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Feb 28, 2017wyenotgo rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
This man Banville is damn good at what he does, even though the result is not always pleasing. He has what I perceive as the Irish sickness -- indulgence in gloom and an obsession with death. It has almost caused me to give up on Irish writers altogether. Banville's protagonist (aptly named Max Morden) subjects himself to starkly merciless self-examination; he's a neurotic, morose hypochondriac. That he has been emotionally stricken by the death of his wife I can certainly accept; but that he has never recovered from a childhood infatuation and related grief of some fifty years previous is taking things too far. There are many pages of self-flagellation and navel gazing where nothing much really happens. On a more positive note, Banville's facility with prose is admirable. His extravagance of language is at times spectacular. Like the Cheshire Cat, he takes great liberties with the conventional meaning of words, even creating his own variations as he sees fit. I'm sure no one else has ever included all of catafalque, crepitant, apotheosis, clamacteric, histrionic euphoria, Valhalla petulance and posthumous transfiguration in one single page! Are some of those even words? Anyway, his prose is also livened up with a number of oddities: For example, he talks to himself as a writer, inserting little asides, critiquing his own sentences. His protagonist (Banville himself, surely?) is hypersensitive to smells, going on at great length about their significance. And when he chooses to do so, he can be hilariously droll. To sum up: Not very much of a story, a singularly unattractive protagonist but fabulous language almost redeems it. A strong 3 1/2 stars.