Mrs. Osmond by John Banville (384 pages, forthcoming 2017)

"Henry James is the greatest novelist of all times" - John Banville 

Mrs. Osmond by John Banville is being marketed as a sequal to The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.   It takes up the life of Isabel Archer where Portrait of a Lady Ends.

We follow Isabel on the continent and England as she attempts to use her inherited money to free her self from the grasp of her deceitful husband, who married her to control her fortune.  

Much of the intellectual enjoyment of this novel is seeing how skillfully Banville picks up the story, artistically a bold move, following Isabel as she slowly achieves independence.

I throughly enjoyed reading this book.   

JOHN BANVILLE, the author of sixteen novels, has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, and a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. He lives in Dublin.

Mel u

Ancient Light by John Banville (2012l, 304 Pages)

My Prior Posts on John Banville

Ancient Light is the third novel I have read by John Banville.  Prior to this I have read and posted on Body of Evidence and The Sea as well as two of his short stories.   Ancient Light won the Irish Book of the Year in 2012.  It is an amazing book, to my mind considerably better than the prior two of his books I read.  (I will keep this post brief as I am behind on my postings for ISSW3 which  now is scheduled to run until April 28.)  

The first person narrator of the book is a 65 year old stage actor, once well known, who spends most of the book recalling his affair with a woman he still at 65 calls "Mrs Grey".  She was thirty five or so and the mother of his best friend and he was fifteen.  What is so amazing about this book is how Banville lets us into the memories of the narrator, to see how he still sees the affair and how he sees Mrs Grey.   I think most people who have read Lolita will have it brought to mind.   The narrator never seems to realize what a horrible person Mrs Grey was, even to this day he still seems to idolize her.   The book is told largely though an interior monologue and the narrator, Alexander Cleave, often directly addresses the readers.   He is basically retired until he is offered a party in a movie.  He is married and he and his wife are still trying to deal with the suicide of their daughter ten years ago.   

Alexander can recall minute details of his erotic encounters with Mrs Gray, or maybe what he recalls his how the events of the past have come to reside in the depths of his consciousness.   

There is a great deal in this novel.  I found the language beautiful.  I think the best way to enjoy this book is just to accept that your are in the hands of a master and go along for the ride.  No everyone who has read this book likes it so if you can download a sample before you buy it.  

Please share your experience with John Banville's work with us.

Mel u

"Persona" by John Banville

"Persona" by John Banville (2010, 13 pages)

Year III- March 1 to March 31

John Banville

Wexford

"The Masque of Blackness marks another giant step in the astronomical career of Mr Norman Collins. Dublin can be grateful for his presence. A colourful, courageous experiment. His photograph, blown beyond all proportions of life, gazed back at him, a smug light glowing in the smile which somehow he felt had not been there when he sat under the camera. It was not his face, indeed not, but an illustration of what the critics made of him. This year he was fashion, next year perhaps they would ritually slaughter him."

John Banville is a towering figure of contemporary literature.  I have previously posted on three of his novels and during ISSM2 on  one of his short stories.   (There is some background information on him in my prior posts.)

The story is about Norman Collins, now the darling of the Dublin stage.   He knows the same critics and theater managers who adore him now will soon turn on him as they have many others.   I really think the best way, for me at least, in approach a work of John Banville is just to savor the marvelous prose and accept that you are witnessing the work of a master artist.   I love opening lines of the story.   They powerfully evoke a feeling of coming night, of the ascendance of death, never to far away in the Irish short story.

"A storm was gathering, he could feel it as he drove homeward through the evening city. There was a bitter taste of sulphur in the air, and in the west the sky was blood-stained where the sun had lately fallen. Along the canal the copper beeches stood evil in their vivid stillness, and the water, flowing full and slow, carried on its back a silver metal sheen. At the Four Courts a bent old lady in a black hat stood leaning motionless on her cane and stared intently at the high blind window of a house across the road. Down Winetavern Street a lame dog trotted, sniffing the nervous air, and seven swans were gliding on the river."

The power and plot of the story is on the actors reflection on the nature of his craft and the social setting of Dublin theater, where you are a genius one day and in six months you cannot find work.  He does have a giant ego but we can accept that as he needs one.

Norman goes to visit his friend Jacob, evidently a man who built skyscrapers in Dublin.   What their exact relationship maybe is unclear to me but it is very deep and goes back a long way.   The details of their conversation are brilliant.  As I hope you will have the pleasure and the considerable challenge of trying to "understand" this story I will leave it the remainder of the story line untold.

I read this in The Anchor Book of New Irish Writing.  

