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In this brilliantly haunting new novel, John Banville forges an unforgettable amalgam of enchantment and menace that suggests both The Tempest and his own acclaimed The Book of Evidence. "A surreal and exquisitely lyrical new novel by one of the great stylists writing in English today."--Boston Globe.
257 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
John Banville
119 books2,170 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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February 14, 2023
Everything in this world resembles something else so Ghosts vaguely echoes
The Tempest
by William Shakespeare. And the island is something between Aeaea – Circe’s home isle, and the Land of Nod – the place of Cain’s exile.
Those shipwrecked are personages descended from Harlequin and Columbine – the painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau: the disagreeable characters with their disagreeable past, except the children, of course, – the children are bound for their disagreeable future. Professor Silas Kreutznaer is a kind of Prospero and Freddie Montgomery is a sort of Caliban.
The ghosts of his past are still tormenting Freddie and he still keeps wondering how he could fall so low and turn into such a beast: “What statue of myself did I erect long ago, I wonder? Must have been a gargoyle.”
When we all learn to sculpt our own virtues then, at last, we’ll become true human beings…
Extraordinary the look of things at dusk then, it might have been another planet, with that pale vault of sky, those crouched and hesitant, dreamy distances. I wandered about the house, going softly through the stillness and shadows, and sometimes I would lose myself, I mean I would flow out of myself somehow and be as a phantom, a patch of moving dark against the lighter darkness all around me.
Those shipwrecked are personages descended from Harlequin and Columbine – the painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau: the disagreeable characters with their disagreeable past, except the children, of course, – the children are bound for their disagreeable future. Professor Silas Kreutznaer is a kind of Prospero and Freddie Montgomery is a sort of Caliban.
This lovely world, and we the only blot on the landscape. We, or just me? Sometimes I think I can feel the world recoiling from me, as if from the touch of some uncanny, cold and sticky thing.
The ghosts of his past are still tormenting Freddie and he still keeps wondering how he could fall so low and turn into such a beast: “What statue of myself did I erect long ago, I wonder? Must have been a gargoyle.”
Diderot developed a theory of ethics based on the idea of the statue: if we would be good, he said, we must become sculptors of the self. Virtue is not natural to us; we achieve it, if at all, through a kind of artistic striving, cutting and shaping the material of which we are made, the intransigent stone of selfhood, and erecting an idealised effigy of ourselves in our own minds and in the minds of those around us and living as best we can according to its sublime example.
When we all learn to sculpt our own virtues then, at last, we’ll become true human beings…
November 3, 2021
Cosmic Intersections
The world isn’t what goes around inside our heads, but what our heads go around inside. Context is contents. And I don’t mean air, sights, and smells as context. I mean other heads. It is these other heads that supply us with language, opinion, and prejudice, lots of prejudice, which are the elements of the world we inhabit. These other heads are even embedded in the things that surround us - like in a simple cup of tea: “Lives, other lives! a myriad of them, distilled into this thimbleful of perfumed pleasure.”
Trying to clarify what goes on inside our heads by isolating ourselves - on a small, sparsely populated Irish island for example - is, therefore, not an inherently irrational therapeutic idea - in principle. We then only have to cope mostly with memories (supplied of course by others), and dreams of other heads in other places. But what happens when more new heads, or even an old one, start invading? And what happens to the invaders’ heads? “Here is the moment where worlds collide... Worlds within worlds. They bleed into each other.” Hanging around crazy people will make you crazy.
But here’s the thing: it’s not possible to sort our own head without another one to help, who nonetheless is unwelcome because annoying, and possibly crazy. We need another head to be inserted into our own to remember our crimes; or more generally to interrupt our thinking lest we enter an endless loop of memories, dreams, and regrets. When these helpful others are absent or when they die, it’s not enough to live on mere memories. These heads become ghosts - part of ourselves, yet also independent. “I am certain there is no other form of afterlife for them than this, that they should live in us, and through us. It is our duty.”
Ghosts have a clear function. The law calls this function restitution; psychiatric medicine calls it integration; art crticism, verification. They amount to the sane thing: sorting the contents of one’s head, that is to say the context of one’s head. Never an easy job; rarely a faultless one. But when they do their job, ghosts have a dramatic effect. They make it clear “that something had happened, that something had shifted, that things would never be again as they had been before.” This is about as close to solving the various mysteries Banville presents as one is likely to achieve.
And, as usual, Banville also presents the reader with his unique taste in vocabulary. Borborygmic, oneiric, brumous, mephitic, eructations, benison, plumbeous, tombal, balneation are new to me. But these are mysteries which are easier to resolve.
The world isn’t what goes around inside our heads, but what our heads go around inside. Context is contents. And I don’t mean air, sights, and smells as context. I mean other heads. It is these other heads that supply us with language, opinion, and prejudice, lots of prejudice, which are the elements of the world we inhabit. These other heads are even embedded in the things that surround us - like in a simple cup of tea: “Lives, other lives! a myriad of them, distilled into this thimbleful of perfumed pleasure.”
