The Blue Guitar by John Banville

Banville recently turned 70, but there is no sign of his slowing down the writing of the marvelous novels which made him famous.  John claims influence from James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Franz Kafka among others.  He captured the Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea – my introduction to this erudite and clever writer.  I never fail to learn several new words from his novels, The Blue Guitar included.  A sixteenth novel has recently been published.  He is quickly becoming my favorite writer for a whole host of reasons.

Typically, his novels delve into the psyche of his characters, which results in a rich and thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.  Here Banville describes Gloria, wife of Oliver Orme Orway, the narrator, “Gloria was her usual glorious self, a big bright beauty shedding radiance all around her.  And, my God, but my wife was magnificent that day, as indeed she always is.  At thirty-five she has attained the full splendor or maturity.  I think of her in terms of various metals, gold, of course, because of her hair, and silver for her skin, but there is something in her too of the opulence of brass and bronze: she has a wonderful shine to her, a stately glow.  In fact, she is a Tiepolo rather than a Manet type, one of the Venetian master’s Cleopatra, say, or his Beatrice of Burgundy” (10).  A quick search reveals the work of this master painter from eighteenth century Venice.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Oliver is a painter, but he has lost his muse, and despite pestering from his agent, he cannot bring himself to resume his chosen occupation.  He frequently refers to painters he admires and often speaks in metaphors about painting and artists.  Clearly, he has a passion for visual arts.  Banville writes, “I was rummaging among scores of old canvases stacked against the wall in a corner.  I hadn’t looked at them in a long time – couldn’t bear to – and they were dusty and draped with cobwebs.  I was after that still life I had been working on when I was overtaken by what I liked to call my conceptual catastrophe – how much nakedness they cover, the big words – and my resolve failed and I couldn’t go on painting, trying to paint” (62).

Banville always drives me to my dictionary to discover a whole slew of new – and sometimes archaic – vocabulary.  For example, in Blue Guitar, he uses “bibelot,” “coevals,” “hieratic,” “epicene,” “jourums,” “louche,” “cullion,” “plosive,” “knout,” “risibly,” “winceyette,” “moly,” “quaff,” “losel,” and several others I could not find.  Interesting words all -- and lots of fun looking them up!

John Banville also has written a number of detective/suspense novels under the pen name, Benjamin Black.  According to an interview in Publisher’s Weekly, Banville's stated ambition is to give his prose "the kind of denseness and thickness that poetry has.”  Do not miss reading this marvelous writer, considered by many as THE master of English prose, before he wins the Nobel Prize in Literature, so you can say, “I read him when…”  The Blue Guitar would make a great place to begin.  5 Stars.

--Chiron, 12/17/15

Holiday Gift Suggestions

As I am sure my readers are aware, I like nothing better for the holidays than a nice stack of books.  I hope your holiday is not so busy you won’t have time for reading.  Here are some suggestions for yourself, or the reader in your life.

If you are looking for a good biography, I have one for you.  A couple of years ago, I reviewed Stacy Schiff’s magnificent biography of Cleopatra.  She has taken a new tack in Witches, a history of the Salem Witch trials.  Her ability to tell a story of the lives of these unfortunate individuals, murdered because of superstition, is unsurpassed.

Margaret Atwood’s latest novel, The Heart Goes Last is another jewel in her crown.  I would also recommend A Handmaid’s Tale and Cat’s Eye as must reads by this talented, award winning Canadian writer.

Lauren Groff’s latest work makes my list of suggestions. Fates and Furies is the story of a young couple married right out of college, who struggle to hold their marriage together.  An absorbing and interesting insight into strong relationships.

After reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, I could not resist her 2015 novel, Circling the Sun.  Paris is about the women in Hemingway’s life, and Circling the Sun, is a fictional account of the life of Beryl Markham.  For the real scoop on Beryl Markham, I cannot recommend any book higher than her own autobiography, West with the Night. She was an amazing woman who took on roles of aviator and horse trainer, occupations almost exclusively that of men at the time.

