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The Sea
The author of The Untouchable (“contemporary fiction gets no better than this”—Patrick McGrath, The New York Times Book Review) now gives us a luminous novel about love, loss, and the unpredictable power of memory. The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife’s death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child—a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time.
The seductive mother; the imperious father; the twins—Chloe, fiery and forthright, and Myles, silent and expressionless—in whose mysterious connection Max became profoundly entangled, each of them a part of the “barely bearable raw immediacy” of his childhood memories. Interwoven with this story are Morden’s memories of his wife, Anna—of their life together, of her death—and the moments, both significant and mundane, that make up his life now: his relationship with his grown daughter, Claire, desperate to pull him from his grief; and with the other boarders at the house where he is staying, where the past beats inside him “like a second heart.” What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, vividly dramatic, beautifully written novel—among the finest we have had from this extraordinary writer
The seductive mother; the imperious father; the twins—Chloe, fiery and forthright, and Myles, silent and expressionless—in whose mysterious connection Max became profoundly entangled, each of them a part of the “barely bearable raw immediacy” of his childhood memories. Interwoven with this story are Morden’s memories of his wife, Anna—of their life together, of her death—and the moments, both significant and mundane, that make up his life now: his relationship with his grown daughter, Claire, desperate to pull him from his grief; and with the other boarders at the house where he is staying, where the past beats inside him “like a second heart.” What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, vividly dramatic, beautifully written novel—among the finest we have had from this extraordinary writer
195 pages, Paperback
First published May 17, 2005
About the author
John Banville
116 books2,087 followersWilliam John Banville is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W.B. Yeats and Henry James are the two real influences on his work.
Banville has won the 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2003 International Nonino Prize, the 2005 Booker Prize, the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. Italy made him a Cavaliere of the Ordine della Stella d'Italia (essentially a knighthood) in 2017. He is a former member of Aosdána, having voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer.
Banville was born and grew up in Wexford town in south-east Ireland. He published his first novel, Nightspawn, in 1971. A second, Birchwood, followed two years later. "The Revolutions Trilogy", published between 1976 and 1982, comprises three works, each named in reference to a renowned scientist: Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter. His next work, Mefisto, had a mathematical theme. His 1989 novel The Book of Evidence, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of that year's Guinness Peat Aviation award, heralded a second trilogy, three works which deal in common with the work of art. "The Frames Trilogy" is completed by Ghosts and Athena, both published during the 1990s. Banville's thirteenth novel, The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005. In addition, he publishes crime novels as Benjamin Black — most of these feature the character of Quirke, an Irish pathologist based in Dublin.
Banville is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Dublin.
Banville has won the 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2003 International Nonino Prize, the 2005 Booker Prize, the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. Italy made him a Cavaliere of the Ordine della Stella d'Italia (essentially a knighthood) in 2017. He is a former member of Aosdána, having voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer.
Banville was born and grew up in Wexford town in south-east Ireland. He published his first novel, Nightspawn, in 1971. A second, Birchwood, followed two years later. "The Revolutions Trilogy", published between 1976 and 1982, comprises three works, each named in reference to a renowned scientist: Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter. His next work, Mefisto, had a mathematical theme. His 1989 novel The Book of Evidence, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of that year's Guinness Peat Aviation award, heralded a second trilogy, three works which deal in common with the work of art. "The Frames Trilogy" is completed by Ghosts and Athena, both published during the 1990s. Banville's thirteenth novel, The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005. In addition, he publishes crime novels as Benjamin Black — most of these feature the character of Quirke, an Irish pathologist based in Dublin.
Banville is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Dublin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,432 reviews
June 14, 2016
I think there's a big difference between literature and fiction, and this book is a perfect example - as is obvious from the number of negative reviews posted on this website! Some books can be read purely for their entertainment value. We like reading them because the plots and settings and characters capture our interest. That's what fiction does. But some books provide an additional dimension for readers who are willing to put a little more time and thought into what they are reading and who enjoy digging a little deeper below the plot line to think about the things that motivate the characters to behave the way they do. Those of us who who are looking for more than plot and characterization in a good book, tend to be intrigued by the way authors use language and amazingly enough we actually enjoy discovering new words even though it means looking them up in a dictionary!! Banville's writing is going to be lost on a lot of readers because it's much more than a work of fiction. But for the rest of us, it's a great example of why we love to read in the first place....it's because we love to see our language used so beautifully in the hands of a writer who has such deep insights into some of the great themes that good literature has always dealt with. This is one of those books. It's a profound reflection on love,loss,regret, and the role memory plays in the grieving process. Those who love to read because they enjoy thinking about the insights to be found in books that are beautifully written will most likely love this book. Obviously not everyone reads for that reason, which is fine for them....but for the rest of us it's easy to see why Banville is considered such a fine writer.
October 8, 2024
The Sea is a story of a lonely man adrift in the sea of grief and trying to reevaluate the past and to reconcile himself to the present.
Bereavement… Sooner or later everyone becomes acquainted with the pain of sorrow…
Memory lane… Reminiscences of childhood… I think everyone possesses some childhood memories that keep haunting one from day to day…
And there is a tragic mystery hidden in the past…
Even in solitude one must never lose hope for consolation.
Bereavement… Sooner or later everyone becomes acquainted with the pain of sorrow…
We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.
Memory lane… Reminiscences of childhood… I think everyone possesses some childhood memories that keep haunting one from day to day…
Happiness was different in childhood. It was so much then a matter simply of accumulation, of taking things – new experiences, new emotions – and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvellously finished pavilion of the self.
And there is a tragic mystery hidden in the past…
Even in solitude one must never lose hope for consolation.
April 28, 2023
If I were John Banville, I'd be tremendously proud to find my masterpiece resting a mere two million places below Fifty Shades of Shite in the Goodreads rankings.
#arrived
#arrived
July 2, 2024
“The past beats inside me like a second heart."
I originally read The Sea a few years back, when I was reeling from the deaths of my brother and my cat. I always embrace the sadness, the melancholy when I am down. I chalk it up to an Irish spirit in me. Depression was abetted with a weekend listening to Neil Young’s desperate “ditch trilogy.” This sort of thing has always suited me.
“The Sea” is a brilliant study of Max who, after recently losing his wife, flees to a time in his boyhood when the innocence of youth was dealt an unspeakable blow by real life. The storyline is a good one, I did not see the twist at the end the first time out. It is Banville’s writing, though, that sets this apart. He makes the sea a heavy presence, a foreboding character holding secrets, regrets, memories. I stumbled along with Max, screamed with him, and felt his anguish in my soul. We struggled to find… whatever it is we search to find in these circumstances.
“The past beats inside me like a second heart."
My partner, Barb, passed away unexpectedly on Christmas Eve– and this was the only book I could handle. Non-fiction embracing fiction. One of my favorite books ever, it may be a long time before I can visit “The Sea” again.
I originally read The Sea a few years back, when I was reeling from the deaths of my brother and my cat. I always embrace the sadness, the melancholy when I am down. I chalk it up to an Irish spirit in me. Depression was abetted with a weekend listening to Neil Young’s desperate “ditch trilogy.” This sort of thing has always suited me.
“The Sea” is a brilliant study of Max who, after recently losing his wife, flees to a time in his boyhood when the innocence of youth was dealt an unspeakable blow by real life. The storyline is a good one, I did not see the twist at the end the first time out. It is Banville’s writing, though, that sets this apart. He makes the sea a heavy presence, a foreboding character holding secrets, regrets, memories. I stumbled along with Max, screamed with him, and felt his anguish in my soul. We struggled to find… whatever it is we search to find in these circumstances.
“The past beats inside me like a second heart."
My partner, Barb, passed away unexpectedly on Christmas Eve– and this was the only book I could handle. Non-fiction embracing fiction. One of my favorite books ever, it may be a long time before I can visit “The Sea” again.
May 11, 2023
2.5*
Winner of the Booker Prize 2005
After his wife dies, Max moves back to the seaside town where he used to spend his summer holidays as a child. This trip becomes the perfect opportunity to remember his past and rummage through the traumatic events of his childhood, which marked his life.
I had mixed feelings about this novel. The plot is nothing new but the writing is special. Unfortunately, too much so that it felt unnatural and overwritten. It gave me the impression that the novel was written with the thesaurus opened permanently for consultation. Many readers thought the writing was exquisite while for me, it was a distraction. I had serious problems following the phrase to its conclusion and when I reached the end of the paragraph I sometimes had no idea what I was reading about, was it the present, the past, what character the author was writing about etc. Bear in mind I am writing this while I am slowly savouring Proust, the champion of sinuous phrases. It somehow does not bother me there. Yes, I need to re-read phrases, sometimes in two languages, but oh, the joy when everything makes sense. I did not feel the need to make much of an effort here, as the writing did not speak to me. Oh, the plot was also uninteresting for the most part.
I recommend this novel to people who love long, complex descriptions, who do not shy away from using the dictionary and who ravel in darkness of the soul.
Winner of the Booker Prize 2005
After his wife dies, Max moves back to the seaside town where he used to spend his summer holidays as a child. This trip becomes the perfect opportunity to remember his past and rummage through the traumatic events of his childhood, which marked his life.
I had mixed feelings about this novel. The plot is nothing new but the writing is special. Unfortunately, too much so that it felt unnatural and overwritten. It gave me the impression that the novel was written with the thesaurus opened permanently for consultation. Many readers thought the writing was exquisite while for me, it was a distraction. I had serious problems following the phrase to its conclusion and when I reached the end of the paragraph I sometimes had no idea what I was reading about, was it the present, the past, what character the author was writing about etc. Bear in mind I am writing this while I am slowly savouring Proust, the champion of sinuous phrases. It somehow does not bother me there. Yes, I need to re-read phrases, sometimes in two languages, but oh, the joy when everything makes sense. I did not feel the need to make much of an effort here, as the writing did not speak to me. Oh, the plot was also uninteresting for the most part.
I recommend this novel to people who love long, complex descriptions, who do not shy away from using the dictionary and who ravel in darkness of the soul.
September 16, 2022
[Revised 9/16/22]
A gentleman reflects on his life, especially his youth, after the death of his wife.
He returns to the formative landscape of his childhood, a modest seaside town and inn in Ireland. It is also the site of the formative tragedy of his childhood.
In effect, we have a coming-of-age novel as reflected upon in later life. Instead of the psychological depth of Danish author Jens Grondahl reflecting on his marriage in Silence in October, we get lush descriptions and beautiful turns of phrase.
Thoughtful, slow reading; a treasure with many lines to savor. The Sea won the Booker Prize in 2005 and was picked as Novel of the Year by the Irish Book Awards in 2006.
Banville, an Irish author (b. 1945), has written about 20 novels. (I've enjoyed all six that I read). The Sea is by far his best-known work with more than 100,000 ratings on GR but it's not his highest-rated work. That's probably The Untouchable, a low-key thriller about a British spy.
Top photo of an Irish inn from telegraph.co.uk
The author from bostonglobe.com
A gentleman reflects on his life, especially his youth, after the death of his wife.
He returns to the formative landscape of his childhood, a modest seaside town and inn in Ireland. It is also the site of the formative tragedy of his childhood.
In effect, we have a coming-of-age novel as reflected upon in later life. Instead of the psychological depth of Danish author Jens Grondahl reflecting on his marriage in Silence in October, we get lush descriptions and beautiful turns of phrase.
Thoughtful, slow reading; a treasure with many lines to savor. The Sea won the Booker Prize in 2005 and was picked as Novel of the Year by the Irish Book Awards in 2006.
Banville, an Irish author (b. 1945), has written about 20 novels. (I've enjoyed all six that I read). The Sea is by far his best-known work with more than 100,000 ratings on GR but it's not his highest-rated work. That's probably The Untouchable, a low-key thriller about a British spy.
Top photo of an Irish inn from telegraph.co.uk
The author from bostonglobe.com
November 7, 2018
John Banville won the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for this novel, and what a well-deserved honour and tribute for this masterfully written, poignant and deeply moving story.
I read somewhere that John Banville is considered “a writer’s writer”. I can definitely see that. On the other hand, he is also “a reader’s writer” because I am a reader, and thousands of other readers have also enjoyed Mr. Banville’s writing.
This is Max Morden’s story and he narrates throughout. Seamlessly, we follow him along as he talks about boyhood summers somewhere on the South coast of Ireland. He refers to a nearby town as Ballymore and the summer spot as a nearby village, . . . let’s call it Ballyless. In the present, he is in mourning and having a difficult time dealing with his grief. He drinks too much, ignores his work, and is intent on seeking some answers, or something he can hang onto, from his past summers when he was young.
We meet the Grace family: Carlo, Connie, their children Chloe and Myles, and their minder or perhaps governess, Rose. This family is perceived by Max as his social superiors but he is drawn to them for many reasons – partly curiosity, partly out of loneliness, and somewhat out of boredom. The Graces fascinate him, especially noticeable while he relates his experiences with them as a boy. However, with all the time that has passed between then and now, their once large summer home has become a boarding house, and he seeks it out to stay in and perhaps looks to his past to help him heal.
As Max relates his story, moving back and forth between then and now, it is clear that his past influenced his future, and that his ‘now’ is also very much influencing how he views his past. He argues with himself, chastising himself at times for not being clear about a point. Sometimes he will make the point again – the same point using different words. Sometimes he corrects his course in the narrative with an addition that makes it clearer. Sometimes he says he is digressing too far or embellishing, so scratch that, and this is how it was. Of course, once it is stated, it’s not easy (nor is it prudent) to forget it and buy in completely to the new perspective.
This is not a long book, although it definitely is not one to attempt to rush through. The author sets the pace, takes control of this story, and doesn’t let it go for a moment. I was a very willing passenger on this journey with Max and there were times that something he said startled my own past memories into my reading experience. Countless times I had to set the book down and indulge in my own personal reveries. In most respects they weren’t connected to the story except by a small filament of invisible thread, yet once the thread was pulled into my sight, I had no choice but to follow it.
Oh! And the words. I wanted to mention the words – some of them I had to jot down because I might need them some day: for a game (like when you have a whole slew of vowels – etiolate could be most helpful), or maybe just because certain words add clarity to what might be a more watery picture without them. This novel is a masterpiece of words used exactly as they should be precisely when they need to be.
I had several quotes highlighted that I especially savoured, and then I changed my mind about adding them to my review. Please, please read this exceptional novel and discover them for yourself. Of one thing I am certain: each person will come away with their own reveries, their own captured words, and the phrases and sentences that moved them the most.
I recommend this to everyone who has ever danced with words and/or read a wonderful story composed of them, and a reminder that this is a slow waltz . . . one that you will always remember.
I read somewhere that John Banville is considered “a writer’s writer”. I can definitely see that. On the other hand, he is also “a reader’s writer” because I am a reader, and thousands of other readers have also enjoyed Mr. Banville’s writing.