Trying to clarify what goes on inside our heads by isolating ourselves - on a small, sparsely populated Irish island for example - is, therefore, not an inherently irrational therapeutic idea - in principle. We then only have to cope mostly with memories (supplied of course by others), and dreams of other heads in other places. But what happens when more new heads, or even an old one, start invading? And what happens to the invaders’ heads? “Here is the moment where worlds collide... Worlds within worlds. They bleed into each other.” Hanging around crazy people will make you crazy.
But here’s the thing: it’s not possible to sort our own head without another one to help, who nonetheless is unwelcome because annoying, and possibly crazy. We need another head to be inserted into our own to remember our crimes; or more generally to interrupt our thinking lest we enter an endless loop of memories, dreams, and regrets. When these helpful others are absent or when they die, it’s not enough to live on mere memories. These heads become ghosts - part of ourselves, yet also independent. “I am certain there is no other form of afterlife for them than this, that they should live in us, and through us. It is our duty.”
Ghosts have a clear function. The law calls this function restitution; psychiatric medicine calls it integration; art crticism, verification. They amount to the sane thing: sorting the contents of one’s head, that is to say the context of one’s head. Never an easy job; rarely a faultless one. But when they do their job, ghosts have a dramatic effect. They make it clear “that something had happened, that something had shifted, that things would never be again as they had been before.” This is about as close to solving the various mysteries Banville presents as one is likely to achieve.
And, as usual, Banville also presents the reader with his unique taste in vocabulary. Borborygmic, oneiric, brumous, mephitic, eructations, benison, plumbeous, tombal, balneation are new to me. But these are mysteries which are easier to resolve.
July 22, 2009
here is the thing about banville. about the perfection of his prose. you can be 38 pages into this book and read "I too was eager already for change, for disorder, for the mess and confusion that people make of things...Company, that was what we wanted, the brute warmth of the presence of others to tell us we were alive after all, despite appearances" and you will close the book and run your hand over the cover and stare off into the distance at a tree. the way the light hits it in a square, illuminating it there. you will be reminded of your mother, one thousand miles away, on a couch drifting in and out of sleep after chemotherapy. you will be remembering her at niagara falls and how she lifted you up on the railing to get a better view when you were four. and one thousand miles away, you will see that great cataract, but more importantly, you will see the rail and feel her hands on you, holding you secure. it's the railing. the railing that was put there one hundred years ago by some lost hand and the connotations of that railing. not the falls. but your mother. holding you and though you never saw her face, looking intently instead at the rush of water, know that she was smiling at your blonde hair and feeling your chest rise and fall with the wonder of it all.
May 2, 2020
Some people are ghosts, even when they are alive. This is what makes this a horror story; people. When it is the usual stream of consciousness fare that it is. Who writes more beautiful prose than Banville? Absolutely no one.
This isn't actually a ghost story, of course. But if you love rare words and unique writing, and Ireland as I do, then this is the book for you, as it was for me.
November 9, 2021
CRITIQUE:
The Return of a Questionable Narrator
"Ghosts" is a worthy sequel to "The Book of Evidence".
John Banville evidently decided that he hadn't finished with the character, Freddie Montgomery, and the intrigues that might surround him in the parallel worlds in which he lived. Indeed, Banville would use his character as the basis of another work ("Athena") in what became "Frames" or the "Freddie Montgomery Trilogy".
Freddie, who is the unnamed narrator of "Ghosts", has just completed a ten year prison sentence for the crimes committed in "The Book of Evidence". While in jail, he has studied enough art to allow him to pass himself off as an art historian. Anna Behrens, the daughter of the millionaire businessman and art collector, Helmut Behrens, from the first book, supposedly writes a letter of introduction (1), which facilitates a meeting between Freddie and Professor Silas Kreutznaer (the family name of Robinson Crusoe), at which the Professor decides to appoint Freddie as his amanuensis.
The Professor and Banvilligan's Island
The Professor lives on an island, apparently off the coast of Ireland, in a mansion owned by his Man Friday, Licht (the German word for light), who has up until this point performed the role that Freddie has now obtained, thus making for an uneasy rivalry between the light and dark of the two men (they would become "a pair of ragged old rats scrabbling in the dirt and showing each other our sharpest teeth").
The Professor is "a legend in the world of art, foremost authority on [Jean] Vaublin,...consultant for the great galleries of the world and valued adviser to private collectors on however many continents there are...It used to be said that a Thyssen or a Helmut Behrens would not lift a finger in the auction room without first consulting Kreutznaer." (2)
Who is the Most (or Least) Reliable?
Freddie suggests that he has once met the Professor at the Behrens' residence, where they discussed the painter, Nicolas Poussin, which the Professor denies - well, he is "firmly sceptical":
It's not clear, initially, whether we can, or are to, believe Freddie or the Professor. Who is the most - or least - reliable?
