced that The Sea is good writing, let alone "a work of art" as Banville claimed it was when he won the 2005 Booker. It's a shame because the story and the premise of the Sea was in fact worthy and compelling. This would have been better as a 100 page novella. Really, this 260 page novel would have been vastly improved had someone said listen, all this verbiage is not necessarily beautiful lyrical prose at all, slash it down to 100 pages, less of the outrageous florid nonsense and we'll see if we publish it. The contrast in style between Banville and his fellow Wexford man Colm Toibin could not be starker. Toibin has a deserved reputation as one of the finest novelists writing in English. I am struggling to understand why Banville enjoys the reputation he does.

Oh dear the price of the internal dialogue!, 20 Aug 2008
Imagine you are considering the plot for your next blockbuster novel and after much consideration you settle on the story of an ageing, curmudgeonly academic who has very recently experienced spouse bereavement through a long drawn out cancer. Driven by this riveting idea you set the book against a return visit to the scene of a childhood holiday where the, then pubescent, hero tasted his first salty kiss and revelled in his relationship with a weird family of jolly psychopaths, most notably with their heavily disturbed twins. Indeed as you surmise gentle reader, your publisher would be turning pale at the thought of perpetrating such poetic literary violence against the unsuspecting mass of Oprah Book Club enthusiasts awaiting the Booker Prize longlist. So is 'The Sea' a book for the beach? I fear not. No, better that those dark, narcissistic, internal monologues of poor Max Mordern are read on a bench in the local cemetery, among the stones and under a leaden sky.
For though the prose heaves and flows like the roiling sea itself, and though the master John Banville writes like an angel; dear reader, this is like wading through beautiful, jewel-encrusted, literary, slurry. One of many beautiful quotes from this novel- "We fight in order to be real."

Brilliant, 04 Feb 2008
This is shockingly good writing. I had to slow myself down reading it to savour every page.

A dark, gritty and compelling read., 16 Mar 2007

This is my second Banville, after `The Untouchable', and third if I include `Christine Falls' written under his nom de plume - Benjamin Black. Much comment has been made regarding JB's style and the need for the reader to have a dictionary/thesaurus close at hand to unearth the meaning of a word here and there. I am no exception in that regard; whilst I read widely I do not consider myself to be particularly well-read and yet enjoyed looking up the odd word/expression and found it enhanced the meaning. I also suspect he is having a bit of fun: an example being the description of Montgomery's post-coital state as being `...balanic, ataraxic bliss...'

Lots of words would describe the story: dark, gritty, compelling . All somewhat clichéd and unbanvillian for which I apologise, but a great read nevertheless.

I am delighted to have discovered this author and have no hesitation in giving this book, along with `The Untouchable' a 5-star rating and am looking forward to his others.


A different opinion..., 20 Jan 2006
I'm going to get burned for this review, but...

I hated it. The characters were an inexplicable mix of misfits and pariahs and Banville's contempt for ordinary folk is simply horrid. The turgid plot is dragged along with Mogadon-esque speed towards a predictable, and it felt to me, almost unreachable end. The lead character shows a bi-polar mix of intellectual sophistication and almost insane stupidity and I just felt utterly, utterly bored with his life. What Frederick needed was a good, five to ten minute kicking and a hobby: what a loser.

The prose makes Henry James read like The Beano and Banville is so addicted to his thesaurus that I had to stop every ten minutes to look up some utterly mindless alter word for a milk jug...or gate or something. Even Joyce was more enjoyable than this.

I gleaned nothing from this book and had to read Farewell to Arms again afterwards just to reaffirm my faith in literature. Booker prize nominated? Your 'avin' a larf.

A modern classic, 01 Feb 2002
John Banville is one of the best writers of the twentieth (and hopefully twenty-first!) century. Freddie Montgomery is a monster, but Banville somehow succeeds in winning the reader over, despite the very unorthodox behaviour of his narrator!