I hope to read his novel Ancient Light in 2013.

Mel u

.

The Sea by John Banville

The Sea by John Banville  (2005)

The Sea is the third novel by John Banville (Ireland, 1945) that I have had the privilege of reading.   It won the Man Booker Prize in 2005.

It is narrated in the first person by an art historian who is trying to deal with the loss of his wife through a visit to three places that were important in his past    The narration goes back in forth in time as the consciousness of the narrator flows back and forth.   The movement of the sea is the dominating metaphor for this wonderful book and it perfectly is reflected in the narrative mode and prose of the work.  The sadness part of the novel deals with the narrator's attempt to relate to his wife during a period when they both know she will be dying soon.

I read in a post somewhere (I would give credit but I lost the reference) that the best thing about reading a Banville novel is  knowing you are in the hands of a master and just opening yourself up to his brilliance.

Please share your experience with Banville with us.

Mel u

The Body of Evidence by John Banville

The Body of Evidence by John Banville  (2001, 219 pages, 1795 KB)

The Irish Quarter

John Banville is one of the best known and highest regarded of contemporary Irish novelists.   In 2005 his novel The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize.  The Book of Evidence was short listed for the award.  He also writes crime novels under the named Benjamin Black.  I have previously posted on his 2010  novel, Infinities and one of his short stories, "Night Wind". 

In the book description on Amazon The Body of Evidence is described as like a work that combines the sensibilities of Nabokov and Camus.  Normally I am a but turned off by such comparisons and I think if I want to read a work that is like the work of an author, why not just read him but I see the truth in these comparisons.  

The Body of Evidence is all a long disjointed monologue by a man in prison for a murder of a purely innocent woman.  Freddie Montgomery, based on no accomplishments, fancies himself a superior highly cultured man.   The central character has been in jail for quite a while awaiting his trial for murder.   He loves to hear himself talk and it was in fact a great pleasure to listen to him.  He is very self deluded and not near as smart as he thinks himself to be.   

I great enjoyed this brilliant book both of the amazing prose and the depth of the characterizations.

My next Banville will probably be Ancient Lights and then The Sea.

Mel u

"Nightwind" by John Banville

"Nightwind" by John Banville (2000, 17 pages)

Irish Short Story Week

March 11 to July 1

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Posts by Participants

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week Year Two.   Everything you need to participate is in the resources page, including links to 1000s of short stories, from brand new ones to stories now in the public domain.   Guests posts are also welcome.  

April Prize for a Participant- I am happy to announce that a randomly selected participant in ISSW2 will receive a copy of the Frank O'Connor Prize listed work, Somewhere in Minnesota through the kindness of the author, Orfhlaith Foyle.  If you are a participant in the event please email me to be in the drawing for this wonderful collection of short stories.

John Banville is one of four Irish authors to have won the Man Booker Prize awarded for best English Language fiction by an author from the British Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe.    The other Irish winners are Anne Enright, Roddy Doyle and Irish Murdoch.   

John Banville (Wexford, Ireland, 1946) won the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for his eighteenth  novel, The Sea.  I  read and posted on his novel Infinities last year (I went to the store to buy The Sea but it was not in stock.)  He has also published a collection of short stories Long Lankin in 1970 and revised it in 1984. (I do not know where or when "Nightwind" was first published.  I read it in The Anchor Book of New Irish Writing published in 2000 so I am using that date.)   According to my brief research, he is considered a good candidate for a Nobel Prize.   

Some of the short stories that I am posting on can be read online and some cannot,   "Nightwind" cannot.   I will keep my posts briefer on stories it will be harder for others to read.   

"I am in charge here and I
say more Gothic Stories"-
Carmella

"Nightwind" centers on an actor. maybe a man a bit past his prime and one a bit addicted to the limelight.   He feels his status as a star means that all of his utterances and actions are worthy of great attention and he is annoyed when he does not get this.   The word "Nightwind" has an slang meaning and I am sure Banville is playing on that.  It means passing gas in bad and then forcing your partner's head under the sheets to make them smell it.  This evidently meant as a sort of test of your partners love and maybe to see if they will take abuse in the name of love.   The man is used to women throwing themselves at him.   Much of the story is taken up with the man's conversation with a woman he knows, who he makes sure knows that he has a lot of women at his beck and call and a theatrical professional who no longer has the time for him he once did.

As I knew it would be, this is a very good story that brings out the petty vanity of the actor very well.  We also see he is blind to the sycophants who surround him and to those who just now humor him.  

"Please consider joining in for ISSW2"-Ruprecht

Mel u