His authenticity seems to be more apparent (e.g., ghostlike?) than real. (It sounds like Freddie is trying to verify or authenticate a suspect work of art. Or is he trying to project his own guilt onto the Professor?)
Quentin Varin's "De graflegging van Christus"
A Study of Jean Vaublin
The Professor apparently abandons the writing of his study of the artist, Jean Vaublin (possibly modelled on Quentin Varin (the teacher of Poussin), and delegates it to Freddie, who sees something of himself and his surroundings in the painter's works:
Freddie admires a painting called "Le Monde d'Or" ("The Golden World"), which he describes in the third section of the novel, which appears to be an extract from his study.
The Castaways
Shortly after Freddie's arrival on the island, a tourist boat is shipwrecked off the island, and half a dozen young castaways make their way safely to the Professor's mansion. This aspect of the plot is likened to "The Tempest". However, from the description of the painting, I wonder whether Banville and Freddie have simply made the subjects in the painting come to life a second time in Freddie's imagination.
One of the castaways, Felix, also claims to be acquainted with the Professor, and expresses the view that he is a fraud, and possibly even responsible for helping his accomplices sell a counterfeit Vaublin (verified by the Professor) to Helmut Behrens at a vast overvalue. Once again, it's not clear whether Felix is a real person, or just a manifestation of Freddie's dark side (yet another ghost?). The dark side is his capacity for evil or sin, his crime, his guilt, what remains of his past.
"The Confines of My Sequestered World"
Freddie's consciousness has been permanently affected by his time in prison. His way of seeing has been altered. He has a heightened sense of light and dark, which form two parts of his consciousness:
These Parallel, Inverted Worlds
Freddie construes this light and darkness in terms of parallel worlds:
"A Figure Half Seen"
He is only partly present, somewhere or something midway between life (light) and death (darkness), a ghost:
"My Dark Other"
It's his dark other that has made him one of the ghosts of the title:
"Fibs Are More Fun"
This is ostensibly Freddie's interpretation of himself. Is it honest? Is it truthful? Is it reliable? Is Freddie no more than a schizophrenic? Is he delusional? Is he lying?
A Pair of Scoundrels
Is Freddie a scoundrel prone to self-abasement? He certainly recognises that he's a scoundrel. And he seeks to abase himself in front of the Professor, whom he equally recognises as (perhaps a superior) charlatan.
Once again, for all of the precision of his prose, Banville hints or implies, without being explicit or conclusive. It is this very reticence that lends his fictions their peculiar power.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) It's not clear whether, or why, Anna would take this action after the crimes Freddie committed at her family's home. No matter how you assess Freddie's reliability in the first novel, there is a question whether he totally fabricated or fantasised his relationship with Anna Behrens, and the youthful menage a trois with his wife.
(2) Banville also foreshadows a link between the Professor and Victor Maskell (the character based on Anthony Blunt), who is Keeper of the Queen's Pictures in "The Untouchable". Apparently, the Professor and Maskell co-wrote "that controversial monograph on Poussin".
SOUNDTRACK:
The Return of a Questionable Narrator
"Ghosts" is a worthy sequel to "The Book of Evidence".
John Banville evidently decided that he hadn't finished with the character, Freddie Montgomery, and the intrigues that might surround him in the parallel worlds in which he lived. Indeed, Banville would use his character as the basis of another work ("Athena") in what became "Frames" or the "Freddie Montgomery Trilogy".
Freddie, who is the unnamed narrator of "Ghosts", has just completed a ten year prison sentence for the crimes committed in "The Book of Evidence". While in jail, he has studied enough art to allow him to pass himself off as an art historian. Anna Behrens, the daughter of the millionaire businessman and art collector, Helmut Behrens, from the first book, supposedly writes a letter of introduction (1), which facilitates a meeting between Freddie and Professor Silas Kreutznaer (the family name of Robinson Crusoe), at which the Professor decides to appoint Freddie as his amanuensis.
The Professor and Banvilligan's Island
The Professor lives on an island, apparently off the coast of Ireland, in a mansion owned by his Man Friday, Licht (the German word for light), who has up until this point performed the role that Freddie has now obtained, thus making for an uneasy rivalry between the light and dark of the two men (they would become "a pair of ragged old rats scrabbling in the dirt and showing each other our sharpest teeth").
The Professor is "a legend in the world of art, foremost authority on [Jean] Vaublin,...consultant for the great galleries of the world and valued adviser to private collectors on however many continents there are...It used to be said that a Thyssen or a Helmut Behrens would not lift a finger in the auction room without first consulting Kreutznaer." (2)
Who is the Most (or Least) Reliable?
Freddie suggests that he has once met the Professor at the Behrens' residence, where they discussed the painter, Nicolas Poussin, which the Professor denies - well, he is "firmly sceptical":
"No, no...you have mistaken me for someone else."