He Murdered Her Because He Could, 07 Dec 2000
John Banville's novel, The Book of Evidence, is a short grim first-person narrative by an accused murderer. That narrator, Frederick Montgomery, tells his life story and about his crime as he awaits his trial in jail. Freddie committed two crimes; he stole a Dutch master painting and murdered the maid who caught him in the act. He simply murdered the girl because he was physically able to do so, however, he can only wonder why the painting had moved him so much. Through Freddie, Banville captures both the admirable and the hellish sides of human nature. Frederick speaks of Bunter, the evil side to every human. It was because of Bunter, that he was able to murder the maid. From the beginning, Frederick proclaims his guilt, however, Banville lay's many subtle hints to the whole story being the mere imagination of a madman, as Frederick states in the closing sentence, "True, Inspector? . . . All of it. None of it. Only the shame." In closing, Mr. Banville has accomplished the near impossible; he created a monster the reader could love.

Tiresome, 19 Jan 2008
The characters of Victor Maskell aka Anthony Blunt and all his arrogant mates are so deeply unsympathetic, that after the first hundred pages the story turns tedious. Banville is a brilliant writer but the verbal fireworks give no warmth. One senses him plodding through the true story of Anthony Blunt which at certain point simply gets boring. I understood the mechanism of the 'how' these Cambridge students became involved in the spy ring, but I really didn't understand the 'why.' Unless I am to understand that the why is something monstrous, and in that case, Banville has managed to make this emptiness at the core a tedious thing to contemplate. However, I suspect the author fell in love with his subject, and therefore allows himself some pompous pathos now and then -- equally tedious! I'd say if you are fascinated by the Cambridge spies, you will definitely want to read this book, but otherwise.. I will be hard pressed to read another book by Banville after this one.

The Cambridge camp, 05 May 2007
I haven't read the biographies of the people this novel includes under fictional names but as someone interested in spies and in the nineteen thirties and forties this seemed to me an utterly convincing romp described through of a bitter, disillusioned and highly camp and mannered Maskell/Blunt. What makes it for me is the almost casual, amateurish, shallow, damaged and often comical nature of those who populated the world of the Cambridge spies and their Soviet masters which I think is a useful counter to more the dark and serious le Carre mode with its master spies and seriousness. An entertaining and yet profound read about that well worked theme betrayal but here give new life and interest.

Perplexing Magic, 23 Nov 2005
I enjoyed this book tremendously. The character of Victor Maskell (the "mask" in Maskell representing a persona of Anthony Blunt) is complex and believable; the story is suspenseful, and Banville's prose can only be described as both luminous and effortless: "A huge, bone-white moon hung above the prostrate sea, and the ship's wake flashed and writhed like a great silver rope unravelling behind us." [p. 57]

And yet, since I have read biographies of Anthony Blunt and Louis MacNeice's autobiographical "The Strings are False" (not to mention every available book on the Cambridge Spies), I feel rather like Dorothy of Oz, who has glimpsed "that man behind the curtain" who should be ignored, if the magic is to be believed.

Those who have not read the literature on the Cambridge Spies will enjoy the book without reservation. Those who have will discover that "The Untouchable" represents a fascinating roman à clef. The boisterous Boy Bannister, who haunts the Gryphon [read Gargoyle] club, can only be Guy Burgess; Philip MacLeish, the "dour Scot" code named Castor [read Homer] can only represent Donald Maclean. Other characters are more equivocal. For instance, one detects a bit of MacNeice not only in Maskell but also in the character of Nick Brevoort. Furthermore, Banville's use of names of actual people who figured in Blunt's real Cambridge life (e.g. Leo, Victor, Sykes, Alistair) as ingredients mixed into his narrative, from which they emerge reborn into new characters, contributes to the verisimilitude of Maskell's character. Except for Boy Bannister, however, the other spies are composites. For instance, Alistair Sykes (who seems to be puffing on Kim Philby's pipe) is given a job at what passes for Bletchley Park, and he suffers Alan Turing's tragic demise. One is not so naïve, however, as to suppose that any resemblance between the "department" bureaucrat Querell, who finds Catholicism and writes "The Orient Express," the first of many "overrated Balkan thrillers" [p. 76], and SIS officer Graham Greene, who underwent a similar religious enlightenment and wrote "Stamboul Express," is strictly coincidental.