This is Max Morden’s story and he narrates throughout. Seamlessly, we follow him along as he talks about boyhood summers somewhere on the South coast of Ireland. He refers to a nearby town as Ballymore and the summer spot as a nearby village, . . . let’s call it Ballyless. In the present, he is in mourning and having a difficult time dealing with his grief. He drinks too much, ignores his work, and is intent on seeking some answers, or something he can hang onto, from his past summers when he was young.
We meet the Grace family: Carlo, Connie, their children Chloe and Myles, and their minder or perhaps governess, Rose. This family is perceived by Max as his social superiors but he is drawn to them for many reasons – partly curiosity, partly out of loneliness, and somewhat out of boredom. The Graces fascinate him, especially noticeable while he relates his experiences with them as a boy. However, with all the time that has passed between then and now, their once large summer home has become a boarding house, and he seeks it out to stay in and perhaps looks to his past to help him heal.
As Max relates his story, moving back and forth between then and now, it is clear that his past influenced his future, and that his ‘now’ is also very much influencing how he views his past. He argues with himself, chastising himself at times for not being clear about a point. Sometimes he will make the point again – the same point using different words. Sometimes he corrects his course in the narrative with an addition that makes it clearer. Sometimes he says he is digressing too far or embellishing, so scratch that, and this is how it was. Of course, once it is stated, it’s not easy (nor is it prudent) to forget it and buy in completely to the new perspective.
This is not a long book, although it definitely is not one to attempt to rush through. The author sets the pace, takes control of this story, and doesn’t let it go for a moment. I was a very willing passenger on this journey with Max and there were times that something he said startled my own past memories into my reading experience. Countless times I had to set the book down and indulge in my own personal reveries. In most respects they weren’t connected to the story except by a small filament of invisible thread, yet once the thread was pulled into my sight, I had no choice but to follow it.
Oh! And the words. I wanted to mention the words – some of them I had to jot down because I might need them some day: for a game (like when you have a whole slew of vowels – etiolate could be most helpful), or maybe just because certain words add clarity to what might be a more watery picture without them. This novel is a masterpiece of words used exactly as they should be precisely when they need to be.
I had several quotes highlighted that I especially savoured, and then I changed my mind about adding them to my review. Please, please read this exceptional novel and discover them for yourself. Of one thing I am certain: each person will come away with their own reveries, their own captured words, and the phrases and sentences that moved them the most.
I recommend this to everyone who has ever danced with words and/or read a wonderful story composed of them, and a reminder that this is a slow waltz . . . one that you will always remember.
June 27, 2019
Ah, the sea - especially the smell of the sea, a phrase as familiar as the idea that aromas have a visceral power to exhume memories we didn’t know we had ever had and lost.
Smells of all sorts permeate the pages of this book and waft up, creating a synaesthetic connection to people and places in Max’s life. My second-hand paper book added a medley of vague aromas of its own. Not something to read on Kindle (though for me, nothing is).
Scents
This is an intensely sensual book, but not in the usual sense. It’s about the power of one of the senses, smell, in the context of bereaved reminiscence. Max frequently mentions the smell of things. Not all are pleasant, but they colour his memories in a profound way.
Smell and taste are interdependent. Unlike the other senses, it’s almost impossible to describe them except in comparison with other smells and tastes - hence wines with undertones of apricot, accents of peat, and aftertaste of daisies. I think it’s also why it's so difficult to remember, let alone imagine smells at will. One's mind's eye and ear are so much more biddable. Even touch is easier to recall and describe. Banville prompted me to to try, though.
Sit or lie somewhere comfortable, quiet, and dark. Touch is easy: start by noticing what you can actually feel: the curve of the chair, the fabric and seams of your clothes, the warmth of the sun on your skin.
Then remember or imagine touches: the shrill blast of a strong salt sea breeze on your face, stroking the soft silky fur of a cat, the abrasion of warm, wet, sand between your toes.
Now add sights and sounds: the view of the ocean and howl of the wind, the purring of the inscrutable black cat, the colour of the sand and the hiss of the waves coming down on it. You can see and hear and feel it all.
But smell and taste? Much harder. Think of a favourite food (siu mai). You can see it, you can feel its texture, and hear the sound as you bite into it. But can you describe, let alone experience its taste and smell?
Maybe it’s precisely because smells don’t readily convert to similes and metaphors that they are such powerful triggers?
Back to the book...
Narrators: Banville = Morden = Cleave?
“We sought to escape from an intolerable present in the only tense possible, the past.”
Max Morden is barely distinguishable from Alex Cleave in the Eclipse, Shroud, Ancient Light trilogy (Ancient Light reviewed HERE), who is apparently rather similar to Banville. Max and Alex narrate in exactly the same rambling, occasionally introspective, self-centred, curmudgeonly, largely guilt-free, and invariably misogynistic voice. The writing is sweet and sour. And beautiful.
Fluency disguises an underlying inarticulacy in the face of recent and ancient tragedies, where “the cruel complacency of ordinary things” is epitomised by “tight-lipped awkwardness” of furniture, and for the people involved, “From this day forward, all would be dissembling. There would be no other way to live with death.” Even the land is inarticulate: “Marsh and mud flats where everything seemed turned away from the land, looking desperately towards the horizon as if in mute search for a sign of rescue.” And web-toed Myles is literally mute: “Being alone with Myles was like being in a room which someone had just violently left. His muteness was a pervasive and cloying emanation.”
Both narrators are forever questioning their own motives and pointing out the inconsistencies of their memories: “It has all begun to run together, past and possible future and impossible present”. As an art historian, Max is familiar with touching up portraits: “Memories are always eager to match themselves seamlessly to the things and places of a revisited past”
Alex, and especially Max, are trying to write. They both have a problematic daughter, referred to by two names beginning with C. Both had, or fantasised about, a youthful relationship with a mother figure, the similarly named Mrs Grace and Mrs Gray. And in this case, the inadvertent temptress even offers him an apple.
Most importantly, both have past and present tragedies, and revisit the former to understand and cope with the latter.
The ending is rushed (too many events and revelations) and I do not like Max or Alex - to the extent I almost wonder why I like these books: “With women, wait long enough and one will have one’s way” and his reveries are “in the unvarying form of pursuit and capture and violent overmastering”! Nevertheless, Banville’s skill is such that I have some sympathy for them, and I want to know their stories.
Quotes - Smells
* “My daughter… usually has no smell at all” unlike her mother, “whose feral reek, for me the stewy fragrance of life itself, and which the strongest perfume could not quite suppress, was the thing that first drew me to her.”
* “In her last months, she smelt, at her best, of pharmacopoeia.”
* “The cool thick secret smell of milk made me think of Mrs Grace.”
* “A mingled smell of spilt beer and stale cigarette smoke.”
* “As I was heaving myself over in a tangle of sheets… I caught a whiff of my own warm cheesy smell.”
* “She smelled of sweat and cold cream and, faintly, of cooking fat.”
* “A whiff of her sweat-dampened civet scent.”
* “Her milk-and-vinegar smell.”
* “Little animals we were, sniffing at each other. I liked in particular… the cheesy tang in the crevices of her elbows and knees… In general she gave off… a flattish, fawnish odour, like that which comes out of, which used to come out of, empty biscuit tins in shop.”
* Recently bereaved, new places are “like a wedding suit smelling of moth-balls and no longer fitting.”
* “Peppermints… the faint sickly smell of which pervades the house”.
* “The squat black gas stove sullen in its corner and smelling of the previous lodger’s fried dinners.”
* “The smell in the hall was like the smell of my breath when I breathed and rebreathed it into my cupped hands.”
* “Smells of exhaust smoke, the sea, the garden’s autumn rot.”
* Railway “giving off its mephtic whiff of ash and gas.”
* In a tree, “at this height the breeze… smelling of inland things, earth, and smoke, and animals”.
* An abandoned beach hut, “smelling of old urine”.
* On the point of death, “her breath gave off a mild, dry stink, as of withered flowers”.
Quotes - Sea
* "The waves clawed at the suave sand along the waterline, scrabbling to hold their ground but steadily failing."
* “Lead-blue and malignantly agleam.”
* "A white seabird, dazzling against the wall of cloud, flew up on sickle wings and turned with a soundless snap and plunged itself, a shutting chevron, into the sea's unruly back."
* “The seabirds rose and dived like torn scraps of rag.”
* “The salt-sharpened light.”
* “By the sea, there is a special quality to the silence at night… It is like the silence that I knew in the sickrooms of my childhood… It is a place like the place where I feel that I am now, miles from anywhere, and anyone.”
* “Hearing the monotonously repeated ragged collapse of waves down on the beach.”
Quotes - Memories, Aging, Past, Future
* “The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
* “I have been elbowed aside by a parody of myself.”
* “These days I must take the world in small and carefully measured doses, it is a sort of homeopathic cure… Perhaps I am learning to live amongst the living again… But no, that’s not it. Being here is just a way of not being anywhere.”
* “The image that I hold of her in my head is fraying, bits of pigment, flakes of gold leaf, are chipping off.”
* “Happiness was different in childhood… a matter of simple accumulation, of taking things… and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvellously finished pavilion of the self.”
Quotes - Other
* "To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever truly wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth, and cower there, hidden from the sky's indifferent gaze and the harsh air's damagings."
* “Rust has reduced its struts to a tremulous filigree.” A gate.
* The wink of a new neighbour, “jaunty, intimate and faintly satanic”.
* “The smile she reserved for him [husband], sceptical, tolerant, languidly amused.”
* “The chalet that we rented was a slightly less than life-sized wooden model of a house.”
* Father returns “in a wordless fury, bearing the fruits of his day like so much luggage clutched in his clenched fists.”
* “Their unhappiness was one of the constants of my earliest years, a high, unceasing buzz just beyond hearing… I loved them, probably. Only they were in my way, obscuring my view of the future. In time I would be able to see right through them, my transparent parents.”
* “Even from inside the car we could hear the palms on the lawn in from dreamily clacking their dry fronds.”
* “Despite the glacial air a muted hint of past carousings lingered.”
* “Beyond the smouldering sunlight there is the placid gloom of indoors.”
* “Perhaps all life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it.”
* “Light of summer thick as honey fell from the tall windows and glowed on the figured carpets.”
* “That fretful, dry, papery rustle that harbinges autumn.”
* “The Godhead for me was a menace, and I responded with fear and its inevitable concomitant, guilt.” But that’s as a child.
* “Devout as holy drinkers, dipped our faces towards each other… I tasted her urgent breath.”
* “It was as if the evening, in all the drench and drip of its fallacious pathos, had temporarily taken over from me the burden of grieving.”
* “The open doorway from which a fat slab of sunlight lay fallen at our feet. Now and then a breeze from outside would wander in absent-mindedly.”
* "For even at such a tender age I knew there is always a lover and a loved, and knew which one, in this case, I would be.”
* “A series of more or less enraptured humiliations. She accepted me as a supplicant at her shrine with disconcerting complacency… Her willful vagueness tormented and infuriated me.”
* “Is this not the secret aim of all of us, to be no longer flesh but transformed utterly into the gossamer of unsuffering spirit?”
* “A chintz-covered sofa sprawls as if aghast, its two arms flung wide and cushions sagging… Piano, its lid shut, stands against the back wall as if in tight-lipped resentment of its gaudy rival opposite.”
* “The canned audience doing our laughing for us.”
* “The polished pewter light of the emptied afternoon.”
“The copper-coloured light of the late-autumn evening.”
* “Puddles on the road that now were paler than the sky, as if the last of day were dying in them.”
* “Drowning is the gentlest death.”
See Also The Sea, The Sea
I was strongly reminded of this Banville book (and also his Ancient Light) when I read Iris Murdoch's one from 30 years earlier: the title, setting, the narrator's character and introspection. See my review HERE. Banville is more lyrical, slightly less philosophical, and Morden less unpleasant.
Image source of nose sculpture on a beach at Colmslie Beach Reserve in Brisbane:
http://www.weekendnotes.com/im/002/05...
Originally recommended by Dolors, in relation to The Sense of an Ending. Her review of this is here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
June 12, 2019
Nude in the Bath and Small Dog, Pierre Bonnard, 1941-46What has this luminous painting of a female bather to do with a book called "The Sea", you might ask? More than you might think. Pierre Bonnard, a French Post-Impressionist painter, often painted his wife Marthe. He painted this particular piece when she was in her 70s, and she had died by the time he completed it. We can see by virtue of the recognisable images of female form and bathtub, the general gist of the painting. But the image goes beyond the bounds of reality with the misshapen bathtub that accommodates impossibly long and bent limbs, the colours shimmering and waving on the organically undulating walls as though they might just disappear at any moment, a dog on what might be a mat or a square of light on the slanted floor, brushstroke after gorgeous brushstroke coming together to simulate Marthe's moment of private repose. The moment is almost certainly of a younger Marthe, though. It is the artist's memories of an earlier, more youthful moment.
"There is a formula, which fits painting perfectly," wrote Bonnard, "many little lies to create a great truth."
Not only is the narrator of this novella, Max Morden, attempting to write a book about Bonnard, not only did Max's own wife during her painful decline enjoy the silent comfort of baths, but like Bonnard, he is trying to cobble together an image, one of his wife and his life, looking back as an aging widower. These memories and images are as elusive, as distorted, as tricky as the painting. But when brought together, they capture the luminosity, pain and newness of a pivotal summer in his youth.
Max is a flawed and not particularly likeable character, and he's often looking through the bottom of a bottle, which adds to the hazy unreliability of his point of view. His aching melancholy is always felt, an aging man who can only look back and piece together as best he can, a story that is at once innocent and vaguely sinister. This exploration of memory, grief and loss washes over you with many waves, dragging you under to the murky depths.
Reading John Banville is like gazing at a painting. His poetic style is incredibly evocative and visual. He brings his readers to the scene, right up close to his subjects. We can smell their breath, we can see the little imperfections. At the same time, we are not entirely sure how this person got there, were they wearing a blue dress or a floral one? He meanders between past and present, revealing just enough, a trail of literary breadcrumbs. Each brushstroke works with the next to complete the story. This 2005 Booker Prize winner is gorgeous, a masterpiece, delineating the difference between literature and just plain fiction.
June 23, 2020
The Depths of Vocabulary
John Banville loves words just as they are. Words like losel, and finical, gleet, scurf, bosky, cinerial, and merd that will really screw up your spell-checker. It's part of his masterful charm. Add his ability to put these words together in velvet sentences, and combine sentences into exquisite narrative, and voila: a writer worth his salt...as it were, especially with a title like The Sea. Inspired by Henry James? Very possibly, particularly by The Turn of the Screw and its permanent mystery. Nonetheless, uniquely and unmistakeably Banville.
John Banville loves words just as they are. Words like losel, and finical, gleet, scurf, bosky, cinerial, and merd that will really screw up your spell-checker. It's part of his masterful charm. Add his ability to put these words together in velvet sentences, and combine sentences into exquisite narrative, and voila: a writer worth his salt...as it were, especially with a title like The Sea. Inspired by Henry James? Very possibly, particularly by The Turn of the Screw and its permanent mystery. Nonetheless, uniquely and unmistakeably Banville.