It's not clear, initially, whether we can, or are to, believe Freddie or the Professor. Who is the most - or least - reliable?
"The first thing that struck me about him was how plausible he appeared, how authentic, at least when looked at from a distance..."
His authenticity seems to be more apparent (e.g., ghostlike?) than real. (It sounds like Freddie is trying to verify or authenticate a suspect work of art. Or is he trying to project his own guilt onto the Professor?)
Quentin Varin's "De graflegging van Christus"
A Study of Jean Vaublin
The Professor apparently abandons the writing of his study of the artist, Jean Vaublin (possibly modelled on Quentin Varin (the teacher of Poussin), and delegates it to Freddie, who sees something of himself and his surroundings in the painter's works:
"He is the master of darkness, as others are of light; even his brightest sunlight seems shadowed, tinged with umber from these thick trees, this ochred ground, these unfathomable spaces leading into night. There is a mystery here...something is missing, something is deliberately not being said. Yet I think it is this very reticence that lends his pictures their peculiar power. He is the painter of absences, of endings. His scenes all seem to hover on the point of vanishing. How clear and yet far-off and evanescent everything is, as if seen by someone on his death-bed who has lifted himself up to the window at twilight to look out a last time on a world that he is losing."
Freddie admires a painting called "Le Monde d'Or" ("The Golden World"), which he describes in the third section of the novel, which appears to be an extract from his study.
The Castaways
Shortly after Freddie's arrival on the island, a tourist boat is shipwrecked off the island, and half a dozen young castaways make their way safely to the Professor's mansion. This aspect of the plot is likened to "The Tempest". However, from the description of the painting, I wonder whether Banville and Freddie have simply made the subjects in the painting come to life a second time in Freddie's imagination.
One of the castaways, Felix, also claims to be acquainted with the Professor, and expresses the view that he is a fraud, and possibly even responsible for helping his accomplices sell a counterfeit Vaublin (verified by the Professor) to Helmut Behrens at a vast overvalue. Once again, it's not clear whether Felix is a real person, or just a manifestation of Freddie's dark side (yet another ghost?). The dark side is his capacity for evil or sin, his crime, his guilt, what remains of his past.
"The Confines of My Sequestered World"
Freddie's consciousness has been permanently affected by his time in prison. His way of seeing has been altered. He has a heightened sense of light and dark, which form two parts of his consciousness:
"I was terrified someone would see me there, I mean someone from the old life who would recognise me. And then, my horizons had been limited for so long: high walls make the gaze turn inward. For years I had only been able to see beyond the confines of my sequestered world by looking up. I was the boy at the bottom of the well, peering aloft in awe at the daytime stars. In captivity I had got to know the sky in all its moods, the great, stealthy drifts of light, the pales and slow darkenings, the twilight shoals..."
These Parallel, Inverted Worlds
Freddie construes this light and darkness in terms of parallel worlds:
"Worlds within worlds. They bleed into each other. I am at once here and there, then and now, as if by magic. I think of the stillness that lives in the depths of mirrors. It is not our world that is reflected there. It is another place entirely, another universe, cunningly made to mimic ours. Anything is possible there; even the dead may come back to life. Flaws develop in the glass, patches of silvering fall away and reveal the inhabitants of that parallel, inverted world going about their lives all unawares. And sometimes the glass turns to air and they step through it without a sound and walk into my world."
"A Figure Half Seen"
He is only partly present, somewhere or something midway between life (light) and death (darkness), a ghost:
"I am there and not there...Without me there would be no moment, no separable event, only the brute, blind drift of things...Though I am one of them, I am only a half figure, a figure half-seen, standing in the doorway, or sitting at a corner of the scrubbed pine table with a cracked mug at my elbow, and if they try to see me straight, or turn their heads too quickly, I am gone."
"My Dark Other"
It's his dark other that has made him one of the ghosts of the title:
"I have an habitual feeling of my real life having passed, and that I am leading a posthumous existence..."
"Now and then I pause and sit motionless for a moment, a watchman testing the night. I have a gratifying sense of myself as a sentinel, a guardian, a protector against that prowler, my dark other, whom I imagine stalking back and forth out there in the dark..."
"...I would flow out of myself somehow and be as a phantom, a patch of moving dark against the lighter darkness all around me..."
"Am I the ghost at their banquet?"
"Fibs Are More Fun"
This is ostensibly Freddie's interpretation of himself. Is it honest? Is it truthful? Is it reliable? Is Freddie no more than a schizophrenic? Is he delusional? Is he lying?
"Lying makes a dull world more interesting. To lie is to create. Besides, fibs are more fun, and liars, I am convinced, live longer. Yes, yes, I am an enthusiastic advocate of the whopper."