In Victor Maskell, Banville has portrayed a tragic anti-hero, grafting the life and persona of poet Louis MacNeice onto that of the art historian and (need one mention?) Soviet agent Anthony Blunt; both of their fathers were clergymen. Furthermore, Banvile has given Victor Maskell not only MacNeice's mentally challenged brother but also his stepmother, and his domineering governess; he has likewise provided him with MacNeice's Irish nationality, and he has even given him MacNeice's wife, Mariette, whom we meet in Maskell's wife, the enigmatically perverse "Vivienne." Banville also takes Maskell and Brevoort on a pre-war trip to Spain, a journey that Blunt actually took with Louis MacNeice. Banville's literary transplant, however, results in a beautifully rounded characterization that Blunt, whose personality was severely compartmentalized, could never have hoped to achieve in real life. Since MacNeice and Blunt were such close friends at Marlborough School, one can only imagine that as far as the character of Victor Maskell is concerned, Anthony Blunt would have been rather pleased with Banville's finished product.

An "anquished, seething in the heart.", 21 Oct 2003
Victor Maskell takes us step by (often debauched) step through what passes for his life. Maskell, a thinly disguised Anthony Blunt, is one of several by now well-known Cambridge spies from the thirties and forties. Banville vividly recreates not only the political and social turmoil of the period but also the intellectual experimentation and the search for values spawned by these turbulent times.

The depiction of decadence, drunkenness, sexual depravity, and social snobbery, combined with intellectual arrogance and political naivete, all show the reader how someone could have been seduced into becoming a willing spy. Though it is difficult to feel any real sympathy for Maskell, one can understand his need for significance--for something bigger in his life--and equally, his eventual need to reject that role. In prose that is astonishing in its facility and virtuosity, Banville sweeps away the fustiness of previous journalistic accounts of the Cambridge spies and creates flawed, breathing humans. Mary Whipple

A fine piece of biographical fiction, 16 Jan 2002
I don't know what the official name of this genre is, probably general fiction. But there is no doubt that this is the story of the Cambridge spy ring as told in the words of Anthony Blunt - the fourth man. I spent most of this book trying to identify the characters who represented Maclean and Philby. I have to say I enjoyed this novel and was intrigued by Banville's technique of using fiction to explain and elaborate on the few facts that are known of the fifty years that the group passed British and American secrets to the soviets.

Subtle and Impressive, 07 Nov 2007
Unlike other reviewers, I came to 'Ghosts' without knowledge of the previous books. I doubt my enjoyment could have been greater if I had read its predecessors.

'Ghosts' is an imaginative and poetic meditation on repentance and atonement, on self-identity and self-estrangement. It follows the thoughts of an ex-convict released after serving time for murder as he spends his days reforming his tattered existence on a secluded island inhabited by the mysterious 'Professor' and the equally elusive 'Licht'. The nameless narrator experiences a whole tapestry of fleeting emotions and terrors finally culminating in a dream-like retrospective of the day he was released.

Banville's language is, as ever, finely judged but those looking for a traditional plot or character interactions would do better to look elsewhere. Recommended.


It still haunts me, 19 Aug 2001
Less a plot novel than The Book of Evidence (of which it is the sort-of sequel), Ghosts nevertheless has an artistry that neither BOE nor any other book I've read in recent years can touch. The imagery isn't merely beautiful; it is staggering, and the mood that Banville conjures will hold any reader with an imagination.

Book of wonders, 19 Aug 2001
Banville's 'Ghosts' wasn't originally conceived as a sequel to 'The Book of Evidence', but apparently mutated into this whilst being written.

It takes the form of a series of memories and re-interpretations of the main characters past (the ghosts of the title) as he tries (largely without sucess) to figure out the motivations behind both his actions and his very "self".

'Ghosts' is also peopled with characters from Banvilles earlier masterpiece, 'Mephisto', and to read 'Ghosts' without first having read 'Mephisto' and 'The Book of Evidence' would undoubtedly be a severely diminished experience...But to read it in the context of Banvilles other work is to become utterly immersed and seduced by his world.

This is imaginative writing of the very highest order, dripping with wonder and insight, not, perhaps, as immediately exciting as'The Book of Evidence', but ulimately a much deeper and more profound work.