October 19, 2023
The title says it all: the main character is neither the narrator, his late wife, nor Rosie; the plot is not (only) one that unfolds over the pages. No, the main point of this novel is the sea. The sea and the tides. The ocean and its threat, the sea and its beauty, and its sounds.
After the death of his wife, Max returns to the scene of his childhood, summer in particular. He made friends with a neighboring family: two children, twins, a young housekeeper, and the parents. Everything is going well, almost. John Banville delicately captures the little things that break the apparent harmony: a sleeping woman, a girl too far away, and unexpected confidence. And the drama we feel is not the one we believe.
It is a novel to be tasted softly, of high sensitivity, which makes you want to discover the author's other books.
After the death of his wife, Max returns to the scene of his childhood, summer in particular. He made friends with a neighboring family: two children, twins, a young housekeeper, and the parents. Everything is going well, almost. John Banville delicately captures the little things that break the apparent harmony: a sleeping woman, a girl too far away, and unexpected confidence. And the drama we feel is not the one we believe.
It is a novel to be tasted softly, of high sensitivity, which makes you want to discover the author's other books.
![Profile Image for Orsodimondo [in pausa].](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1528452721i/10490224._UY200_CR39,0,200,200_.jpg)
November 29, 2023
VICINO E LONTANO VEDO SEMPRE IL MARE
La vita era soprattutto silenzio allora, quando eravamo piccoli, o almeno così sembra adesso, un silenzio sospeso, uno stato vigile. Aspettavamo nel nostro mondo informe, scrutando il futuro allo stesso modo in cui il ragazzino e io ci eravamo scrutati a vicenda, come soldati sul campo, in attesa degli eventi.
L’omonimo film è del 2013 diretto da Stephen Brown.
Max, il protagonista io narrante, ha da poco superato i sessanta, da dodici mesi seppellito la moglie Anna, ha una figlia, Claire, alle cui telefonate preferisce non rispondere per concentrarsi meglio sul suo lutto.
E per dedicarsi meglio anche all’attività principale che sostiene l’intero romanzo.
Visto che Max è tornato nel luogo sulla costa irlandese dove ha passato le sue estati dell’infanzia – e in particolare una, quella dove conobbe e frequentò la famiglia Grace, i cui figli gemelli erano sua coetanei e la ragazzina, Chloe, è stata il suo primo amore - l’attività principale consiste nel rievocare ricordi.
Tirare fuori dalla scatola della memoria cartoline del passato, senza neppure ricorrere alle occasionali madeleine proustiane, ma semplicemente camminando per i luoghi di mezzo secolo prima, facendo confronti tra ieri e oggi, cercando di sostanziare il suo doloroso oggi con quello struggente ieri.
I coniugi Grace sono Rufuss Sewell e la magnifica Natascha McElhone.
Continuamente avanti e indietro nel tempo, ieri e oggi, oggi e ieri, ricordi memorie rimpianti nostalgia.
Elegante, raffinato, evocativo, ricercato: ma qui e là la costruzione traspare un po’ forzata e il risultato è di una certa artificiosità. Tutto sommato, sostanzialmente noiosino. Non il primo incontro con Banville che avrei sperato.
Ciarán Hinds è Max. Sua moglie Anna è interpretata da Sinéad Cusack. La padrona della villa I Cedri è Charlotte Rampling.
La vita era soprattutto silenzio allora, quando eravamo piccoli, o almeno così sembra adesso, un silenzio sospeso, uno stato vigile. Aspettavamo nel nostro mondo informe, scrutando il futuro allo stesso modo in cui il ragazzino e io ci eravamo scrutati a vicenda, come soldati sul campo, in attesa degli eventi.
L’omonimo film è del 2013 diretto da Stephen Brown.
Max, il protagonista io narrante, ha da poco superato i sessanta, da dodici mesi seppellito la moglie Anna, ha una figlia, Claire, alle cui telefonate preferisce non rispondere per concentrarsi meglio sul suo lutto.
E per dedicarsi meglio anche all’attività principale che sostiene l’intero romanzo.
Visto che Max è tornato nel luogo sulla costa irlandese dove ha passato le sue estati dell’infanzia – e in particolare una, quella dove conobbe e frequentò la famiglia Grace, i cui figli gemelli erano sua coetanei e la ragazzina, Chloe, è stata il suo primo amore - l’attività principale consiste nel rievocare ricordi.
Tirare fuori dalla scatola della memoria cartoline del passato, senza neppure ricorrere alle occasionali madeleine proustiane, ma semplicemente camminando per i luoghi di mezzo secolo prima, facendo confronti tra ieri e oggi, cercando di sostanziare il suo doloroso oggi con quello struggente ieri.
I coniugi Grace sono Rufuss Sewell e la magnifica Natascha McElhone.
Continuamente avanti e indietro nel tempo, ieri e oggi, oggi e ieri, ricordi memorie rimpianti nostalgia.
Elegante, raffinato, evocativo, ricercato: ma qui e là la costruzione traspare un po’ forzata e il risultato è di una certa artificiosità. Tutto sommato, sostanzialmente noiosino. Non il primo incontro con Banville che avrei sperato.
Ciarán Hinds è Max. Sua moglie Anna è interpretata da Sinéad Cusack. La padrona della villa I Cedri è Charlotte Rampling.
July 29, 2019
Όταν ένα βιβλίο καταφέρνει να κάμψει κάθε δυνατότητα αντίστασης στην εσωτερική, ατομική σύγκρουση της πένθιμης μνήμης, των λυγμών ενός ανίκητου πόνου, που βαθαίνει όσο παλιώνει και της αξόδευτης νοσταλγίας, προσωπικών εμπειριών, βιωματικής προσομοίωσης με την κοσμική θλίψη, με την εκούσια απομόνωση στην αξέχαστη ευτυχία της φυλακής ενός τραγικού παρελθόντος,
τότε εκεί, μονάχα εκεί,
σωπαίνουν οι στεναγμοί και οι θρήνοι απλώνονται στο χαρτί.
Αλλά με κάποιο τρόπο η ομορφιά της τέχνης, της γραφής, λυτρώνει, απελευθερώνει, λησμονεί
και γίνεται «θάλασσα», στοιχείο της φύσης που δεν παρεκκλίνει απο τους νόμους της, μια θάλασσα... για κάθε ζωική και πνευματική ύπαρξη.
Μια γραφή προωθητικής κατάστασης σε βαθμό κακουργηματικής αυτοπροστασίας είναι το διαμαντάκι τούτο.
Πεζογραφία που το μελάνι της καταριέται τον άλλο κόσμο, εκεί, που μάλλον,
ζουν οι αγαπημένοι,
όχι εδώ, ίσως γι’αυτό δοξολογεί τον επερχόμενο θάνατο, με δέος και ντροπιαστικό ενθουσιασμό,
με ανακλήσεις στιγμών και επικλήσεις παρέμβασης
στο αναπόδραστο, μάταια, απεγνωσμένα, πραγματικά.
Τότε, σίγουρα, μιλάμε για ένα εξαιρετικά σπουδαίο βιβλίο.
Με συγκλόνισε και με συνεπήρε εξ αρχής η τελετή δραματουργίας του Banville σε ένα έργο δίχως δράση, χωρίς αγωνία, δίχως πιεστικό ενδιαφέρον γεγονότων εξέλιξης.
Η ομορφιά της τέχνης που μιμείται την ζωή,
η ζωή που συντρίβεται απο την τέχνη σε μια ζοφερή αλήθεια,
σε μια «θάλασσα»σκοτεινή, παγωμένη, αναζωογονητική, τρομακτική, με ηδονές και οδύνες,
με χαρά και δάκρυα, με βροχές που λιάζονται στα κύματα, και με φεγγάρια που πνίγονται στις αιώνια ερωτικές παλίρροιες.
Ψυχές που αγαπήθηκαν, βουλιάζουν στον βυθό για να φέγγουν στα μνημόσυνα της ζωής, που δεν κατάφερε να σωθεί απο την ίδια της την ασάφεια, απο τον εαυτό της, απο την ίδια της την ύπαρξη.
Μία ακαταμάχητη, συγκινησιακή ομορφιά, όλο το κείμενο. Ένας μαγνήτης αναθεώρησης που ελκύει και απωθεί, που μιλάει με ερωτευμένες λέξεις και ποιητικές ζωγραφιές.
Οι γραμμές της ποίησης του συγγραφέα μεταφέρουν συναισθηματικές γνώσεις,
παρατηρήσεις ανθρωπιάς
σε ένα ρεύμα συνειδητοποίησης και ανάμειξης του πνιγμένου παρελθόντος που σοκάρει το παρόν που έκανε χημειοθεραπεία θανάτου, για ένα μέλλον που δεν ήρθε ακόμη μα του αφιερώνουμε ένα πλήρως εμπεριστατωμένο μνημόσυνο.
Το αγάπησα αυτό το πένθιμο ηχηρό ιστοριάκι, με άγγιξε, μου τέντωσε τους ψυχικούς μύες και με έσπρωξε σε μια περιδίνιση, σε έναν εσωτερικό μαίανδρο στο παρελθόν του, πότε κοντά και πότε μακριά απο τα λεγόμενα του.
Οι παροντικές αναμνήσεις του μου αποκάλυψαν την καταστροφή του, με οδήγησαν σε ένα κεντρικό καλοκαίρι σταθμό απο τα παλιά, πολύ παλιά χρόνια που διηγούνται την ιστορία των ηρώων, οι οποίοι με έφεραν και πάλι στο μελλοντικό παρόν.
Στις τελευταίες σελίδες η κορύφωση αποθεώνει και αποκαθηλώνει τα ηθικά διλήμματα, την εύθραυστη ανθρώπινη ταυτότητα, την υπαρξιακή ανασφάλεια που αντιλαμβάνεται την έλλειψη της ουσίας και την πυκνότητα της αγάπης, όταν το βάρος της αλήθειας εμποδίζει τον αγνοούμενο εαυτό να βρεθεί με το έτερο εγώ του.
💜🌈💜🌈💜🌺🍒😈
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
τότε εκεί, μονάχα εκεί,
σωπαίνουν οι στεναγμοί και οι θρήνοι απλώνονται στο χαρτί.
Αλλά με κάποιο τρόπο η ομορφιά της τέχνης, της γραφής, λυτρώνει, απελευθερώνει, λησμονεί
και γίνεται «θάλασσα», στοιχείο της φύσης που δεν παρεκκλίνει απο τους νόμους της, μια θάλασσα... για κάθε ζωική και πνευματική ύπαρξη.
Μια γραφή προωθητικής κατάστασης σε βαθμό κακουργηματικής αυτοπροστασίας είναι το διαμαντάκι τούτο.
Πεζογραφία που το μελάνι της καταριέται τον άλλο κόσμο, εκεί, που μάλλον,
ζουν οι αγαπημένοι,
όχι εδώ, ίσως γι’αυτό δοξολογεί τον επερχόμενο θάνατο, με δέος και ντροπιαστικό ενθουσιασμό,
με ανακλήσεις στιγμών και επικλήσεις παρέμβασης
στο αναπόδραστο, μάταια, απεγνωσμένα, πραγματικά.
Τότε, σίγουρα, μιλάμε για ένα εξαιρετικά σπουδαίο βιβλίο.
Με συγκλόνισε και με συνεπήρε εξ αρχής η τελετή δραματουργίας του Banville σε ένα έργο δίχως δράση, χωρίς αγωνία, δίχως πιεστικό ενδιαφέρον γεγονότων εξέλιξης.
Η ομορφιά της τέχνης που μιμείται την ζωή,
η ζωή που συντρίβεται απο την τέχνη σε μια ζοφερή αλήθεια,
σε μια «θάλασσα»σκοτεινή, παγωμένη, αναζωογονητική, τρομακτική, με ηδονές και οδύνες,
με χαρά και δάκρυα, με βροχές που λιάζονται στα κύματα, και με φεγγάρια που πνίγονται στις αιώνια ερωτικές παλίρροιες.
Ψυχές που αγαπήθηκαν, βουλιάζουν στον βυθό για να φέγγουν στα μνημόσυνα της ζωής, που δεν κατάφερε να σωθεί απο την ίδια της την ασάφεια, απο τον εαυτό της, απο την ίδια της την ύπαρξη.
Μία ακαταμάχητη, συγκινησιακή ομορφιά, όλο το κείμενο. Ένας μαγνήτης αναθεώρησης που ελκύει και απωθεί, που μιλάει με ερωτευμένες λέξεις και ποιητικές ζωγραφιές.
Οι γραμμές της ποίησης του συγγραφέα μεταφέρουν συναισθηματικές γνώσεις,
παρατηρήσεις ανθρωπιάς
σε ένα ρεύμα συνειδητοποίησης και ανάμειξης του πνιγμένου παρελθόντος που σοκάρει το παρόν που έκανε χημειοθεραπεία θανάτου, για ένα μέλλον που δεν ήρθε ακόμη μα του αφιερώνουμε ένα πλήρως εμπεριστατωμένο μνημόσυνο.
Το αγάπησα αυτό το πένθιμο ηχηρό ιστοριάκι, με άγγιξε, μου τέντωσε τους ψυχικούς μύες και με έσπρωξε σε μια περιδίνιση, σε έναν εσωτερικό μαίανδρο στο παρελθόν του, πότε κοντά και πότε μακριά απο τα λεγόμενα του.
Οι παροντικές αναμνήσεις του μου αποκάλυψαν την καταστροφή του, με οδήγησαν σε ένα κεντρικό καλοκαίρι σταθμό απο τα παλιά, πολύ παλιά χρόνια που διηγούνται την ιστορία των ηρώων, οι οποίοι με έφεραν και πάλι στο μελλοντικό παρόν.
Στις τελευταίες σελίδες η κορύφωση αποθεώνει και αποκαθηλώνει τα ηθικά διλήμματα, την εύθραυστη ανθρώπινη ταυτότητα, την υπαρξιακή ανασφάλεια που αντιλαμβάνεται την έλλειψη της ουσίας και την πυκνότητα της αγάπης, όταν το βάρος της αλήθειας εμποδίζει τον αγνοούμενο εαυτό να βρεθεί με το έτερο εγώ του.
💜🌈💜🌈💜🌺🍒😈
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
September 27, 2014
"And I, who timidly hate life, fear death with fascination."Livro do desassossego, Fernando Pessoa
“Perhaps all of life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it” proclaims Max Morten, narrator and main character of The Sea, after his wife Anna passes away victim of a long and enduring illness.
Drowning in the grief which comes with the vast and ruthless sea of loss, he decides to seclude himself in the little coastal village where he spent his summers as a boy. A flood of unavoidable memories charged with haunted emotion and digressive meditations recreate that dreamy atmosphere that only childhood can nurture. New found memories which serve to wash away his conflicting emotions between the impotence of witnessing life quietly fading away and the cruel complacency of ordinary things allowing death to happen indifferently.
But as Max invades his frozen memories he awakens ghosts long gone though never forgotten and the unsettling and seductive Grace twins, his childhood friends, will become sharply delineated on the wall of his memory, prompting unintended recollections about the strangeness and dislocation of one’s own existence and the immortal burden of being the survivor.