"People find me strange. Well, I find myself strange. I am not convincing, somehow, even to myself. The man who wishes to move the crowd must be an actor who impersonates himself. Is that it, is that really it? Have I cracked it? And there I was all that time thinking it was others I must imagine into life. Well well. (To act is to be, to rehearse is to become...) This has the feel of a great discovery. I'm sure it must be a delusion."
A Pair of Scoundrels
Is Freddie a scoundrel prone to self-abasement? He certainly recognises that he's a scoundrel. And he seeks to abase himself in front of the Professor, whom he equally recognises as (perhaps a superior) charlatan.
"It is not given to every man to know without a shadow of a doubt that he is a scoundrel. (It takes more courage than you think to name yourself as you should be named...I want to abase myself before him..."
Once again, for all of the precision of his prose, Banville hints or implies, without being explicit or conclusive. It is this very reticence that lends his fictions their peculiar power.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) It's not clear whether, or why, Anna would take this action after the crimes Freddie committed at her family's home. No matter how you assess Freddie's reliability in the first novel, there is a question whether he totally fabricated or fantasised his relationship with Anna Behrens, and the youthful menage a trois with his wife.
(2) Banville also foreshadows a link between the Professor and Victor Maskell (the character based on Anthony Blunt), who is Keeper of the Queen's Pictures in "The Untouchable". Apparently, the Professor and Maskell co-wrote "that controversial monograph on Poussin".
SOUNDTRACK:
January 10, 2017
Ratings (1 to 5)
Writing: 4
Plot: 2
Characters: 2
Emotional impact: 2
Overall rating: 2.5
Notes
Favorite character(s):
Favorite quotes: "...the wind of something that was almost happiness wafted through them all." p.7
"He had a disjointed, improvised air, as if he had been put together in haste from disparate bits and pieces of other people." p.12
"...fear always holds at its throbbing centre that little, thin, unquenchable flame of pleasure." p.114
Other notes: I was really impressed by this book initially. I loved the author's way of describing the characters and setting and was intrigued by the premise. As the book progressed, though, the plot began to feel very disjointed to me and I could never quite get a hold of it somehow.
Writing: 4
Plot: 2
Characters: 2
Emotional impact: 2
Overall rating: 2.5
Notes
Favorite character(s):
Favorite quotes: "...the wind of something that was almost happiness wafted through them all." p.7
"He had a disjointed, improvised air, as if he had been put together in haste from disparate bits and pieces of other people." p.12
"...fear always holds at its throbbing centre that little, thin, unquenchable flame of pleasure." p.114
Other notes: I was really impressed by this book initially. I loved the author's way of describing the characters and setting and was intrigued by the premise. As the book progressed, though, the plot began to feel very disjointed to me and I could never quite get a hold of it somehow.
September 7, 2021
A very, very strange book. It’s obvious that the protagonist knows more than he is telling and he well could be just out and out, lying. None of the character are particularly likable, and they all have a past they would rather not talk about or have known. Frankly I couldn’t make heads or tails of the plot or the characters. The entire thing was mind numbing... but I read through to the last word. I’m sure that Mr. Banville’s book will absolutely over joy some other reader...just not me. He also is very fond of his own voice since he uses fifty or more words where five or less would do just fine... in every paragraph. No wonder the lady checking out the books at the library looked at me like I had finally lost my mind.
December 17, 2018
Worlds within worlds. They bleed into each other. I am at once here and there, then and now, as if by magic. I think of the stillness that lives in the depths of mirrors. It is not our world that is reflected there. It is another place entirely, another universe, cunningly made to mimic ours. Anything is possible there, even the dead may come back to life. Flaws develop in the glass, patches of silvering fall away and reveal the inhabitants of that parallel, inverted world going about their lives all unawares. And sometimes the glass turns to air and they step through it without a sound and walk into my world.
This is Banville at his rather strange. I expected a somewhat conventional sequel to The Book of Evidence, and was caught unawares like an inhabitant of the mirror. The narrative switches between an omniscient, god, fly-on-the-wall point of view and first person, and it is only during the paragraph above—which I called, aptly enough, the mirror moment—that the two perspectives twine and vaguely connect. That happens about a fifth of the way through, but the feeling of disjointedness persists to the end. Deliberately, I would say, though perhaps not entirely necessarily.
If I was not convinced by the story, I was in awe of the prose. Sentence for sentence, Banville is nothing short of brilliant and I have lavished the margins with copious commentry. I continue to be a devoted fan.
April 12, 2009
Confusingly, This guy gets a lot of grief on here for being pretentious. But, to me it is an authentic pretentiousness, like art is. Very unlike David Foster Wallace who tries to sound cooler than you or Michael Chabon who tries to sound smarter (and who prolly are.).
August 7, 2017
L'isola è il mio elemento naturale, un mondo a sé, in cui tutto acquista un valore diverso, forse per via dell'acqua che fa da confine e da limite allo stesso tempo. Anche la luce e il cielo ne sono condizionati, e di conseguenza il modo in cui vediamo gli oggetti e percepiamo il tempo.