Like all of Banvilles books 'Ghosts' is also tremendously witty. With the author at his most Nabokov-ian numerous passages demand to be read out-loud to anyone within ear-shot!

So, to sum-up, this is one of the best (possibly the very best) works by a writer who stands head and shoulders above all his other other Anglo-Irish literary contemporaries...need I say more?

Think James Joyce...not James Herriot..., 09 Aug 2001
Spectacular dream novel, that, far from being "plotless" uses the framework of (sometimes unreliable) memory to tell the stories of how the characters came to where we now find them.

If you like your works of fiction to be stricly linear and action-based then look elsewhere. If, however, you're more interested in reading one of the world's greatest living writers at the peak of his imaginative powers, and challenging the conventions of story-telling then dive in and be richly rewarded.

This has to be read as part of the trilogy, 05 Feb 2001
This book can appear plotless and extremely confusing. But, if read in context as the central book of Banville's trilogy, then it really works. This trilogy is loosely constructed and has a very clear Beckettian echo - it is not meant to be a linear narrative and the protagonist in all three books is not necessarily the same character; just as Samuel Beckett's central character in 'Molloy', 'Malone Dies' and 'The Unnamable'. Banville writes about art and about 'painting the perfect world': his trilogy illustrates an ideal concept of life and at the same time undermines it very deftly. 'Ghosts' is a painting, which comes together only at the end. I think it is a masterpiece, but it loses out on being read on its own.

Disappointing , 03 Jul 2008
I agree with "A Customer"'s review of Dec 2000. I found this pretty unreadable, which was a big disappoinment given how much I had enjoyed Copernicus. The style was very mannered and the pace too slow, and the voice of Banville which constantly intruded into the narrative was annoyingly smug.

I fear, from the evidence of this novel and a couple of interviews I've read, that money and success have gone to the author's head a la Jeanette Winterson; a flop or two may be needed to bring him back to earth.

Looking Back on Life as Darkness Intrudes, 27 Oct 2007
I was attracted to this book after reading The Sea and feeling the need to better understand this obviously talented author. Eclipse was a fine choice because in many ways its structure is like The Sea. I came away benefiting from a better understanding of Mr. Banville's style and seeing more clearly the methods he used in The Sea to make that book rise above Eclipse.

Anyone who loves beautiful language, vivid imagery and introspection will find this book rewarding. Those who prefer action, lots of plot developments and variety should look elsewhere.

Eclipse is a fine choice for a title of this book -- evoking the many eclipses in Alexander Cleave's life. He's not satisfied with his career as an actor . . . both because he doesn't seem to be able to act any more . . . and because acting keeps him from being himself (whatever that is). In addition, Alexander's relationships with his family are strained, to say the least. Certainly, these could be described as being in eclipse as well. To help get his head together, he goes back to his family home . . . which hasn't been kept up. It's in eclipse, too. While there, he experiences an astronomical eclipse to add to the symmetry. The old home is overcrowded though, with memories, ghosts and visitors. Alexander complains about this to his wife on the telephone, and she responds, "You are your own ghost." It's very Shakespearean. Macbeth seems to be lurking just around the corner.

But after an eclipse, the light does return. If that hope has meaning for you, you'll enjoy Cleave's journey.

Here's a passage of Cleave's musings that will give you a sense of the book: "Life, life is always a surprise. Just when you think you have got the hang of it, have learned your part to perfection, someone in the cast will take it into her head to start improvising, and the whole . . . production will be thrown into disorder."

Looking Back on Life as Darkness Intrudes, 16 Apr 2006

I was attracted to this book after reading The Sea and feeling the need to better understand this obviously talented author. Eclipse was a fine choice because in many ways its structure is like The Sea. I came away benefiting from a better understanding of Mr. Banville's style and seeing more clearly the methods he used in The Sea to make that book rise above Eclipse.

Anyone who loves beautiful language, vivid imagery and introspection will find this book rewarding. Those who prefer action, lots of plot developments and variety should look elsewhere.