”You are not even allowed to hate me a little, any more, like you used to” says Anna to Max with a sad, knowing smile. Isn't it true that we can’t help hating the ones we love the most? We are human beings after all. And the guilt and the anger and the violence which come after our beloved have been irrevocably usurped from us, leaving us alone with all that self-disgust, with no one to save us from ourselves, hating them, the gone, even more.
Banville threads a complex pattern between the gratuitous dramas of memory, past traumas and an intolerable present which engages in eternal conflict with the enduring intensity of the natural world which, with all its ruthless beauty and nonchalance, mocks at our human insignificance. And it is precisely when we are devastated by this insurmountable, catastrophic truth that Banville's crafted poetry starts delivering rhythmic tides of controlled pleasure, dropping pearls of beauty, easing the sting of the meaningless words, holding us together, creating a new pregnant life full of wonder and possibilities.
I’m aware Banville's style might not appeal to every reader, he doesn't rush, he digresses languidly, teasing and eroding your perceptions relentlessly, his mortally serious ways can seem overdone, but I responded to his uncompromising tone, so graceful and precise. Poetry in prose.
Memories may say nothing but they are never silent, pulling and pushing, futilely turned the wrong way, urging us to be drowned and get lost in them, never to return. But somehow these little vessels of sadness, these sinking boats we all are, sailing in muffled silence in this hollow sea of impotence and disregard, manage to catch the smooth rolling swells coming from the deeps only to be lifted and carried away towards the shore as if nothing had happened. And as our feet touch the ground we realize that our lives have been, in spite of everything, in spite of ourselves, acts of pure love and only for that, they are worth living.
(…) and it was as if I were walking into the sea.
“Perhaps all of life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it” proclaims Max Morten, narrator and main character of The Sea, after his wife Anna passes away victim of a long and enduring illness.
Drowning in the grief which comes with the vast and ruthless sea of loss, he decides to seclude himself in the little coastal village where he spent his summers as a boy. A flood of unavoidable memories charged with haunted emotion and digressive meditations recreate that dreamy atmosphere that only childhood can nurture. New found memories which serve to wash away his conflicting emotions between the impotence of witnessing life quietly fading away and the cruel complacency of ordinary things allowing death to happen indifferently.
But as Max invades his frozen memories he awakens ghosts long gone though never forgotten and the unsettling and seductive Grace twins, his childhood friends, will become sharply delineated on the wall of his memory, prompting unintended recollections about the strangeness and dislocation of one’s own existence and the immortal burden of being the survivor.
”You are not even allowed to hate me a little, any more, like you used to” says Anna to Max with a sad, knowing smile. Isn't it true that we can’t help hating the ones we love the most? We are human beings after all. And the guilt and the anger and the violence which come after our beloved have been irrevocably usurped from us, leaving us alone with all that self-disgust, with no one to save us from ourselves, hating them, the gone, even more.
Banville threads a complex pattern between the gratuitous dramas of memory, past traumas and an intolerable present which engages in eternal conflict with the enduring intensity of the natural world which, with all its ruthless beauty and nonchalance, mocks at our human insignificance. And it is precisely when we are devastated by this insurmountable, catastrophic truth that Banville's crafted poetry starts delivering rhythmic tides of controlled pleasure, dropping pearls of beauty, easing the sting of the meaningless words, holding us together, creating a new pregnant life full of wonder and possibilities.
I’m aware Banville's style might not appeal to every reader, he doesn't rush, he digresses languidly, teasing and eroding your perceptions relentlessly, his mortally serious ways can seem overdone, but I responded to his uncompromising tone, so graceful and precise. Poetry in prose.
Memories may say nothing but they are never silent, pulling and pushing, futilely turned the wrong way, urging us to be drowned and get lost in them, never to return. But somehow these little vessels of sadness, these sinking boats we all are, sailing in muffled silence in this hollow sea of impotence and disregard, manage to catch the smooth rolling swells coming from the deeps only to be lifted and carried away towards the shore as if nothing had happened. And as our feet touch the ground we realize that our lives have been, in spite of everything, in spite of ourselves, acts of pure love and only for that, they are worth living.
(…) and it was as if I were walking into the sea.
June 2, 2016
This is a Booker Prize winner. The language in this short novel is very, very rich, evocative and annoyingly, sent me to the dictionary far too many times for comfort. Banville is just showing off, descending into literary affectation perhaps. Two time-lines interweave as Max, a retired art critic, now living at The Cedars, a grand house of note from his youth, recalls those days when he lived with his family in much more modest surroundings and peered longingly into this place. Of course, it was not wealth per se that drew his 11 year old interest, but the presence of The Graces, not a religious fascination, but a family. A pan-like, goatish father, Carlo, an earth mother, Constance, white-haired (and thus summoning Children of the Damned notions) twins, a strange mute boy, Myles, who is sometimes comedic and sometimes sinister, a maybe-sociopathic girl, Chloe, and another girl, Rose, who appeared to be a mere friend, but was their governess. That this is left unclear for much of the book seems odd. Young Max enjoys the social step up he gets by hanging out with the twins, and is quite willing to go along with their cruelties to subservient locals, but is most taken with Constance Grace, pining for her in an awakening sexual way, until, of course, his heart, or some bodily part, is stolen by Chloe. There is a scent here of Gatsby-ish longing, and Max is indeed a social climber.
Death figures very prominently in The Sea. “They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide,” is how it opens, and goes on very briefly to summon an image of a rising sea intent on devouring all. I will spare you the final death scene, but Max does indeed cope with death, the passing of his wife, Anna, contemplation of his own ultimate demise and how death, as personified by the sea, not only affected his life, but seems always with us.
This is I suppose a novel of coming and going of age. Banville is quite fond of deitific references, finding a different god or goddess for each of his characters. And his art-critic narrator sprinkles the narration with references to paintings. Sadly for me, I am completely unfamiliar with the works noted, so may have missed key references. Max is not a nice person. He engages in cruel behavior as a child and appears to lack a strong core of humanity, confessing that he doesn’t really know his daughter very well, and not seeming to care much.
I was almost satisfied with the ending, which recalls the most significant event of his youth, but I felt that it left unsatisfactorily unexplained the reasons for its occurrence. I was also frustrated by the slowness of the book. Although it is a short novel, it seemed to take a long time to get going. And the central characters do not call out for any of us to relate to them. All that said, while I might not award it a Booker, I would recommend it. The language is sublime (tote a dictionary while you read. You will need it.) and the payoff is good enough to justify the slow pace.
PS - for a very different and fascinating take on the novel be sure to check out Cecily's review
Death figures very prominently in The Sea. “They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide,” is how it opens, and goes on very briefly to summon an image of a rising sea intent on devouring all. I will spare you the final death scene, but Max does indeed cope with death, the passing of his wife, Anna, contemplation of his own ultimate demise and how death, as personified by the sea, not only affected his life, but seems always with us.
This is I suppose a novel of coming and going of age. Banville is quite fond of deitific references, finding a different god or goddess for each of his characters. And his art-critic narrator sprinkles the narration with references to paintings. Sadly for me, I am completely unfamiliar with the works noted, so may have missed key references. Max is not a nice person. He engages in cruel behavior as a child and appears to lack a strong core of humanity, confessing that he doesn’t really know his daughter very well, and not seeming to care much.
I was almost satisfied with the ending, which recalls the most significant event of his youth, but I felt that it left unsatisfactorily unexplained the reasons for its occurrence. I was also frustrated by the slowness of the book. Although it is a short novel, it seemed to take a long time to get going. And the central characters do not call out for any of us to relate to them. All that said, while I might not award it a Booker, I would recommend it. The language is sublime (tote a dictionary while you read. You will need it.) and the payoff is good enough to justify the slow pace.
PS - for a very different and fascinating take on the novel be sure to check out Cecily's review
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 13, 2017
The narrator of The Sea is an odious man. I wasn’t sure I ever understood why Banville made him so odious. As a child he hits his dog for pleasure; he pulls the legs off insects and burns them in oil. As an adult, he’s a crude misogynist without knowing he’s a misogynist, a narcissist and a masochistic misanthrope. He makes constant allusions to his acquired humility and wisdom but he comes across throughout the book as largely ignorant and arrogant. There’s no apotheosis. Because Max is presented as a mediocrity with artistic pretensions I was often perplexed how seriously Banville wanted us to take the rarefied outpourings of his sensibility. I certainly found it difficult to reconcile the essential crudeness of Max’s nature with his Proustian sensibility. There was a disconnect between the narrator’s ugly soul and his susceptibility to the beauty of the natural world. At times it seemed like the ambition of this novel was to write as many pretty sentences as possible rather than a novel. You could save yourself time by simply reading all the favourite quotes here rather than the entire novel without missing very much. The writing is relentlessly elegant but often it’s elegant where elegance is inappropriate. It’s vacuously elegant. His aphorisms can appear vacuous too - “The past, I mean the real past, matters less than we pretend.” You could turn that sentence on its head –“The past matters more than we pretend” and it’s no less true. Despite its constant yearning for profundity I didn’t have one eureka moment when he enabled me to see something familiar in a new revelatory light. Like I said I was never sure if he was sending up his character by making a lot of his lofty musings deliberately vacuous, of no consequence whatsoever.
There’s little tension in this novel, no compulsion. It all hinges on what’s essentially a moment of melodrama which didn’t ring true for me. Neither did it explain anything. There are good things, like the descriptions of his childhood crush on his friend’s mother and his dying wife and his response, though once again Banville can’t resist his misanthropic form of dark humour which consistently puts his character in the worst possible light – ironic as he’s always waxing lyrical in the book about the transfiguring nature of light.
The Sea might be described as a grumpy meditation on growing old. I much preferred The Untouchables which had a plot, a sense of purpose Banville could embroider with his elegant prose.
There’s little tension in this novel, no compulsion. It all hinges on what’s essentially a moment of melodrama which didn’t ring true for me. Neither did it explain anything. There are good things, like the descriptions of his childhood crush on his friend’s mother and his dying wife and his response, though once again Banville can’t resist his misanthropic form of dark humour which consistently puts his character in the worst possible light – ironic as he’s always waxing lyrical in the book about the transfiguring nature of light.
The Sea might be described as a grumpy meditation on growing old. I much preferred The Untouchables which had a plot, a sense of purpose Banville could embroider with his elegant prose.
February 23, 2017
Night, and everything so quiet, as if there were no one, not even myself. I cannot hear the sea, which on other nights rumbles and growls, now near grating, now afar and faint. I do not want to be alone like this. Why have you not come back to haunt me? Is the least I would have expected of you. Why this silence day after day, night after interminable night? It is like a fog, this silence of yours.
What is John Banville’s The Sea all about? An infinite weave of contemplative and melancholic feelings of a man lost in his sufferings. It is about the impossibility of hope; the harshness of loss, and the inescapability of pain. A convulsive probe into the past, it revisits times gone by that sets it all adrift. Constant guilt for what could not have been changed, accounts of resentments, and the restraints and combat of a man to the intimacy of grief. All coupled with constant images and metaphors of a turbulent and immeasurable sea.
There were things of course the boy that I was then would not have allowed himself to foresee, in his eager anticipations, even if he had been able. Loss, grief, the sombre days and the sleepless nights, such surprises tend not to register on the prophetic imagination's photographic plate.
The story is narrated by Max, a retired art critic, who is mourning the death of his wife, Anna, and now living at The Cedars, which he remembers from his youth. Whether recalling those days when he lived with his family in more modest surroundings and gawked eagerly into the house and its inhabitants, the Graces.
John Banville impresses with his beautiful, splendid and brittle writing. His protagonist Max is governed by his whims, which twists and weakens before its sorrowfulness, his mourning, the sutures of old dislikes, and the trace of his fossilized tears.
These days I must take the world in small and carefully measured doses, it is a sort of homeopathic cure I am undergoing, though I am not certain what this cure is meant to mend. Perhaps I am learning to live among the living again. Practising, I mean. But no, that is not it. Being here is just a way of not being anywhere.
Among meditations on losses and presages of death, we encounter once in a while a specter of happiness, might we dream of hope? Possibly this is too far to imagine, but even Banville protagonist’s wanderings remember to point to the existence of peace if not happiness. Like the sun that steals a chance to come through on an overcast and dark sky, with its rays reflecting alluringly in the tumultuous sea. How does Banville present us with a scene not so wistful, how can he, amidst so such melancholy, bring up moments of joy? His only escape is through remembrances of a long gone past: a past of friendship, a past with wisps of seduction, forgetting the losses that followed for mere moments. Those moments invariably invoke the sea with its vastness and its depths, along with its mysterious personal allure.
Still that day of license and illicit invitation was not done. As Mrs. Grace, stretched there on the grassy bank, continued softly snoring, a torpor descended on the rest of us in that little dell, the invisible net of lassitude that falls over a company when one of its number detaches and drops away into sleep. ... Suddenly she was the centre of the scene, the vanishing-point upon which everything converged, suddenly it was she for whom these patterns and these shades had been arranged with such meticulous artlessness: that white cloth on the polished glass, the leaning, blue-green tree, the frilled ferns, even those little clouds, trying to seem not to move, high up in the limitless marine sky.
All is not darkness; the memories bring back those long ago days of lightness. Thus, there are furtive moments of carefree recollection that appear to console our protagonist:
Happiness was different in childhood. It was so much a matter of simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvelously finished pavilion of the self. And incredulity, that too was a large part of being happy, I mean that euphoric inability fully to believe one's simple luck.
I have always loved the sea with its ever changing tides and undercurrents, and its massive waters always invoked sentiments of peace or turbulence in me; never of melancholy and sorrow. Thus, Banville through Max seems to view a different sea from mine. No matter what sea we contemplate: a lush tropical one or Max’s frigid and bleak one, the differences persist. Could a more austere sea invoke the sentiments Max tells us in his narrative? No, I do not think it comes from the sea but from inside. And it seems frozen by the winds of gloom in Max’s heart. However, there are rare moments of peace and hopefulness, even if short lived. And ultimately he returns to his sufferings and the loss that so ravaged him.
We forgave each other for all that we were not. What more could be expected, in this vale of torments and tears? Do not look so worried, Anna said, I hated you, too, a little, we were human beings, after all. Yet for all that, I cannot rid myself of the convictions that we missed something, that I missed something, only I do not know what it might have been.
Thus, Anna tried to liberate Max of his guilt. Yes, we are allowed to hate those we love; and if we can hate is solely because we loved. That’s how human beings can form relationships, by being truthful to themselves. However, Max was not ready to give up on his guilt that still hangs on together with his memories of Anna.
Still drowning in his grief, from his hard and recent loss, we read and feel for its inevitability, like the tide that stops for nothing, and Max unavoidable memories hurt and haunt him. His memories only escalate his sentiment of gloom and remorse. I have to confess that this was one of the scattered moments where I read more than the beauty of Banville well-chosen words; his suffering with the loss of his wife touched me deeply.