L'isola di Banville è un luogo aspro, quasi dimenticato, a cui si approda volontariamente per sfuggire al passato, cambiare vita, cancellare ricordi, nascondersi. Ma ci si approda anche per caso, come accade ai naufraghi della storia.
A questo punto iniziano le tante suggestioni. I tre abitanti della casa: il professore, Licht e la voce narrante, assassino senza nome che va sull'isola una volta scontata la pena quasi per lavare i propri peccati o per espiare (si è ergastolani a vita...).
L'esistenza che vivono è scandita dalla luce. La luce del quadro che studiano, una luce dorata in cui le figure umane sembrano bloccate, colte in un attimo al di fuori del tempo.
La luce fisica che filtra dalle finestre o attraverso i vetri. Si tratta comunque sempre di una luce esterna, dentro di loro coltivano un buio fatto di passato apparentemente svanito e di speranza molto fioca, quasi inesistente.
I naufraghi sono reali? Sono un'improvvisa irruzione del mondo esterno? Sono i personaggi del quadro? Qualunque cosa siano, risvegliano ricordi e sconvolgono le esistenze dei tre che fino al loro arrivo si sono concentrati sulla sopravvivenza, relegando il proprio essere umani nell'ombra della notte, fuori dalla casa, negli angoli più disparati dell'isola, stanchi fantasmi privi di ombra...
È un libro denso, intenso e ostico, con una scrittura incisiva e difficile, sospesa in un tempo che respira e si ferma al ritmo della prosa stessa, si avvolge su se stesso con balzi cronologici che rallentano e diluiscono la storia. E ci troviamo proiettati ora nel quadro, immobilizzati nella luce delle pennellate, sagome vaghe e confuse; ora in frammenti di vita reale, messi a confronto con le nostre paure, i nostri desideri e i nostri demoni; per ripiombare in una fusione con la natura dell'isola, fuoco e roccia, acqua e ombre sagomate dalla luce.
L'isola di Banville è un luogo aspro, quasi dimenticato, a cui si approda volontariamente per sfuggire al passato, cambiare vita, cancellare ricordi, nascondersi. Ma ci si approda anche per caso, come accade ai naufraghi della storia.
A questo punto iniziano le tante suggestioni. I tre abitanti della casa: il professore, Licht e la voce narrante, assassino senza nome che va sull'isola una volta scontata la pena quasi per lavare i propri peccati o per espiare (si è ergastolani a vita...).
L'esistenza che vivono è scandita dalla luce. La luce del quadro che studiano, una luce dorata in cui le figure umane sembrano bloccate, colte in un attimo al di fuori del tempo.
La luce fisica che filtra dalle finestre o attraverso i vetri. Si tratta comunque sempre di una luce esterna, dentro di loro coltivano un buio fatto di passato apparentemente svanito e di speranza molto fioca, quasi inesistente.
I naufraghi sono reali? Sono un'improvvisa irruzione del mondo esterno? Sono i personaggi del quadro? Qualunque cosa siano, risvegliano ricordi e sconvolgono le esistenze dei tre che fino al loro arrivo si sono concentrati sulla sopravvivenza, relegando il proprio essere umani nell'ombra della notte, fuori dalla casa, negli angoli più disparati dell'isola, stanchi fantasmi privi di ombra...
È un libro denso, intenso e ostico, con una scrittura incisiva e difficile, sospesa in un tempo che respira e si ferma al ritmo della prosa stessa, si avvolge su se stesso con balzi cronologici che rallentano e diluiscono la storia. E ci troviamo proiettati ora nel quadro, immobilizzati nella luce delle pennellate, sagome vaghe e confuse; ora in frammenti di vita reale, messi a confronto con le nostre paure, i nostri desideri e i nostri demoni; per ripiombare in una fusione con la natura dell'isola, fuoco e roccia, acqua e ombre sagomate dalla luce.
September 6, 2019
Yet again, upon rereading a Banville novel, I am somewhat embarrassed about my original review, particularly the comment about his style being unoriginal, a factual inaccuracy (the plot does not continue in Athena), and a misreading of the plot and structure in general. I still do not feel like I completely get what Banville is going for here, but I picked up on a number of implications that I had (inexplicably) missed on my first read-through regarding the castaway characters and our narrator's reliability. It's an odd novel, but intriguingly so.
For (anti-) posterity, my prior review:
On some level I guess I get the complaint that Ghosts doesn't really have a plot and that it sets up a premise and then mostly ignores it, though I think that's missing the point. For one, it seems pretty clear that most of the plot points will be picked up in the next book (Athena), but more importantly it's a book that isn't really terribly concerned with plot anyway. Like Nabokov's Glory or The Gift (there I go comparing Banville to N again), it's a slow meditation, and the enjoyment comes from the writing itself (which is masterly) and from becoming immersed in Freddie Montgomery's thoughts on life after jail. Sure it moves slowly, but it allows you to savor the prose and the details, and I can't stress enough how good Banville is at those things. What did surprise me was just how emotionally effecting Freddie's meditations are. I didn't mind watching what appeared to be the main plot fade to the background as the first person narration came to the fore, as the latter interested me far more.