Eclipse is a fine choice for a title of this book -- evoking the many eclipses in Alexander Cleave's life. He's not satisfied with his career as an actor . . . both because he doesn't seem to be able to act any more . . . and because acting keeps him from being himself (whatever that is). In addition, Alexander's relationships with his family are strained, to say the least. Certainly, these could be described as being in eclipse as well. To help get his head together, he goes back to his family home . . . which hasn't been kept up. It's in eclipse, too. While there, he experiences an astronomical eclipse to add to the symmetry. The old home is overcrowded though, with memories, ghosts and visitors. Alexander complains about this to his wife on the telephone, and she responds, "You are your own ghost." It's very Shakespearean. Macbeth seems to be lurking just around the corner.

But after an eclipse, the light does return. If that hope has meaning for you, you'll enjoy Cleave's journey.

Here's a passage of Cleave's musings that will give you a sense of the book: "Life, life is always a surprise. Just when you think you have got the hang of it, have learned your part to perfection, someone in the cast will take it into her head to start improvising, and the whole . . . production will be thrown into disorder."

Cerebral., 15 Sep 2003
In this beautifully realized and complex book, Banville blurs the edges between a man's interior and exterior worlds. He draws the reader in at the same time that he holds him at arm's length and creates a book both realistic and surrealistic. In many ways this resembles a memoir more than a novel, and it's a haunting story of a man's search for himself. Virtually all the "action" in this novel takes place inside the head of Alexander Cleave, and the "story," such as it is, emerges at a snail's pace. An actor who has "dried" onstage, Cleave has escaped to his childhood home to come to terms with his inner self and try to deal with his worry about his disturbed daughter Cass, with whom he has had no communication for months. In the midst of a breakdown, he cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, acting and action. He sees ghosts, spends a great deal of time sleeping and dreaming, and shadows townspeople at random, living their lives vicariously.

His alterego is Quirke, the sloppy caretaker, and his equally untidy daughter Lily. Creatures of the moment, the Quirkes are not at all introspective, indulging their basic desires without thinking about them and living entirely in the commonplace, the ordinary--they buy groceries, do superficial cleaning, go to the pub, read magazines. Only Lily's melancholy, which Cleave also associates with his daughter, suggests that she may have a nascent inner life.

If this sounds dull and abstract, it is, in a way. There is very little plot in the traditional sense, and the events that do occur are filtered through the mind of Cleave, who, though very self-conscious, is not self-aware. We do eventually find out what's happened to his daughter, we understand why the Quirkes are important, and we eventually see Cleave achieving an epiphany of sorts. But it is a measure of Cleave's remoteness that the turning point of the book is not an event over which he exerts any control, but a solar eclipse--the convergence of dark and light, shadow and substance, distance and connection. Still, this is a book full of unique insights and transcendent observations, with a main character who, in his earnest attempts to come to terms with the world, bears much in common with us all. Mary Whipple

A gently moving introspective story, beautifully written, 06 Oct 2002
This is the first novel by John Banville I read and after finishing it I immediately ordered "The book of Evidence" and "Ghost", so you can safely bet that this is going to be glowing review.

The story is moving but unspectacular: Alexander Cleave is an aging actor who has suddenly lost it. For no reason that he can think of he unexpectedly finds himself in cinemas crying his heart out during the afternoon showings and he forgets his lines when he is on stage. He retreats to his late mother's house, hoping to get some peace of mind there and somehow find himself again. But instead of peace and quiet he finds that ghosts and living people have taken up residence with him. He is also beset by memories of his troubled daughter. However, it is not so much the outcome of all this that matters as the processes in Cleave's mind, his dreams, his perplexities, his realizations, his fears.

Banville writes beautifully, exquisitely. His prose is a blend of evocativeness and precision, his metaphors are just right. An example: "Memory is peculiar in the fierce hold with which it will fix the most insignificant-seeming scenes. Whole tracts of my life have fallen away like a cliff in the sea, yet I cling to seeming trivia with pop-eyed tenacity (p. 74)." And another one: "It has always seemed to me a disgrace that the embarrasments of early life should continue to smart throughout adulthood with undiminshed intensity. Is it not enough that our youthful blunders made us cringe at the time, when we were at our tenderest, but must stay with us beyond cure, burn marks ready to flare up painfully at the merest touch (p. 83)?"