I sat in the bay of the window and watched the day darken. Bare trees across the road were black against the last flares of the setting sun, and the rooks in a raucous flock were wheeling and dropping, settling disputatiously for the night. I was thinking of Anna. I make myself think of her, I do it as an exercise. She is lodged in me like a knife and yet I am beginning to forget her.
However, Max not ready yet to let Anna go, calls for her in his immense sadness, like a sinking boat that is missing the saving grace of a gracious wind that picks up on the waves of forgetfulness, which would push him to a safe shore and acceptance.
I said something, some fatuous thing such as Don't go, or Stay with me, but again she gave that impatient shake of the head, and tugged my hand to draw me closer. "They are stopping the clocks," she said, the merest threat of a whisper, conspiratorial. "I have stopped time." And she nodded, a solemn, knowing nod, and smiled, too, I would swear it was a smile.
Alas, all Banville’s lyrical and bittersweet chronicle left me with plenty of beautiful quotes. Yes, I was carried away by his lyricism and kept going between quotes. Banville mostly gives us poetry in prose. However, I felt Banville's eloquence and his gorgeously passionate way of phrasing what he wants to say somehow impacts adversely on his storytelling ability. I recently read Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and there her lyricism worked because that was what she aimed to do. There was no storyline, no plot and it worked perfectly. No so here, I felt Banville’s characters suffered from the weight of his lyrical prose. I ended loving it for its poetry but not loving it so much for his characters. Yes, Max is not the kind of protagonist I appreciate. Yes, the themes are explored to the fullest. Yes, Banville tells his tale alluringly, with a delightful language that few writers can glue together. Yes, I loved the theme, it's profound reflections on love, loss, regret, and the role memory plays in the grieving process. His insights are certainly great literature. But it left me wanting more, wanting a protagonist I could fully comprehend and grasp. Perhaps it is not so terrible to be left wanting more, hence do not judge me harshly for my dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, highly recommended.
___
January 17, 2019
I just have to say it: it's all semiunremarkable until page 170 or so (this book, like many in the modern canon, such as “Amsterdam,” another Booker winner, is short in that bittersweet sort of way—perilously malingering, at 200 pages, between being almost a novel, but not quite a novella)—the plot ebbs and flows (ha) through an ocean of profound memories. The narrator chronicles, basically, two points in his life which left him devastated. His first ever, and his latest, all revolve around the sea, its massiveness & its depths, its personal mysterious allure. He meditates on the last one of these presages of death, that looming event itself, so final and sad—and the end really is like dynamite. I can only compare it to “Everyman” by Philip Roth, even “The Death of Ivan Ilych” in its management of such a theme which is, at first glimpse, frankly, droll & overdone. The poetry which had been glimpsed at before creates a lasting impact on the reader at its speedy conclusion. The tedium and clichéd tactics become very much negligible once the ending gets there. Here is a paramount example of how the ending makes the book.
August 12, 2016
When my wife died suddenly in 1998 from a cerebral aneurysm, one of the things that I did in the wake of her death was to begin to reconnect with people and places that had meaning both for us as a couple and for me alone. In many cases, I ended up returning to places from my own childhood and reconnecting with people whom I had not contacted for years. Both the process itself and the actual reconnections to past places and friends helped me cope with the loss. It also activated memories that I had either forgotten or had feared I would be unable to recall.
John Bayville’s The Sea is a story that mirrors in some measure my own journey in grief. For Max Morden, the journey to his past was certainly more focused. Following his wife’s death after a long illness, he returned to the seaside town where his family had vacationed in his youth. And his reawakening memories swirled around a family, the Graces, he had met during a single summer when he was around 11 years old. For Max, mystery and tragedy were deeply embedded in his youthful past.
While there are clear differences in Max’s and my returns to our pasts, Max’s emotional responses to working through grief were similar. At one point, toward the end of the novel, Max reflects:
There are times, they occur with increasing frequency nowadays, when I seem to know nothing, when everything I did know seems to have fallen out of my mind like a shower of rain, and I am gripped for a moment in paralyzed dismay, waiting for it all to come back but with no certainty that it will.
That feeling I know well.
I more generally read fiction to open up new horizons for me, new worlds—to help me see and understand with the eyes of others the world around me. The Sea, however, was a far more personal adventure: in a sense, it was a return to old worlds along already trodden roads. I understood much of Max’s inner turmoil and disengagement from the people around him because it all rang true for me in my circumstances.
Apart the story thread, Banville’s language is elegant and often lyrical. Here Max describes a moment when he and the Graces are at the beach:
The sand around me with the sun strong on it gave off its mysterious, catty smell. Out on the bay a white sail shivered and flipped to leeward and for a second the world tilted. Someone away down the beach was calling to someone else. Children. Bathers. A wire-haired ginger dog. The sail turned to windward again and I heard distinctly from across the water the ruffle and snap of the canvas. Then the breeze dropped and for a moment all went still.
Banville fills his novel with the kinds of descriptions that pull the reader directly into the story, seeing, hearing and smelling with the protagonist.
Banville, as Ted Gioia emphasizes in his review of The Sea, also builds his story with words that will send most readers to a dictionary: assegais, horrent, cinereal, knobkerrie, prelapsarian and mephitic (Gioia's selection). It is that use of an elegantly mature vocabulary that seems to off put many readers. He is clearly in his selection of words not an Ernest Hemingway. But he is a different type of stylist than Hemingway. While Hemingway in his classic novels and short stories uses a sparse, tightly-constructed prose that hints at greater depth and meaning (his so-called “iceberg theory”), Banville brings everything to the surface, leaving the reader submerged in a world of profound emotion and surprise tightly controlled by the author. Reading The Sea is not effortless.
John Bayville’s The Sea is a story that mirrors in some measure my own journey in grief. For Max Morden, the journey to his past was certainly more focused. Following his wife’s death after a long illness, he returned to the seaside town where his family had vacationed in his youth. And his reawakening memories swirled around a family, the Graces, he had met during a single summer when he was around 11 years old. For Max, mystery and tragedy were deeply embedded in his youthful past.
While there are clear differences in Max’s and my returns to our pasts, Max’s emotional responses to working through grief were similar. At one point, toward the end of the novel, Max reflects:
There are times, they occur with increasing frequency nowadays, when I seem to know nothing, when everything I did know seems to have fallen out of my mind like a shower of rain, and I am gripped for a moment in paralyzed dismay, waiting for it all to come back but with no certainty that it will.
That feeling I know well.
I more generally read fiction to open up new horizons for me, new worlds—to help me see and understand with the eyes of others the world around me. The Sea, however, was a far more personal adventure: in a sense, it was a return to old worlds along already trodden roads. I understood much of Max’s inner turmoil and disengagement from the people around him because it all rang true for me in my circumstances.
Apart the story thread, Banville’s language is elegant and often lyrical. Here Max describes a moment when he and the Graces are at the beach:
The sand around me with the sun strong on it gave off its mysterious, catty smell. Out on the bay a white sail shivered and flipped to leeward and for a second the world tilted. Someone away down the beach was calling to someone else. Children. Bathers. A wire-haired ginger dog. The sail turned to windward again and I heard distinctly from across the water the ruffle and snap of the canvas. Then the breeze dropped and for a moment all went still.
Banville fills his novel with the kinds of descriptions that pull the reader directly into the story, seeing, hearing and smelling with the protagonist.
Banville, as Ted Gioia emphasizes in his review of The Sea, also builds his story with words that will send most readers to a dictionary: assegais, horrent, cinereal, knobkerrie, prelapsarian and mephitic (Gioia's selection). It is that use of an elegantly mature vocabulary that seems to off put many readers. He is clearly in his selection of words not an Ernest Hemingway. But he is a different type of stylist than Hemingway. While Hemingway in his classic novels and short stories uses a sparse, tightly-constructed prose that hints at greater depth and meaning (his so-called “iceberg theory”), Banville brings everything to the surface, leaving the reader submerged in a world of profound emotion and surprise tightly controlled by the author. Reading The Sea is not effortless.
July 11, 2021
(Book 6 From 1001 Books) - The Sea, John Banville
The story is told by Max Morden, a self-aware, retired art historian attempting to reconcile himself to the deaths of those he loved as a child and as an adult. After the death of his wife, Max returns to the scene of his childhood, a summer in particular.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز پنجم ماه آگوست سال 2007میلادی
عنوان: دریا؛ اثر: جان بنویل؛ ترجمه: اسدالل�� امرایی؛ نشر: تهران، افق، چاپ اول و دوم 1386، در 212ص، فروست ادبیات امروز، رمان 39؛چاپ سوم 1389؛ شابک9789643693213؛ چاپ چهارم 1392؛ چاپ پنجم 1396؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایرلند - سده 20م
در این داستان «مکس موردون (مورخ تاریخ هنر)»، پس از مرگ همسرش، به شهری ساحلی میرود، که در کودکی تعطیلات خود را، در آنجا سپری کرده اند؛ خانواده ی «گریس»، در آن تابستان سالهای دور، گویی از جهان دیگری آمده بودند؛ فرزندان دوقلوی آنها: «مایلز، پسر لال خانواده»، و «کلوئه، دختر آتشپاره» همسن و سال «مکس» بودند، که توجه او را به خود جلب میکنند؛ رمان «دریا» آمیزه ای از یادمان و عشق است
در داستان راوی در پی پیدا کردن خود و هویتش است، همان چیزی که خیلی از ما با آن بیگانه شده ایم، از خود واقعیمان فاصله گرفته ایم اما خیال میکنیم دیگران را خوب شناخته ایم. به راستی وقتی خودمان را نمیشناسیم، چطور میتوانیم به فکر شناختن دیگری باشیم؟
ماجرا در فصل نخست از خانه ی «سدار»ها آغاز میشود؛ «سدار» همان سرو آزاد است؛ راوی داستان یک تاریخشناس هستند که همسرشان را از دست داده اند، و اکنون به روستایی در «ایرلند» برگشته اند، که سالها پیش تعطیلات خویش را آنجا سپری کرده بودند، و یادمانهای خویش را مرور میکنند؛ او دلش میخواهد در بگذشته ها سیر کند، مرگ همسر خویش را تاب نمیآورد، و از شرایط کنونی خویشتن بیزار است؛ اوراق نخستین کتاب بازنمایی بیهمانند، و خاطره انگیزی از آن خانه، ارائه میدهند؛ گویی نویسنده میخواهد خوانشگر را غرقه در داستان خویش کند، داستانی که بازگویی ساده، از یادمانهای مردی است، که در میانسالی، به محلی بازگشته اند، که روزگاری، نوجوانی و جوانی خویش را، در آنجا سپری کرده اند، و با مرور یادمانهای خویش، همه چیز برایش دوباره زنده میشوند؛ او باور نمیکند که آن خانه نسبت به بگذشته ها، تغییر چندانی نکرده است؛
فصل دوم از یادمانهای نویسنده کنار دریا آغاز میشود؛ این فصل کمی ساده تر از فصل نخست است، و نویسنده کوشش دارد، تصویر بهتری از آنچه در ذهن راوی داستان است، ارائه دهد؛ اما ذهن خوانشگر، همچنان درگیر پرسشهایی است، که از آغاز داستان بیپاسخ مانده اند؛ از آنجمله این که راوی داستان که نامش چند بار دیگر میشود، یا مرگ، که گویی در همه جای داستان کمین کرده است؛ «جان بنویل» با مهارت ویژه ای یکایک شخصیتهای آن خانه را به خوانشگرش میشناساند، ظاهر و درونشان را میشکافد؛ آنقدر دلچسب، که گاهی خود را میانشان مییابید، و میکوشید با توجه به واژه های نگارگرش، چهرههاشان را در خیالتان بیارائید
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 19/04/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
The story is told by Max Morden, a self-aware, retired art historian attempting to reconcile himself to the deaths of those he loved as a child and as an adult. After the death of his wife, Max returns to the scene of his childhood, a summer in particular.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز پنجم ماه آگوست سال 2007میلادی
عنوان: دریا؛ اثر: جان بنویل؛ ترجمه: اسدالل�� امرایی؛ نشر: تهران، افق، چاپ اول و دوم 1386، در 212ص، فروست ادبیات امروز، رمان 39؛چاپ سوم 1389؛ شابک9789643693213؛ چاپ چهارم 1392؛ چاپ پنجم 1396؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایرلند - سده 20م
در این داستان «مکس موردون (مورخ تاریخ هنر)»، پس از مرگ همسرش، به شهری ساحلی میرود، که در کودکی تعطیلات خود را، در آنجا سپری کرده اند؛ خانواده ی «گریس»، در آن تابستان سالهای دور، گویی از جهان دیگری آمده بودند؛ فرزندان دوقلوی آنها: «مایلز، پسر لال خانواده»، و «کلوئه، دختر آتشپاره» همسن و سال «مکس» بودند، که توجه او را به خود جلب میکنند؛ رمان «دریا» آمیزه ای از یادمان و عشق است
در داستان راوی در پی پیدا کردن خود و هویتش است، همان چیزی که خیلی از ما با آن بیگانه شده ایم، از خود واقعیمان فاصله گرفته ایم اما خیال میکنیم دیگران را خوب شناخته ایم. به راستی وقتی خودمان را نمیشناسیم، چطور میتوانیم به فکر شناختن دیگری باشیم؟
ماجرا در فصل نخست از خانه ی «سدار»ها آغاز میشود؛ «سدار» همان سرو آزاد است؛ راوی داستان یک تاریخشناس هستند که همسرشان را از دست داده اند، و اکنون به روستایی در «ایرلند» برگشته اند، که سالها پیش تعطیلات خویش را آنجا سپری کرده بودند، و یادمانهای خویش را مرور میکنند؛ او دلش میخواهد در بگذشته ها سیر کند، مرگ همسر خویش را تاب نمیآورد، و از شرایط کنونی خویشتن بیزار است؛ اوراق نخستین کتاب بازنمایی بیهمانند، و خاطره انگیزی از آن خانه، ارائه میدهند؛ گویی نویسنده میخواهد خوانشگر را غرقه در داستان خویش کند، داستانی که بازگویی ساده، از یادمانهای مردی است، که در میانسالی، به محلی بازگشته اند، که روزگاری، نوجوانی و جوانی خویش را، در آنجا سپری کرده اند، و با مرور یادمانهای خویش، همه چیز برایش دوباره زنده میشوند؛ او باور نمیکند که آن خانه نسبت به بگذشته ها، تغییر چندانی نکرده است؛
فصل دوم از یادمانهای نویسنده کنار دریا آغاز میشود؛ این فصل کمی ساده تر از فصل نخست است، و نویسنده کوشش دارد، تصویر بهتری از آنچه در ذهن راوی داستان است، ارائه دهد؛ اما ذهن خوانشگر، همچنان درگیر پرسشهایی است، که از آغاز داستان بیپاسخ مانده اند؛ از آنجمله این که راوی داستان که نامش چند بار دیگر میشود، یا مرگ، که گویی در همه جای داستان کمین کرده است؛ «جان بنویل» با مهارت ویژه ای یکایک شخصیتهای آن خانه را به خوانشگرش میشناساند، ظاهر و درونشان را میشکافد؛ آنقدر دلچسب، که گاهی خود را میانشان مییابید، و میکوشید با توجه به واژه های نگارگرش، چهرههاشان را در خیالتان بیارائید
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 19/04/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
March 3, 2023
The Sea really bugged me. I've never read another John Banville novel, so I don't know whether this one is typical of his writing in general, but nothing irritates me more these days than a writer who has considerable gifts at his command who writes novels that function as elegant window displays for the considerable gifts at his command. The plot of the book, such as it is, finds middle-aged Max Morden retiring to a rented house by the sea, near the "chalets" where he spent his boyhood summers, to mourn his wife's death and think about the past. The first person account intercuts Max's memories of his wife's final months with his memories of a "significant" summer he spent by the sea, during which he became fascinated with the Graces, a family a rung or two higher on the social ladder than Max himself. I put "significant" in quotation marks, because I can't for the life of me figure out what's significant about Max's relationship with the Graces, other than the opportunity it affords Banville to display his considerable gifts, and -- what's worse -- I can't even fathom what's significant about his wife's death other than the opportunity it affords Banville . . . well, you get the idea. The premise of the novel seems to be "Hey, look at me, everybody, I'm the 'heir to Nabokov.' The back of the book says so. And besides, my book is filled with Beautiful Prose." The linking of Banville's name with Nabokov on the back of the book does Banville a considerable disservice. I kept expecting withering satire and a devastating prose style (Banville is good, but he's not that good), and all I got was the narrator's tendency to pepper his recollections with big, bloated words.