As with other Banville novels, his style isn't particularly original, but it doesn't change the fact that he still executes it perfectly, and this type of writing requires a novelist of the highest talent to pull off without sounding self-indulgent or masturbatory. Regardless of what some might argue, I don't think Banville is ever either of those things.
For (anti-) posterity, my prior review:
On some level I guess I get the complaint that Ghosts doesn't really have a plot and that it sets up a premise and then mostly ignores it, though I think that's missing the point. For one, it seems pretty clear that most of the plot points will be picked up in the next book (Athena), but more importantly it's a book that isn't really terribly concerned with plot anyway. Like Nabokov's Glory or The Gift (there I go comparing Banville to N again), it's a slow meditation, and the enjoyment comes from the writing itself (which is masterly) and from becoming immersed in Freddie Montgomery's thoughts on life after jail. Sure it moves slowly, but it allows you to savor the prose and the details, and I can't stress enough how good Banville is at those things. What did surprise me was just how emotionally effecting Freddie's meditations are. I didn't mind watching what appeared to be the main plot fade to the background as the first person narration came to the fore, as the latter interested me far more.
As with other Banville novels, his style isn't particularly original, but it doesn't change the fact that he still executes it perfectly, and this type of writing requires a novelist of the highest talent to pull off without sounding self-indulgent or masturbatory. Regardless of what some might argue, I don't think Banville is ever either of those things.
December 4, 2014
Un amico mi ha fatto notare un mio limite nello scrivere i commenti ai libri che leggo, consistente nel fatto che quando scrivo un commento positivo mi dilungo e sono prolissa, al contrario quando scrivo che un libro non mi è piaciuto sono concisa, troppo breve.
Ha ragione.
Quando un libro mi è piaciuto mi perdo nel commento quasi con voluttà, come per prolungare il piacere che ho provato nella lettura; quando non mi è piaciuto sono sbrigativa, quasi per spicciarmi a toglierlo dalla mente, “non mi piace perché…”.
Ciò premesso, scrivo ora il breve commento a questo libro appena terminato. E’ chiaro quindi che non l’ho amato.
Non mi è piaciuto perché :
-non ha una trama. Si tratta di un romanzo senza accadimenti, dalla prima all’ultima pagina non accade assolutamente nulla. C’è solo un perenne flusso di pensieri della voce narrante, di cui non si conosce il nome, si sa solo che è un ex galeotto che vive, insieme al professor Kreutznaer, esperto di storia dell’arte, e a un altro enigmatico personaggio, tale Licht, in un’isola disabitata, dove un giorno sbarca un gruppo di naufraghi. Così inizia la storia e il libro termina il giorno dopo, quando i naufraghi se ne ripartono dall’isola (meno una, Flora, una ragazza che rimane perché dice di essere ammalata). La presenza di questi naufraghi provoca negli abitanti dell’isola appunto un flusso di ricordi, di riflessioni e di pensieri, ben scritti, anzi benissimo, ma tutto finisce lì.
Siamo in un mondo immobile e immerso in un’atmosfera ovattata e impalpabile, che non si capisce se è sogno o realtà.
Nei prossimi giorni lascerò il libro in una panchina, magari troverà un lettore che lo saprà apprezzare, a differenza di me.
Ha ragione.
Quando un libro mi è piaciuto mi perdo nel commento quasi con voluttà, come per prolungare il piacere che ho provato nella lettura; quando non mi è piaciuto sono sbrigativa, quasi per spicciarmi a toglierlo dalla mente, “non mi piace perché…”.
Ciò premesso, scrivo ora il breve commento a questo libro appena terminato. E’ chiaro quindi che non l’ho amato.
Non mi è piaciuto perché :
-non ha una trama. Si tratta di un romanzo senza accadimenti, dalla prima all’ultima pagina non accade assolutamente nulla. C’è solo un perenne flusso di pensieri della voce narrante, di cui non si conosce il nome, si sa solo che è un ex galeotto che vive, insieme al professor Kreutznaer, esperto di storia dell’arte, e a un altro enigmatico personaggio, tale Licht, in un’isola disabitata, dove un giorno sbarca un gruppo di naufraghi. Così inizia la storia e il libro termina il giorno dopo, quando i naufraghi se ne ripartono dall’isola (meno una, Flora, una ragazza che rimane perché dice di essere ammalata). La presenza di questi naufraghi provoca negli abitanti dell’isola appunto un flusso di ricordi, di riflessioni e di pensieri, ben scritti, anzi benissimo, ma tutto finisce lì.
Siamo in un mondo immobile e immerso in un’atmosfera ovattata e impalpabile, che non si capisce se è sogno o realtà.