This is not a novel of plot and action, but a gently moving, meditative, introspective story, where a lot is left unsaid and merely hinted at and for the reader to find out. Only very good writers can pull that off succesfully. John Banville is such a very good writer.

Not as brilliant as I thought it was going to be, 31 Oct 2008
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it was a man booker prize winner and I have always been an avid reader of the runners up and winners and usually been impressed. Sadly I was disappointed. I felt JB concentrated more on the lengthy chunks of prose, describing things in great detail with a plot as an afterthought. His prose was like poetry and some of it very beautiful. The plot had a bizarre twist and was trying to compete with an 'Ian McEwan'type novel. Together it just did not work. Well written but not well crafted.

There is more to this than meets the eye, 25 Oct 2008
The Sea is a very odd little book. On the surface, it is very simple. An elderly man, Max Morden (Morbid - geddit?), revisits the dingy little town where he grew up, recalling his relationship with an odd family that holidayed there, and the recent death of his wife.

On my first reading, I found the novel disappointing. I am a Banville fan. I've read several of his books, and this has given me a sense for what he is about. Even so, The Sea seemed weak at first encounter. I imagine that readers drawn to him for the first time, perhaps seduced by the MAN Booker prize award, will be deeply perplexed as to what is going on.

Banville's books seem to be connected in a loose sequence, and this is the latest installment. Though the characters all have different names, they are all very similar, progressively aging males. They share an interest in art criticism, though not as creators themselves. This is significant, I feel. These people are all fascinated by the creation of artifice. They are not to be taken at face value.

And all speak with very similar voices. Some people find Banville's dense language off-putting. I've read enough of his work to say - I THINK - that this stuffy, affected tone is a deliberate ploy on his part, not merely him being monotonous. His characters use language as a shield or a disguise - often shielding themselves from themselves as from the outside. But when Max faces up to his grie in The Sea, he expresses it in short and brutally obscene spurts of grief.

So, what of the book itself? On my first reading, I think I fell for Max's trick. The whole novel is an exercise in misdirection, as Max tries to focus our attention - and his - on the long dead past. Don't be fooled by him. His grief is raw and deeply felt, but hidden under a miasma of postures and fine words.

Overall, a very effective, subtle novel. It may not be rewarding on a first reading, or to those unfamiliar with Banville's work, but it is worth getting to know.

Perhaps poetry but no plot, 14 Oct 2008
The first thing that struck me as I was reading this on holiday recently was the number of words used that I've never come across before! As an avid reader since childhood this is a bit unsettling. Am I really that illiterate or does John Banville scour his thesaurus looking for unfamiliar language that has the reader scrabbling for the dictionary? I'd genuinely love to know. I'm still not sure what to make of this to be honest. If you're going to read it you may be best forewarned that nothing really happens in it and as mentioned in other reviews it is unashamedly self-indulgent. I haven't read any of John Banville's other books so I've no idea if this is typical of his style, but for me a prize-winning novel should have something compelling about it and this certainly didn't, for all it's verbal posing.

No more Banville for me, 02 Oct 2008
In terms of writing style, Banville is pompous, baroque and wordy. This damages his writing irredeemably. There is an overwhelming sense that Banville is trying to impress you with his vast arsenal of words. Every page hits you with this heavy weight. The over use of unusual adjectives, similes, etc does not make you clever or a good writer. I am not at all convinced that The Sea is good writing, let alone "a work of art" as Banville claimed it was when he won the 2005 Booker. It's a shame because the story and the premise of the Sea was in fact worthy and compelling. This would have been better as a 100 page novella. Really, this 260 page novel would have been vastly improved had someone said listen, all this verbiage is not necessarily beautiful lyrical prose at all, slash it down to 100 pages, less of the outrageous florid nonsense and we'll see if we publish it. The contrast in style between Banville and his fellow Wexford man Colm Toibin could not be starker. Toibin has a deserved reputation as one of the finest novelists writing in English. I am struggling to understand why Banville enjoys the reputation he does.