"Character-driven" novels are not of themselves a bad thing. Perhaps my favorite novel of the last thirty years (Gilead) relies more on character than on plot. If you're going to rely on character, however, you'd better make sure your characters are at least one, and preferably all, of the following: a) sympathetic; b) compelling; c) more than merely a place marker for inflated, if not particularly profound, ruminations on the Big Questions.
One of Banville's passages may illustrate what bothers me most about this book. In the passage, Morden describes the photographs his terminally ill amateur-photographer wife has taken of fellow hospital patients -- all of whom have, apparently cheerfully, consented to expose their scars, wounds, and afflictions for the sake of . . . photographic immortality? . . . the gratification of their exhibitionist desires? . . . the betterment of mankind? I got stuck, as I read this passage, trying to figure out why the people in the photographs had agreed to present their private suffering in so public a fashion. Then I realized they were props, placed on stage to be rearranged and remarked upon, to give the leading man something to do while he wows us with his method acting. Oh, come on, one might object, isn't Yorick's skull a prop? Of course, but it's not merely a prop. We admire Hamlet's ability to make him live again, but that's just it. He makes him live again. Nobody really lives in Banville's novel, including his narrator, and perhaps that's not surprising in a novel that is mostly about death. What's more surprising, though, is that, for all his lovely style, Banville leaves us with very little impression that anyone in this book ever really has lived.
In the book's final passages, Max Morden likens the moment of his wife's death to a moment in his childhood when he had been lifted up by a suddenly surging sea, carried toward shore a bit, and then set down again. It was, he says, "as if nothing had happened. And indeed nothing had happened, a momentous nothing, just another of the great world's shrugs of indifference." That's what it feels like to read
"Character-driven" novels are not of themselves a bad thing. Perhaps my favorite novel of the last thirty years (Gilead) relies more on character than on plot. If you're going to rely on character, however, you'd better make sure your characters are at least one, and preferably all, of the following: a) sympathetic; b) compelling; c) more than merely a place marker for inflated, if not particularly profound, ruminations on the Big Questions.
One of Banville's passages may illustrate what bothers me most about this book. In the passage, Morden describes the photographs his terminally ill amateur-photographer wife has taken of fellow hospital patients -- all of whom have, apparently cheerfully, consented to expose their scars, wounds, and afflictions for the sake of . . . photographic immortality? . . . the gratification of their exhibitionist desires? . . . the betterment of mankind? I got stuck, as I read this passage, trying to figure out why the people in the photographs had agreed to present their private suffering in so public a fashion. Then I realized they were props, placed on stage to be rearranged and remarked upon, to give the leading man something to do while he wows us with his method acting. Oh, come on, one might object, isn't Yorick's skull a prop? Of course, but it's not merely a prop. We admire Hamlet's ability to make him live again, but that's just it. He makes him live again. Nobody really lives in Banville's novel, including his narrator, and perhaps that's not surprising in a novel that is mostly about death. What's more surprising, though, is that, for all his lovely style, Banville leaves us with very little impression that anyone in this book ever really has lived.
In the book's final passages, Max Morden likens the moment of his wife's death to a moment in his childhood when he had been lifted up by a suddenly surging sea, carried toward shore a bit, and then set down again. It was, he says, "as if nothing had happened. And indeed nothing had happened, a momentous nothing, just another of the great world's shrugs of indifference." That's what it feels like to read
February 3, 2021
“Qué pequeño recipiente de tristeza somos, navegando en este apagado silencio a través de la oscuridad del otoño.”Me está ocurriendo algo curioso últimamente con los libros que leo. Entre las sucesivas lecturas voy descubriendo como un hilo invisible que las conectan de algún modo. Por no irme más atrás, en mi lectura anterior, “Los enamoramientos”, de Javier Marías, se dice: “…su presente le causaba tanto desconcierto que en él era mucho más vulnerable y lánguida que cuando se instalaba en el pasado, incluso en el instante más doloroso y final del pasado…”. Y exactamente, punto por punto, es lo que le sucede al protagonista de esta hermosa, triste y terrible historia que nos cuenta John Banville con su prosa elegante y condensada en la que no falta, como parece que en él es habitual, un uso algo pretencioso del lenguaje.
“Esconderme, protegerme, guarecerme, eso es todo lo que realmente he querido siempre, amadrigarme en un lugar de calor uterino y quedarme allí encogido, oculto de la indiferente mirada del sol y de la severa erosión del aire. Por eso el pasado supone para mí un refugio, allí voy de buena gana, me froto las manos y me sacudo el frío presente y el frío futuro.”Y por esa memoria del pasado, caprichosa, esquiva, poco fiable, pero que, al mismo tiempo y de forma un tanto sorprendente, llega a ser puntillosa y detallista hasta niveles imposibles, sabremos de Max Morden, protagonista y narrador de esta historia, de su infancia, ese lugar del que nunca nos desprendemos. También sabremos de la culpa que arrastra desde entonces por algo que provocó sin intención, un malentendido que causó una catástrofe familiar y que ahora se entrelaza con el deterioro que conlleva los muchos años vividos y con el desamparo que siente tras la muerte de su mujer.
“Puta, maldita puta, cómo has podido dejarme así, revolcándome en mi propia inmundicia, sin nadie que me salve de mí mismo.”Y no es esta necesidad de volver al pasado la única hebra que une a este libro con el del escritor español, mayor aun es la coincidencia entre ambos en la indagación de lo que la muerte de un ser querido provoca en nuestras vidas, en nuestra identidad, cómo puede llegar a resquebrajarse aquello que fuimos y que ya no podremos reconstruir pues ese ser que se ha ido era la pieza que todo lo sostenía.
“… lo que encontré en Anna desde el principio fue una manera de realizar la fantasía de mí mismo.”Este problema de la identidad es otro de los grandes puntos de la novela, un tema siempre muy presente en las novelas de Javier Marías y que ahora también encuentro en mi lectura actual, “A contraluz”, de Rachel Cusk, la cual, a su vez, tiene una frase que bien podría ser el inicio de una novela de Marías: “…fue al oír que mi marido cantaba L'amour est un oiseau rebelle en la ducha cuando me di cuenta de que me era infiel”. El hilo haciendo de las suyas.
Si Banville pone en boca de su protagonista: “Desde el principio quise ser otra persona… Anna, lo comprendí enseguida, sería el medio para transmutarme”, Cusk hace lo propio con uno de sus personajes: “… la ausencia de su marido le había parecido la ausencia de un centro magnético sin el cual ya nada tenía el menor sentido… a través de él, se había convertido en otra persona. De alguna manera, él la había creado”.
Y así, con la muerte de aquella con quién construyó su ser-en-el-mundo aparecen las dudas, “…no puedo desembarazarme de la convicción de que me perdí algo, de que nos perdimos algo, sólo que no sé qué pudo ser”, algo que quizás pudiera encontrar en el pasado, en sus principios, a la orilla de aquel mar de los veranos de su infancia en el que, como otros hicieron en el pasado, se siente ahora desaparecer.
October 9, 2018
I wish to thank my wonderful friend Seemita, who is truly an amazing reviewer, for inspiring me to read this book.
"The silence about me was heavy as the sea."
Silence. It is a special kind of language. The language of the dead, of those long gone, of the forgotten, the misunderstood, the hurt, the mad and, sometimes, the content. What do they tell me? What does silence tell me? What does it tell Max Morden? It tells him a story. The story of his life. It embraces him, caresses him, whispers to him of everyone and everything lost. He holds on to it. It is his only companion, his only friend, the lover that will never tire of him. It is his secret path to a better world. The world of the past.
“To be concealed, protected, that is all I have ever truly wanted, to be hidden from the sky’s indifferent gaze and the harsh air’s damagings. That is why the past is just such a retreat for me, I go there eagerly, shaking off the cold present and the colder future”
Yet, he discovers that silence has been his companion his whole life. He knows and understands it like he has never known and understood anybody, including himself.
“I have come to realise how little I knew her. I know so little of myself, how should I think to know another?”
Has he walked into it for so long as to not be able to understand the world around him? Has he truly wanted to? It is often easier to let go of the truth, dispose of it like of unnecessary, heavy and unattractive object and create another version of it, "new reality"
“Which is the more real, the woman reclining on the grassy bank of my recollections, or the strew of dust and dried marrow that is all the earth any longer retains of her?”
Which is more real? The past or the present? And when we cannot find refuge in the past, the present is painful, the future unattainable, unimaginable, where is the sanctuary? Is it within us? What does lay within us besides ourselves? Those whom we refuse to let go of? Max believes that no one is truly gone as long as they are remembered. “And yet people do go, do vanish. That is the greatest mystery of all” Duality. Ambiguity. Isn’t it part of us all, of everything that surrounds us? We die, yet, we go on living. Time passes, nobody can escape change. “At what moment, of all our moments, is life not utterly, utterly changed, until the final, most momentous change of all?” Yet, time is still. Our memory always brings us back to what we thought we’ve left behind. “The past beats inside me like a second heart”. And the more we walk within the realms of our own minds, the more we realize that we are like the sea. Ambivalent. We are cruel and merciful, placid and tempestuous, generous and harsh, known and mysterious. But unlike it, we are boundless.
"The waves before me at the water’s edge speak with animate voice, whispering eagerly of some ancient catastrophe, the sack of Troy, perhaps, or the sinking of Atlantis…I see the black ship in the distance, looming imperceptibly nearer at every instant. I am there. I hear your siren’s song. I am there, almost there."
Our minds, our pasts, are territories we explore, yet, there is so much that is left unexplored. What do they eagerly whisper to us? What song do they sing to us? What is revealed, what is left concealed? Are we ready to take that chance? Are we ready to immerse into the depths of the dark and mysterious past, are we ready to face the cold and painful present, do we dare hope for the obscure future? Who are we, what stories do we have to tell, and to whom do we tell them? Sometimes silence is the only one that listens. Sometimes that’s enough. And sometimes it is not. ”There is a special quality to the silence at night”
Read count: 1
P.S. The whole time while reading the book and then, while writing my review, I was listening to The Cure's "Lullaby". I think it fits perfectly
"The silence about me was heavy as the sea."
Silence. It is a special kind of language. The language of the dead, of those long gone, of the forgotten, the misunderstood, the hurt, the mad and, sometimes, the content. What do they tell me? What does silence tell me? What does it tell Max Morden? It tells him a story. The story of his life. It embraces him, caresses him, whispers to him of everyone and everything lost. He holds on to it. It is his only companion, his only friend, the lover that will never tire of him. It is his secret path to a better world. The world of the past.
“To be concealed, protected, that is all I have ever truly wanted, to be hidden from the sky’s indifferent gaze and the harsh air’s damagings. That is why the past is just such a retreat for me, I go there eagerly, shaking off the cold present and the colder future”
Yet, he discovers that silence has been his companion his whole life. He knows and understands it like he has never known and understood anybody, including himself.
“I have come to realise how little I knew her. I know so little of myself, how should I think to know another?”
Has he walked into it for so long as to not be able to understand the world around him? Has he truly wanted to? It is often easier to let go of the truth, dispose of it like of unnecessary, heavy and unattractive object and create another version of it, "new reality"
“Which is the more real, the woman reclining on the grassy bank of my recollections, or the strew of dust and dried marrow that is all the earth any longer retains of her?”
Which is more real? The past or the present? And when we cannot find refuge in the past, the present is painful, the future unattainable, unimaginable, where is the sanctuary? Is it within us? What does lay within us besides ourselves? Those whom we refuse to let go of? Max believes that no one is truly gone as long as they are remembered. “And yet people do go, do vanish. That is the greatest mystery of all” Duality. Ambiguity. Isn’t it part of us all, of everything that surrounds us? We die, yet, we go on living. Time passes, nobody can escape change. “At what moment, of all our moments, is life not utterly, utterly changed, until the final, most momentous change of all?” Yet, time is still. Our memory always brings us back to what we thought we’ve left behind. “The past beats inside me like a second heart”. And the more we walk within the realms of our own minds, the more we realize that we are like the sea. Ambivalent. We are cruel and merciful, placid and tempestuous, generous and harsh, known and mysterious. But unlike it, we are boundless.
"The waves before me at the water’s edge speak with animate voice, whispering eagerly of some ancient catastrophe, the sack of Troy, perhaps, or the sinking of Atlantis…I see the black ship in the distance, looming imperceptibly nearer at every instant. I am there. I hear your siren’s song. I am there, almost there."
Our minds, our pasts, are territories we explore, yet, there is so much that is left unexplored. What do they eagerly whisper to us? What song do they sing to us? What is revealed, what is left concealed? Are we ready to take that chance? Are we ready to immerse into the depths of the dark and mysterious past, are we ready to face the cold and painful present, do we dare hope for the obscure future? Who are we, what stories do we have to tell, and to whom do we tell them? Sometimes silence is the only one that listens. Sometimes that’s enough. And sometimes it is not. ”There is a special quality to the silence at night”
Read count: 1
P.S. The whole time while reading the book and then, while writing my review, I was listening to The Cure's "Lullaby". I think it fits perfectly
August 13, 2024
An elderly man returns with his daughter, after the death of his wife, to the sea side village his family used to holiday in. The narrative is full of associations and diversions, showing the power (and unreliability) of memory
There are moments when the past is so strong it seems one might be annihilated by it.