The Booker Prize winning author, John Banvile also has a new novel, The Blue Guitar.  I am really looking forward to this one.  He is one of my favorites, and I am nearly half through all of his novels.  Banville is a literary master who is sure to please.

While not for everyone, Jonathan Franzen is a writer’s writer, and working your way through his novels will not be a wasted effort.  His newest, Purity, has been getting great reviews, and you will hear about  it on Likely Stories soon.

The third and final volume of Autobiography of Mark Twain has finally been published.  Along with volumes one and two, we have a whopping 2,100+ pages of detailed information on one of the most fascinating and well-known figures in American literary history.

Finally, as we approach the last season of Downton Abbey, two books about this magnificent series have been published.  Downton Abbey: A Celebration by Jessica Fellows is a beautiful, detailed, and marvelous companion to the series loved by hundreds of millions around the world.  Her uncle, Lord Julian Fellowes, the author of Downton Abbey, has added a foreword.  Caution: the companion contains spoiler alerts for season six.  Jessica also wrote a slim volume, The Wit and Wisdom of Downton Abbey, which has all the funny sayings of the characters.  Both are published by St. Martin’s Press.

All these books are easily available in time for wrapping and holiday cheer.  All merit 5 stars

--Chiron, 12/3/15

Athena by John Banville

We have all had experiences of entering a dream-like state.  We wander and take in the scenery and the people, while we think about the day behind and the day ahead.  The state seems vivid, but it also seems strangely “other.”  I frequently have these while taking my early morning walks, and suddenly, I am on the last leg of the route home.  This matched exactly the sensation I felt when reading John Banville’s 1995 novel, Athena.

Banville won the Booker Prize in 2005 for his novel The Sea.  I collect this outstanding series of novels, and I first encountered Banville while working my way through the 46 winners of the prize first awarded in 1969. 

Mr. Morrow seems a lost soul.  He has a mysterious past involving the police, prison, and some artwork.  His Aunt Corky is at death’s door – and has been for a few years.  He reluctantly visits her from time to time.  A shady character approaches him and asks him to examine some paintings and determine whether or not they are genuine.  He also meets a beautiful young woman and begins a rather torrid affair.  In fact he begins to obsess over this woman, and visits her at every opportunity.  In the backdrop of this novel are a series of brutal murders in London, and some other mysterious characters that seem to follow Morrow.

Banville describes one visit to his aunt in hospital:

“The bed, the chair, the little table, the lino[leum] on the floor, how sad it all seemed suddenly, I don’t know why, I mean why at just that moment.  I rose and walked to the window and looked down over the tilted lawn to the sea far below.  A freshening wind was smacking the smoke-blue water, leaving great slow-moving prints, like the whorls of a burnisher’s rag on metal.  Behind me Aunt Corky was talking of the summer coming on and how much she was looking forward to getting out and about.  I had not the heart to remind her that it was September” (30-31).

The seven paintings Morrow is asked to authenticate are described and all seem to involve mythological creatures chasing women.  Each chapter after the first, begins with a short essay on one of the paintings, and these essays gradually devolve into self-reflections by Morrow on the connection between the figures in the painting and his lover.

The more of Banville I read the more convinced I become that he is a great Irish writer and deserves a place at the table with Joyce, Becket, Shaw, and Wilde.  Athena is rated R for a few explicit scenes and some mild violence, but it is an absorbing and enchanting thriller/love story.  5 stars

--Chiron, 7/9/13

Eclipse by John Banville

John Banville won the Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea. Of his 14 novels, Eclipse is the 7th I have read. At first, I feared this one did not have the interesting characters I have come to expect from Banville, but as I traveled more and more deeply into the novel, I realized my fears had no basis when confronted with the power of his prose. Banville always provides an interesting plot, characters drawn in great and interesting detail, with lots of introspection – exactly the kind of novel I love.