Oh dear the price of the internal dialogue!, 20 Aug 2008
Imagine you are considering the plot for your next blockbuster novel and after much consideration you settle on the story of an ageing, curmudgeonly academic who has very recently experienced spouse bereavement through a long drawn out cancer. Driven by this riveting idea you set the book against a return visit to the scene of a childhood holiday where the, then pubescent, hero tasted his first salty kiss and revelled in his relationship with a weird family of jolly psychopaths, most notably with their heavily disturbed twins. Indeed as you surmise gentle reader, your publisher would be turning pale at the thought of perpetrating such poetic literary violence against the unsuspecting mass of Oprah Book Club enthusiasts awaiting the Booker Prize longlist. So is 'The Sea' a book for the beach? I fear not. No, better that those dark, narcissistic, internal monologues of poor Max Mordern are read on a bench in the local cemetery, among the stones and under a leaden sky.
For though the prose heaves and flows like the roiling sea itself, and though the master John Banville writes like an angel; dear reader, this is like wading through beautiful, jewel-encrusted, literary, slurry. One of many beautiful quotes from this novel- "We fight in order to be real."

Brilliant, 04 Feb 2008
This is shockingly good writing. I had to slow myself down reading it to savour every page.

A dark, gritty and compelling read., 16 Mar 2007

This is my second Banville, after `The Untouchable', and third if I include `Christine Falls' written under his nom de plume - Benjamin Black. Much comment has been made regarding JB's style and the need for the reader to have a dictionary/thesaurus close at hand to unearth the meaning of a word here and there. I am no exception in that regard; whilst I read widely I do not consider myself to be particularly well-read and yet enjoyed looking up the odd word/expression and found it enhanced the meaning. I also suspect he is having a bit of fun: an example being the description of Montgomery's post-coital state as being `...balanic, ataraxic bliss...'

Lots of words would describe the story: dark, gritty, compelling . All somewhat clichéd and unbanvillian for which I apologise, but a great read nevertheless.

I am delighted to have discovered this author and have no hesitation in giving this book, along with `The Untouchable' a 5-star rating and am looking forward to his others.


A different opinion..., 20 Jan 2006
I'm going to get burned for this review, but...

I hated it. The characters were an inexplicable mix of misfits and pariahs and Banville's contempt for ordinary folk is simply horrid. The turgid plot is dragged along with Mogadon-esque speed towards a predictable, and it felt to me, almost unreachable end. The lead character shows a bi-polar mix of intellectual sophistication and almost insane stupidity and I just felt utterly, utterly bored with his life. What Frederick needed was a good, five to ten minute kicking and a hobby: what a loser.

The prose makes Henry James read like The Beano and Banville is so addicted to his thesaurus that I had to stop every ten minutes to look up some utterly mindless alter word for a milk jug...or gate or something. Even Joyce was more enjoyable than this.

I gleaned nothing from this book and had to read Farewell to Arms again afterwards just to reaffirm my faith in literature. Booker prize nominated? Your 'avin' a larf.

A modern classic, 01 Feb 2002
John Banville is one of the best writers of the twentieth (and hopefully twenty-first!) century. Freddie Montgomery is a monster, but Banville somehow succeeds in winning the reader over, despite the very unorthodox behaviour of his narrator!

He Murdered Her Because He Could, 07 Dec 2000
John Banville's novel, The Book of Evidence, is a short grim first-person narrative by an accused murderer. That narrator, Frederick Montgomery, tells his life story and about his crime as he awaits his trial in jail. Freddie committed two crimes; he stole a Dutch master painting and murdered the maid who caught him in the act. He simply murdered the girl because he was physically able to do so, however, he can only wonder why the painting had moved him so much. Through Freddie, Banville captures both the admirable and the hellish sides of human nature. Frederick speaks of Bunter, the evil side to every human. It was because of Bunter, that he was able to murder the maid. From the beginning, Frederick proclaims his guilt, however, Banville lay's many subtle hints to the whole story being the mere imagination of a madman, as Frederick states in the closing sentence, "True, Inspector? . . . All of it. None of it. Only the shame." In closing, Mr. Banville has accomplished the near impossible; he created a monster the reader could love.