The writing of John Banville is beautiful but I feel the story of The Sea wasn’t enough to keep me engaged. Also the “reveal” near the end didn’t work out for me as an apotheosis.
An elderly man returns to his past, both figuratively and literally, in the sense that he returns to the coastal place her grew up. The narrative is full of associations and diversions, triggered by olfactory observations or other stimuli, showing the power (and unreliability) of memory. The graces in this book are not gods, but a family the main character reminiscing about. Sexual awakening of a child in the form of an obsession with the mother of his friends and the hypertextuality of the past, superimposed on the present, makes this an introspective novel. Despite its small size, it felt hefty and erudite, with many words I never read before in the memories of the main character.
Twins Chloe and Miles (who is mute), governess Rose, Carlo the father, Conny, end up in a greek tragedy in terms of number of deaths, with Max Morden, the flawed main character in the centre. If Max was more engaging in terms of narrative voice (and didn't abuse animals) I feel I would have cared a lot more about his story. Gorgeously written, but also a bit distant and storywise definitely done before, this book reminded me a lot of fellow Booker prize winner Julian Barnes his work, just slower and more convoluted.
Quotes~:
Yes things endure while the living lapse
Memory as a world of shelter against the now
A fight with one’s daughter is never less than debilitating
What a little vessel of sadness we are, sailing in this muffled silence, through the autumn dark
A little brute so to say, with a filthy mind, is there any other sort? We never grow up.
The mysterious protocols of childhood
This is what I thought adulthood would be, a long autumn summer
Perhaps all of life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it
To fulfil the fantasy of me
Everything meant something else for me
The delicate business of being the survivor
We were human beings you know, after all
I think I am becoming my own ghost
A person of scant talents and scanter ambitions
We forgave each other for all we were not
My mind seems filled with toppling masonry
I didn’t want to get where I was going
The indifferent world closing
There are moments when the past is so strong it seems one might be annihilated by it.
The writing of John Banville is beautiful but I feel the story of The Sea wasn’t enough to keep me engaged. Also the “reveal” near the end didn’t work out for me as an apotheosis.
An elderly man returns to his past, both figuratively and literally, in the sense that he returns to the coastal place her grew up. The narrative is full of associations and diversions, triggered by olfactory observations or other stimuli, showing the power (and unreliability) of memory. The graces in this book are not gods, but a family the main character reminiscing about. Sexual awakening of a child in the form of an obsession with the mother of his friends and the hypertextuality of the past, superimposed on the present, makes this an introspective novel. Despite its small size, it felt hefty and erudite, with many words I never read before in the memories of the main character.
Twins Chloe and Miles (who is mute), governess Rose, Carlo the father, Conny, end up in a greek tragedy in terms of number of deaths, with Max Morden, the flawed main character in the centre. If Max was more engaging in terms of narrative voice (and didn't abuse animals) I feel I would have cared a lot more about his story. Gorgeously written, but also a bit distant and storywise definitely done before, this book reminded me a lot of fellow Booker prize winner Julian Barnes his work, just slower and more convoluted.
Quotes~:
Yes things endure while the living lapse
Memory as a world of shelter against the now
A fight with one’s daughter is never less than debilitating
What a little vessel of sadness we are, sailing in this muffled silence, through the autumn dark
A little brute so to say, with a filthy mind, is there any other sort? We never grow up.
The mysterious protocols of childhood
This is what I thought adulthood would be, a long autumn summer
Perhaps all of life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it
To fulfil the fantasy of me
Everything meant something else for me
The delicate business of being the survivor
We were human beings you know, after all
I think I am becoming my own ghost
A person of scant talents and scanter ambitions
We forgave each other for all we were not
My mind seems filled with toppling masonry
I didn’t want to get where I was going
The indifferent world closing
May 15, 2023
The world is not real until it is pushed through the mesh of language. It is a way of validating reality for myself.
~ John Banville in Drexel University interview.
There are enough outstanding reviews about this book on GR. I'm neither going to try and elevate myself to that level, nor pretend to know more than I really do. With a lack of literary background and English linguistic skills, I will merely express my simple opinion of an outstanding read. But first, let's get (some of) the accolades for John Banville's word-smithery out of the way.
An utterly contemporary novel that nonetheless could only have come from a mind steeped in the history of the novel and deeply reflective about what makes fiction still worthwhile. . . . John Banville deserves his Booker Prize.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review.
Banville has a reputation as a brilliant stylist—people like to use the word ‘Nabokovian’ in reference to his precisely worded books. His fourteenth novel, The Sea, has so many beautifully constructed sentences that every few pages something cries out to be underlined.” — The Christian Science Monitor.
[Banville] is prodigiously gifted. He cannot write an unpolished phrase, so we read him slowly, relishing the stream of pleasures he affords. Everything in Banville’s books is alive. . . . He is a writer’s writer [who] can conjure with the poetry of people and places.” —The Independent (London)
After closing the book I was wondering how to express my thoughts on a devoted word-artists and his visions of people and life in general. It will be accurate to say that it is a dark, almost gothic, slow-moving tale of an introverted man's story in the first person narrative. John Banville prefers to write in the first person and says that it elevates the protagonist from an observer of other people's lives to a direct participant who can recall events from his perspective and memory.
An elderly grieving man, Max Morden, recalls his childhood memories, after the passing of his wife. He is lonely, depressed (considers an 'honorable suicide'), introspective, honest with himself, and has ample time to reflect on events that ultimately made him the man he was. But it was the events at their holiday bungalow one fateful year, that inspired him many years later to revisit the place where he was forced to become a man long before nature required him to be one.
The prose is lyrical, often poetical. With brutal honesty, he recalls the events with a dollop of wry, dark humor in between. Since most reviewers approach the novel with an intellectual savoir fair, or academic onslaught, to keep the experience as sterile as possible, a vital component of the tale is missed - the emotional investment of both the characters and the readers.
I read this book subjectively. I was emotionally involved like I was with the other lonely old curmudgeons in novels such as:
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman;
Old Filth by Jane Gardam;
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro;
Major Pettigrow's Last Stand by Helen Simonson;
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B. Edwards;
And Every Morning the Way Gets Longer and Longer by Frederik Backman;
Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf;
AND MANY MORE
Honestly, I was amused to see how efforts were made to 'box' this novel into identity and gender politics by readers who were unable to identify it for what it really is: a confrontation of our destiny, our own fears of loneliness, and the old age looming in our future.
Max Morden is in conversation with himself. Therefore, his thoughts and words are devoid of any pretentiousness, or social decoupage. Like our own thoughts and words when we hit our fingers with a hammer, or look in a mirror and despise what we see. We all pretend to be someone we are not until such time when we have to confront ourselves or acknowledge our other side.
All the protagonists in the books mentioned above have one thing in common: lonely old men who are unable to voice their feelings and talk about their hurt and sadness. Misunderstood, they are, and often curmudgeon as a result.
Banville's protagonists are all men. In an interview, he explained that they all forged a new persona for themselves (hiding behind masks) and when a crisis or catastrophe occurs in their lives, they feel exposed and start to look for places, solid ground, to stand on, someplace where they, or some versions of themselves, will be real; where they stop to even in old age feel like delinquent boys. The Cedars was such a place for Max Morden. It was the place where he met his friends, Chloe and Myles Grace, with their parents Carlo and Constance, and their nanny, Rose. It was the place where children used laughter as a neutralizing force to tame terror.
Here are a few quotes from the book in which either his vulnerabilities or sense of humor shows:
The consultant’s name was Mr. Todd. This can only be considered a joke in bad taste on the part of polyglot fate. It could have been worse. There is a name De’Ath, with that fancy medial capital and apotropaic apostrophe which fool no one.
Now inside it the door opened and an elderly young woman appeared and stopped behind the glass and considered me warily.
But Avril, now. Who in these parts would have conferred on their child a name so delicately vernal?
The woman dips her fingertips in the font, mingling traces of tenacious love juice with the holy water. Under their Sunday best their thighs chafe in remembered delight. They kneel, not minding the mournfully reproachful gaze the statue of their Saviour fixes on them from the cross. After their midday Sunday dinner perhaps they will send the children out to play and retire to the sanctuary of their curtained bedroom and do it all over again, unaware of my mind’s bloodshot eye fixed on them unblinkingly. Yes, I was that kind of boy. Or better say, there is part of me still that is the kind of boy that I was then. A little brute, in other words, with a filthy mind. As if there were any other sort. We never grow up. I never did, anyway.
The past beats inside me like a second heart.
What a vessel of sadness we are, sailing in this muffled silence through the autumn dark.
Or I might retire into a monastery, pass my days in quiet contemplation of the infinite, or write a great treatise there, a vulgate of the dead.
My life seemed to be passing before me, not in a flash as it is said to do for those about to drown, but in a sort of leisurely convulsion, emptying itself of its secrets and its quotidian mysteries in preparation for the moment when I must step into the black boat on the shadowed river with the coin of passage cold in my already coldening hand.
Like many famous authors, John Banville used pathetic fallacies to set the tone of the events. It also reflected Max Morden's vulnerabilities and sadness-those aspects of manhood that seldom reach the mesh of language in any form. Outside, a uniformly white sky sat sulkily immobile.
An extremely slow-moving plot is built around a mystery. The denouement comes as a huge surprise. It lead me to the conclusion that the author knew exactly how to play his readers. Like a fiddle. Happily.
So yes, it is a brilliant winner of the Man Booker Prize(2005). A literary piece of art. Perhaps written to impress the aficionados, although Banville doesn't need anyone's approval or admiration to succeed. He is outspoken and to the point in both his personal life and novels. But it is also a deeply humane story if you want to skip an academic analysis and delve into the core of the characters. Subjectively.
There is (a highly successful) evil darker persona, says Banville, behind the writer Benjamin Black. (It's a joke, in case anyone missed it). Benjamin Black is Banville's alter ego - his other personality, who uses an economy of words to seduce his thousands of fans with gritty, grizzly crime novels.
Banville is compared to Kafka and Dostoevsky. Wikipedia describes his writing style as Recognised for his precise, cold, forensic prose style, Nabokovian inventiveness, and for the dark humor of his generally arch narrators, Banville is considered to be "one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today." He has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov."
I rest my case. An unforgettable experience: both the novel and the author. And his style.
PS. These interviews shed more light on John Banville as a writer, gentle romantic, and human being.
1) Arts Lives -Being John Banville Part 1 ;
2) Arts Lives -Being John Banville Part 2 ;
3) episode 95 - John Banville - part 01 ;
4) episode 95 - John Banville - part 02 .
There are enough outstanding reviews about this book on GR. I'm neither going to try and elevate myself to that level, nor pretend to know more than I really do. With a lack of literary background and English linguistic skills, I will merely express my simple opinion of an outstanding read. But first, let's get (some of) the accolades for John Banville's word-smithery out of the way.
An utterly contemporary novel that nonetheless could only have come from a mind steeped in the history of the novel and deeply reflective about what makes fiction still worthwhile. . . . John Banville deserves his Booker Prize.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review.
Banville has a reputation as a brilliant stylist—people like to use the word ‘Nabokovian’ in reference to his precisely worded books. His fourteenth novel, The Sea, has so many beautifully constructed sentences that every few pages something cries out to be underlined.” — The Christian Science Monitor.
[Banville] is prodigiously gifted. He cannot write an unpolished phrase, so we read him slowly, relishing the stream of pleasures he affords. Everything in Banville’s books is alive. . . . He is a writer’s writer [who] can conjure with the poetry of people and places.” —The Independent (London)
After closing the book I was wondering how to express my thoughts on a devoted word-artists and his visions of people and life in general. It will be accurate to say that it is a dark, almost gothic, slow-moving tale of an introverted man's story in the first person narrative. John Banville prefers to write in the first person and says that it elevates the protagonist from an observer of other people's lives to a direct participant who can recall events from his perspective and memory.
An elderly grieving man, Max Morden, recalls his childhood memories, after the passing of his wife. He is lonely, depressed (considers an 'honorable suicide'), introspective, honest with himself, and has ample time to reflect on events that ultimately made him the man he was. But it was the events at their holiday bungalow one fateful year, that inspired him many years later to revisit the place where he was forced to become a man long before nature required him to be one.
The prose is lyrical, often poetical. With brutal honesty, he recalls the events with a dollop of wry, dark humor in between. Since most reviewers approach the novel with an intellectual savoir fair, or academic onslaught, to keep the experience as sterile as possible, a vital component of the tale is missed - the emotional investment of both the characters and the readers.
I read this book subjectively. I was emotionally involved like I was with the other lonely old curmudgeons in novels such as:
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman;
Old Filth by Jane Gardam;
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro;
Major Pettigrow's Last Stand by Helen Simonson;
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B. Edwards;
And Every Morning the Way Gets Longer and Longer by Frederik Backman;
Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf;
AND MANY MORE
Honestly, I was amused to see how efforts were made to 'box' this novel into identity and gender politics by readers who were unable to identify it for what it really is: a confrontation of our destiny, our own fears of loneliness, and the old age looming in our future.
Max Morden is in conversation with himself. Therefore, his thoughts and words are devoid of any pretentiousness, or social decoupage. Like our own thoughts and words when we hit our fingers with a hammer, or look in a mirror and despise what we see. We all pretend to be someone we are not until such time when we have to confront ourselves or acknowledge our other side.
All the protagonists in the books mentioned above have one thing in common: lonely old men who are unable to voice their feelings and talk about their hurt and sadness. Misunderstood, they are, and often curmudgeon as a result.
Banville's protagonists are all men. In an interview, he explained that they all forged a new persona for themselves (hiding behind masks) and when a crisis or catastrophe occurs in their lives, they feel exposed and start to look for places, solid ground, to stand on, someplace where they, or some versions of themselves, will be real; where they stop to even in old age feel like delinquent boys. The Cedars was such a place for Max Morden. It was the place where he met his friends, Chloe and Myles Grace, with their parents Carlo and Constance, and their nanny, Rose. It was the place where children used laughter as a neutralizing force to tame terror.
Here are a few quotes from the book in which either his vulnerabilities or sense of humor shows:
The consultant’s name was Mr. Todd. This can only be considered a joke in bad taste on the part of polyglot fate. It could have been worse. There is a name De’Ath, with that fancy medial capital and apotropaic apostrophe which fool no one.
Now inside it the door opened and an elderly young woman appeared and stopped behind the glass and considered me warily.
But Avril, now. Who in these parts would have conferred on their child a name so delicately vernal?
The woman dips her fingertips in the font, mingling traces of tenacious love juice with the holy water. Under their Sunday best their thighs chafe in remembered delight. They kneel, not minding the mournfully reproachful gaze the statue of their Saviour fixes on them from the cross. After their midday Sunday dinner perhaps they will send the children out to play and retire to the sanctuary of their curtained bedroom and do it all over again, unaware of my mind’s bloodshot eye fixed on them unblinkingly. Yes, I was that kind of boy. Or better say, there is part of me still that is the kind of boy that I was then. A little brute, in other words, with a filthy mind. As if there were any other sort. We never grow up. I never did, anyway.
The past beats inside me like a second heart.