Alexander Cleave has built a career as an acclaimed actor performing all over the world. One day, he steps onto the stage and goes “dry.” He can “see” his lines, yet he cannot utter a word. He skulks off the stage to a falling curtain and some cat calls from the audience. He retreats to his abandoned childhood home by the sea to escape his shame. As an actor, who has spent his life living an imaginary existence in the clothes and character of strangers, he has difficulty separating reality from fantasy. He lives mostly in the past.

Banville used the idea of a retreat in his Booker Prize novel. In The Sea, Max has lost his wife to divorce, and travels to his boyhood home to sort out the ruins of his marriage. Alex retreats to sort out the ruins of his career. Banville’s prose delves into all the minutiae of Alex’s life as well as his deep-seated psychological self-examination.

The use of detail can be overwhelming, but in order to travel through Alex’s life, it becomes necessary to an understanding of how he arrived at the house by the sea. Here is an example as Alex begins to unpack when he arrives at his retreat:

“Things to do, things to do. Store the kitchen supplies, set out my books, my framed photographs, my lucky rabbit’s paw. Too soon it was all done. There was no avoiding upstairs any longer. Grimly I mounted the steps as if I were climbing into the past itself, the years pressing down on me, like a heavier atmosphere. Here is the room looking out on the square that used to be mine. Alex’s room. Dust, and a mildew smell, and droppings on an inside sill where birds had got in through a broken windowpane. Strange, how places, once so intimate, can go neutral under the dust-fall of time. (17)

Whenever, I read Banville, I must have a dictionary close at hand. Every novel helps me add five or six words to my vocabulary. For example, in Eclipse I learned “anaglyptal,” “tannoys,” “verrucas,” “crepuscular,” “sizar,” and “leverets.” I will leave the adventure of a dictionary search to my faithful readers.

Banville writes, “It was that torpid hour of afternoon in summer when all falls silent and even the birds cease their twitterings. At such a time, in such a place, a man might lose his grip on all that he is” (76). Having spent many, many summer days by the ocean, I understand this sentiment entirely. Banville has heightened my desire to get back near the ocean, for night time walks on the beach and lazy fall and spring days reading under an umbrella with the soft breeze in my face. 5 stars

--Chiron, 10/15/11

Long Lankin by John Banville

On my annual trip to Charleston and The Blue Bicycle Book Shop, I stumbled on this slim paperback of John Banville’s first book. Although changed from the 1970 original – one story and a novella were deleted, and one story added – this collection has an atmospheric air about it that reminds me of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Each of these stories has wonderful prose wrapped about a mysterious person, perhaps a ghost, perhaps a murderer, perhaps a fleeting shadow in the woods. Most of the characters have anxieties, passions, and secrets. Banville deftly builds to the climax of each story.

Curiously -- there is no title story – but they all have a psychological probing into the characters. In “Summer Voices,” Banville’s prose elucidates the characters of a brother and a sister who have escaped from their aunt’s daily prayer session for a swim.

“The boy did not move. Sunlight fell through the tiny window above the stove. The radiance of the summer afternoon wove shadows about him. Beyond the window a dead tree stood like a crazy old naked man, a blackbird hopping among the twisted branches. The boy stood up and went into what had once been the farmyard – the barn and the sties had long since crumbled. After the dimness of the kitchen the light burned his eyes. He moved across to stand under the elm tree and listen to the leaves. Light glinted gold through the branches. He stood motionless, his arms hanging at his sides, listening, and slowly from the far fields, the strange cry floated to his ears, a needle of sound that pierced the stillness. He held his breath. The voice hung poised a moment in the upper airs, a single liquid note then slowly faded back into the fields, and died away, leaving the silence deeper than before.” (65)

I only wish I had discovered this writer 40 years ago! I am making my way through his 15 published works, and it is a journey of sublime delight. (5 stars)

--Chiron, 12/19/10

Shroud by John Banville

Axel Vander is angry. He is also a self-described liar. In fact, as this fine novel by Banville unfolds, his entire life of falsehoods unravels. Banville does not disappoint, and he seems to prove himself one of the most consistently fluid and lyrical writers alive today. He has turned his talents to create one of the most despicable characters in all of literature.

Several years ago, I stumbled on a Noel Coward film from 1935 entitled The Scoundrel. Never released on DVD or VHS, I cannot find out much about the film, and I have little hope of ever seeing it again. But I do remember vividly the despicable character Coward played. I always thought him the worst person in all of literature since Milton’s Lucifer. Now I have a new leader in the categories of rudeness, meanness, with an overall despicable character – Axel Vander.

When describing his siblings, Axel says, “my older brothers and sisters, those botched prototypes along the way to producing me” (132). He is also a snob. While visiting Italy, a native does not understand a request, and he thinks, “I learned my Italian from Dante” (22).

Banville has given Axel a voice that drips of egotism, boorishness, and misery. For example, Banville writes when Axel explains why he did not go to the funeral of a friend, he thinks, “in some ancillary ventricle there still lodged a stubborn clot of doubt” (154). Echoes of Noel Coward!

Twenty times or more, I was driven to the dictionary to look up arcane words, such as gallimaufry, instauration, and apocatastasis. Banville is a first-rate wordsmith.

Vander is also a character I call a “topper.” No matter what anyone says, Axel, must top with a better story, a bigger experience, or a more important acquaintance. Boy does THAT get under my skin.

Despite all this, Banville has told a much more than interesting story. On one occasion, about a quarter of a grain of sympathy for Vander crept into my reading, and at one point (page 95 of 257) he does show the tiniest shred of kindness. But I had to find out what happens to him. You will, too. 4-1/2 stars because I can’t give the devil a perfect score.

--Chiron, 5/23/09

Birchwood by John Banville

John Banville writes exquisite, lyrical prose, while telling an enthralling story. This novel, set in Ireland in the days of the potato famines, is divided into two parts. Gabriel Godkin returns to his ancestral home after the death of his father, and while cleaning up the broken glass and repairing windows, he begins to recall his childhood. As part two begins, the young Gabriel has run away and joined a circus in an attempt to find what he believes to be his lost twin sister. Eventually, the story comes full circle and he returns to Birchwood.

At first glance the two parts of the story seem disjointed, but Banville ties things up neatly at the end. The reality I envisioned in part one, clashed with the reality in part two, but the brief part three resolved all these threads into a neat package.

This is my second Banville (after the Booker prize winning, The Sea). I have four more of his books, so I will be working my way through them in 2009. He has written 13 titles in all, so I will have to track down those others.

If you have never read Banville, start with The Sea. You will be hooked. Five stars

-Chiron, 12/27/08

The Sea by John Banville

For many years, I have been buying Man Booker Prize-winning novels. This recently added title to the collection was my first by Banville, and I knew almost nothing about him. I have to say I was bowled over by this book.

The Sea is a psychological excursion through memory, first love, loss, aging, and trying not to forget. Banville has written a masterful novel, with elegant and lyrical language so rich it takes the breath away. Reading this novel will introduce at least a dozen new vocabulary words. Keep a dictionary handy!

The narrator, Max, has lost his wife, and he returns to the scene of his childhood summers to recapture his youth, perhaps even to try and start his life over again. The prose ebbs and flows like the sea – the ocean is everywhere and in every sentence. The salt air wafts off the page; the sun and sand are all around the reader -- the writing is that vivid.

The psychological insights are, at times profound, and at other times mistaken, but they are all human. Some surprises at the end also make the reader sprint to the end of the story as if trying to escape the pounding surf.

I have already bought four more titles by Banville, and I hope they are even close to this novel. Five stars, without any reservation at all.

--Chiron, 7/4/08