What a vessel of sadness we are, sailing in this muffled silence through the autumn dark.
Or I might retire into a monastery, pass my days in quiet contemplation of the infinite, or write a great treatise there, a vulgate of the dead.
My life seemed to be passing before me, not in a flash as it is said to do for those about to drown, but in a sort of leisurely convulsion, emptying itself of its secrets and its quotidian mysteries in preparation for the moment when I must step into the black boat on the shadowed river with the coin of passage cold in my already coldening hand.
Like many famous authors, John Banville used pathetic fallacies to set the tone of the events. It also reflected Max Morden's vulnerabilities and sadness-those aspects of manhood that seldom reach the mesh of language in any form. Outside, a uniformly white sky sat sulkily immobile.
An extremely slow-moving plot is built around a mystery. The denouement comes as a huge surprise. It lead me to the conclusion that the author knew exactly how to play his readers. Like a fiddle. Happily.
So yes, it is a brilliant winner of the Man Booker Prize(2005). A literary piece of art. Perhaps written to impress the aficionados, although Banville doesn't need anyone's approval or admiration to succeed. He is outspoken and to the point in both his personal life and novels. But it is also a deeply humane story if you want to skip an academic analysis and delve into the core of the characters. Subjectively.
There is (a highly successful) evil darker persona, says Banville, behind the writer Benjamin Black. (It's a joke, in case anyone missed it). Benjamin Black is Banville's alter ego - his other personality, who uses an economy of words to seduce his thousands of fans with gritty, grizzly crime novels.
Banville is compared to Kafka and Dostoevsky. Wikipedia describes his writing style as Recognised for his precise, cold, forensic prose style, Nabokovian inventiveness, and for the dark humor of his generally arch narrators, Banville is considered to be "one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today." He has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov."
I rest my case. An unforgettable experience: both the novel and the author. And his style.
PS. These interviews shed more light on John Banville as a writer, gentle romantic, and human being.
1) Arts Lives -Being John Banville Part 1 ;
2) Arts Lives -Being John Banville Part 2 ;
3) episode 95 - John Banville - part 01 ;
4) episode 95 - John Banville - part 02 .
June 27, 2017
The past beats inside me like a second heart.
Max Morden had met once gods. They came in the guise of Grace family. Father, noisy lecherous satyr. Mother, oozing sensuality indolent goddess, will become his first erotic fascination. And twins. Chloe, very mature for her age, feisty girl with rather strong personality and Myles, shy and impish boy. There was Rose yet, nanny or governess, a sad nymph holding a secret in her heart. They rented at the seaside a summer house, called The Cedars.
And now, half a century later, widowed and lonely Max is in that place again. He’s a man who never had a personality, not in the way that others have, or think they have. I was always a distinct no-one whose fiercest wish was to be an indistinct someone as he disarmingly admits. He takes a room in the Cedars but memory plays tricks on him. Everything has changed though seems to be the same and invariant. It’s naivety to expect even prospect of return, isn’t it ?
Only the sea appears to be unchangeable.
What is he looking for here ? Alleviation, calm, death, answer, missing piece of the puzzle ?
This memorable summer, painted with golden sun and inky shadow, creates the first plan of the novel. Just then Max had gained this sad knowledge that there is always a lover and a loved and which role he would be playing in that act.
There is another plan as well also given in flashbacks. It concerns Morden’s marriage, illness and finally death of his wife. These two plans are mixing alternately with his present stay at the seaside. Such is the nature of memory that one recollection leads to another gradually unveiling more and more from our past and showing intimate image of our life. The sea then, with its tides, is a record of that process, coming to terms with loss, dismantling of memory, family, love, past .
Banville’s prose, perfectly fitting in with the gray and cold ubiquity of the sea, is elegiac and poetic. And concluding paragraph is profoundly purifying.
I do not remember well that day when the gods departed. But I know where I can find them now. They remain incessantly like insects caught in a drop of resin, like the blades of grass trapped in the amber. They possessed for good this mythical land, that distant Arcadia of my childhood. And I believe that still have the key to that land.
February 10, 2016
“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
- John Banville, The Sea
Over the years, I've collected about 3 or 4 Banville books (just bought a slog more). The first was given to me by a girl I liked in HS, but never got around to reading it or dating her. I was finally inspired (or moved?) to read 'the Sea' (and a couple other Ireland-themed novels) because I was going to spend a week with the wife in Ireland and there is nothing better to read about on vacation than sex*, death, loss and sand. It was beautiful. It was poetry. It was nearly perfect.
It is easy to borrow images and allusions from other critics. It is a snap to fit the Banville piece in the puzzle among his Irish peers (piers?). It is a picnic to park Banville's summer blanket next to Beckett or Joyce (yes, fine, they all dropped from their mother's wombs onto the same emerald island). It is easy to play the literary cousin game and compare Banville to Proust or Nabokov or Henry James. These things are all true. They are also all fictions and obvious short cuts.
I haven't read enough of Banville to say he measures up to Proust or Nabokov, but damn this book was fine. There really must be something in the water because I'm reading Enright's The Gathering right now and my first thought was 'da feck'? Two Man Bookers by Irish novelists about drowning, death and memory. I'm sure there is more than water and whiskey to this island.
Anyway, I loved and adored 'The Sea'. I used those slick little page-markers everytime I came across a line of Banville's that seemed especially quoteable. I gave up when I ran out of markers. The edge of the book looked like a colorful Stegosaurus with markers dancing up and down the pages.
* On a side note. It is VERY rare that a writer can actually write about sex without making me want to run from the room. They either make it too clinical (like a doctor popping zits) or too silly (like the cover of a romance novel) or too ethereal (like clouds copulating). Joyce could do it. Nabokov could do it. And I'm proud to say Banville can do it too.
- John Banville, The Sea
Over the years, I've collected about 3 or 4 Banville books (just bought a slog more). The first was given to me by a girl I liked in HS, but never got around to reading it or dating her. I was finally inspired (or moved?) to read 'the Sea' (and a couple other Ireland-themed novels) because I was going to spend a week with the wife in Ireland and there is nothing better to read about on vacation than sex*, death, loss and sand. It was beautiful. It was poetry. It was nearly perfect.
It is easy to borrow images and allusions from other critics. It is a snap to fit the Banville piece in the puzzle among his Irish peers (piers?). It is a picnic to park Banville's summer blanket next to Beckett or Joyce (yes, fine, they all dropped from their mother's wombs onto the same emerald island). It is easy to play the literary cousin game and compare Banville to Proust or Nabokov or Henry James. These things are all true. They are also all fictions and obvious short cuts.
I haven't read enough of Banville to say he measures up to Proust or Nabokov, but damn this book was fine. There really must be something in the water because I'm reading Enright's The Gathering right now and my first thought was 'da feck'? Two Man Bookers by Irish novelists about drowning, death and memory. I'm sure there is more than water and whiskey to this island.
Anyway, I loved and adored 'The Sea'. I used those slick little page-markers everytime I came across a line of Banville's that seemed especially quoteable. I gave up when I ran out of markers. The edge of the book looked like a colorful Stegosaurus with markers dancing up and down the pages.
* On a side note. It is VERY rare that a writer can actually write about sex without making me want to run from the room. They either make it too clinical (like a doctor popping zits) or too silly (like the cover of a romance novel) or too ethereal (like clouds copulating). Joyce could do it. Nabokov could do it. And I'm proud to say Banville can do it too.
January 1, 2016
The silence about me was heavy as the sea.Sitting by the sea, I am trying hard to evade the embrace of camphoric memories that hover schemingly, stroked by the amorous waves. Often this colossal sapphire vial of solitude, seduced by a flicker of cuprous sky or a kiss of the timorous breeze, changes colour and instead of heaping balms of comfort, loathes me with a vision so sharp that a part of me detaches with a vile force and travels into the dense, supine but thorny gardens of bygone land. And then begins a passionate journey between these two warriors who might belong to the same clan but having grown under two vastly different masters, have acquired their traits – past and present do not let any pupil off easily.
In present, Max Morden, having lost his beloved wife, Anna and in a bid to subdue his bereavement, has returned to his childhood town of Ballyless, to ‘The Cedars’, a high-class hotel. In past, ‘The Cedars’ was the hallowed cloister of his teenage assaults which had often boomeranged on his own poor, chalet-resident soul. In present, he checks into a prime room that oversees the jeweled crust of the sea-line, enameled with stony webs and insensitive tourists. In past, this epoch room was one with his vision of infinite pool, sinking in whose bosom with an acerbic joy was his indomitable dream. In present, he gingerly maneuvers the kitchen maze and noiselessly slips into the dining chair with a cerebral ray of sunlight keeping him painfully agile. In past, that very table held his lean legs and strong arms to heighten his nubile passion for Mrs. Grace and idolatrous love for Mrs. Grace’s daughter, Chloe , its inhabitants.
As the gusts of past hurl at the present, heavy boulders of questions, flanked by incredulity and guilt, the present retaliates with a torrid shower of indifference and futility, armed with occasional pelting of tranquil hailstones. The crystal clear mirror that his life had become was merciless in throwing his reflections which neither seemed to fit the past mantle nor could adorn the present portico. But despite such denouncement, Morden keeps the mirror in utmost care, as if his life depended on it. And that is no surprise.
We all have a small box, tucked carefully under a bed or inside an old cupboard, whose only purpose in our lives is to reshuffle it. Its occupants might wear the tags of ‘abandoned’, ‘faulty’, ‘useless’, ‘childish’, ‘silly’, ‘vulgar’, ‘scary’, ‘ignominious’ but they form a part of us that made us what we are today. And no part which plays that part is ever worth giving up. So, it beseeches the stormy nights when we witnessed our cold hearts and we let it; it invokes those blinding days when our burning pursuits ensnarled us and we let it; it inspires us with unbelievable vignettes of our audacity; it vanquishes us with equally unbelievable imprints of our timidity. Its flickering pulse does enough to keep our life monitors active and we simply take solace in the fact that it adorns our life; much like a vintage clock that does not show the right time any more but the time it shows cannot be displayed by any modern timepiece.
I return my glance to the sea and wonder if it ever felt the need to demerge past and present to keep the belligerent duo from infiltrating the fragile fabric of human heart that comes to its arms in search of aching succor. But by sending a colossal army of waves my way, it appears to have answered my pondering in Banville’s restorative thought:
Has this not always been my aim, is this not, indeed, the secret aim of all of us, to be no longer flesh but transformed utterly into a gossamer of un-suffering spirit?
April 22, 2008
I actually put this book in the same category as James Frey's "Million Little Pieces": so bad, it was enjoyable to read. But of course this was bad in entirely more ambitious, pretentious ways than Frey could ever achieve. It's been about two years since I read this, so forgive my lack of specificity, but I'll try to pin down some examples of appalling devices that both rankled and tickled me.
-Balliteration: Banville, perhaps due to his over fondness for the first letter of his last name (as others have been shown to feel, in psychology studies), found it wise to buffet us with a bounty of bubbly, bouncy balloonish words beginning with "b" to give us a sense of what, I'm still not sure.
-What was it called again? A device. Numerous times, Banville shows a sudden amnesia for common objects, which comes off as implausible after he has put so much attention showing off his knowledge. An example was his not knowing a common tree: a pine, was it? And what is that tool we use to record our thoughts? A pen?
-Which leads very well in to my next observation: I had the distinct sense Banville wrote this with a thesaurus in one hand and his cock in the other (I apologize to younger readers of this review). Am I merely hurt that I had to look up so many words I'd never heard of before? No. What shocked me was that, when I looked up all four definitions of one word, not one of them made sense in the context in which it was used, and it was not a term that could possibly be used as a symbol or metaphor, due to the specific nature of the word. Unfortunately, I forget which it was, but for a while, Frank and I did have a game of testing our memory of the various words Banville used.
-His choice to leave all identifiable plot to the last twenty pages, so that . . . we could see he was capable of telling a story? So the book ended on a high note of grief? So that the book of loose ends is tied up and made whole? I've read too many books in which the plot occurs in the last chapter to be amazed or blown away or impressed by the conclusion. In the end, it's a mere device to produce tension when it couldn't be created in a more honest fashion (because of course the protagonist already knows all the secrets that are kept from the reader).
What was most surprising was that, when I picked up "Christine Falls," which Banville felt it necessary to publish under the name Benjamin Black dare his reputation as a serious writer be tarnished, I discovered he could in fact write properly and engagingly without the above devices. Does that point to my having more common tastes? I trust my intelligence enough to say that this discovery merely points to the fact that Banville has lost sight of what "impressive writing" is.
But for whatever it's worth, it was fun to mark up the margins of this book. Bravo?
-Balliteration: Banville, perhaps due to his over fondness for the first letter of his last name (as others have been shown to feel, in psychology studies), found it wise to buffet us with a bounty of bubbly, bouncy balloonish words beginning with "b" to give us a sense of what, I'm still not sure.
-What was it called again? A device. Numerous times, Banville shows a sudden amnesia for common objects, which comes off as implausible after he has put so much attention showing off his knowledge. An example was his not knowing a common tree: a pine, was it? And what is that tool we use to record our thoughts? A pen?
-Which leads very well in to my next observation: I had the distinct sense Banville wrote this with a thesaurus in one hand and his cock in the other (I apologize to younger readers of this review). Am I merely hurt that I had to look up so many words I'd never heard of before? No. What shocked me was that, when I looked up all four definitions of one word, not one of them made sense in the context in which it was used, and it was not a term that could possibly be used as a symbol or metaphor, due to the specific nature of the word. Unfortunately, I forget which it was, but for a while, Frank and I did have a game of testing our memory of the various words Banville used.
-His choice to leave all identifiable plot to the last twenty pages, so that . . . we could see he was capable of telling a story? So the book ended on a high note of grief? So that the book of loose ends is tied up and made whole? I've read too many books in which the plot occurs in the last chapter to be amazed or blown away or impressed by the conclusion. In the end, it's a mere device to produce tension when it couldn't be created in a more honest fashion (because of course the protagonist already knows all the secrets that are kept from the reader).
What was most surprising was that, when I picked up "Christine Falls," which Banville felt it necessary to publish under the name Benjamin Black dare his reputation as a serious writer be tarnished, I discovered he could in fact write properly and engagingly without the above devices. Does that point to my having more common tastes? I trust my intelligence enough to say that this discovery merely points to the fact that Banville has lost sight of what "impressive writing" is.
But for whatever it's worth, it was fun to mark up the margins of this book. Bravo?
March 27, 2018
I really thought this was going to be a special book for me to read, and it just wasn’t. This book is narrated by Max, a man with childhood memories of time spent by the sea, with a family that greatly influenced him. Max has recently lost his wife, and goes back to the place by the sea where the childhood memories took place.
This is the longest short book I’ve ever read, I had to stop and look up words in the dictionary, continuously. It’s probably just me... there are many beautiful reviews for this book.
This is the longest short book I’ve ever read, I had to stop and look up words in the dictionary, continuously. It’s probably just me... there are many beautiful reviews for this book.
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