Nei prossimi giorni lascerò il libro in una panchina, magari troverà un lettore che lo saprà apprezzare, a differenza di me.
March 11, 2015
One doesn't read Banville for stories but prose. There is little story here, but there is rich prose.
To wit:
And so, quite empty, weightless as a paper skiff, I make my voyage out, far, far out, to the very brim, where a disc of water shimmers like molten coin against a coin-colored sky, and everything lifts, and sky and waters merge invisibly. (p. 20)
and
The professor stood and listened to the unsteady beating of his heart, thinking how fear always holds at its throbbing centre that little, thin, unquenchable flame of pleasure. (p. 114)
and
The years had worn his skin to a thin, translucent stuff, clammy and smooth, like waxed paper, a loose hide within which his big old carcass slipped and slid. He would not need a shroud, they could just truss him up in himself like a turkey and fold over the flaps and tie a final knot. (p. 119)
and finally
He sends off for things advertised in the newspapers, kitchen utensils, hiking boots, patented remedies for this or that deficiency of the blood or brain; he possesses books and manuals on all sorts of matters - how to set up a windmill or grow mushrooms commercially, how to draw and paint or do wickerwork; he has piles of pamphlets on bee-keeping, wine-making, home accountancy, all of them eagerly thumb-marked for the first few pages and in pristine condition thereafter. (p. 217)
One is better entertained to read Banville as poetry, not fiction.
To wit:
And so, quite empty, weightless as a paper skiff, I make my voyage out, far, far out, to the very brim, where a disc of water shimmers like molten coin against a coin-colored sky, and everything lifts, and sky and waters merge invisibly. (p. 20)
and
The professor stood and listened to the unsteady beating of his heart, thinking how fear always holds at its throbbing centre that little, thin, unquenchable flame of pleasure. (p. 114)
and
The years had worn his skin to a thin, translucent stuff, clammy and smooth, like waxed paper, a loose hide within which his big old carcass slipped and slid. He would not need a shroud, they could just truss him up in himself like a turkey and fold over the flaps and tie a final knot. (p. 119)
and finally
He sends off for things advertised in the newspapers, kitchen utensils, hiking boots, patented remedies for this or that deficiency of the blood or brain; he possesses books and manuals on all sorts of matters - how to set up a windmill or grow mushrooms commercially, how to draw and paint or do wickerwork; he has piles of pamphlets on bee-keeping, wine-making, home accountancy, all of them eagerly thumb-marked for the first few pages and in pristine condition thereafter. (p. 217)
One is better entertained to read Banville as poetry, not fiction.
May 29, 2021
“Así es como imagino la existencia de los fantasmas: pobres y lívidos espectros señalados para estremecerse al viento igual que la insignificante ropa tendida, anhelándonos, mientras nosotros hacemos caso omiso y andamos despreocupadamente entre ellos.”
Siendo Fantasma la segunda entrega de la Trilogía Montgomery del escritor John Banville, la cual inicia con la llegada de un naufragio a una isla abandona “Aquí, en la isla del Diablo,”, En dicha isla es dejado un grupo de turista temporalmente. Estos varados se dirigían hacia la gran casa aislada, que es la casa de veraneo del profesor Silas Kreutznaer, experto en el pintor Jean Vaublin, y su fiel compañero y ayudante Licht, pero a la vez, es el habita de otro presencia sin nombre. Una isla embrujada, donde un canto se suspende en el aire con la intriga de varios personajes. Las apariencias cambiantes, las transformaciones y las suposiciones frustradas hacen que este mundo de calma incomoda sea completamente rara.
“Las islas tienen algo que me atrae, la sensación de estar cercado, supongo, de estar protegido del mundo; y de que el mundo esté protegido de mí, eso también.”
Hay tres niños, que son atendidos por Flora, una fotógrafa, Sophie, que está haciendo un libro de fotos de ruinas, un anciano, Croke, y Félix, que pueden ser buscados por la policía y que pueden tener alguna sombra sobre el profesor e incluso en Freddie, pero nunca lo revelan. Los niños juegan, Sophie fotografía, Félix esquemas y Flora, sintiéndose enferma, descansa en la cama de Freddie. Mientras tanto, Freddie se esconde, Licht se queja y el profesor mantiene un perfil bajo. No pasa mucho y, presumiblemente, el barco se reflota y regresan al continente.
“Me trajeron, o quizá sea mejor decir que me deportaron: sí, me deportaron aquí en barco. ”
Personalmente, no es un texto a la altura de la primera novela de la trilogía. Las primeras páginas te toman, te hacen meter en lo que nos quiere contar el narrador, que resulta ser el asesino-protagonista de su novela anterior El libro de la evidencia. Con una escena ambientada, pero algo engañosa, implicando que lo que sigue es una trama, pero como le dije, el texto te arremete, pero a medida que vas leyendo, se va desinflado, pues al parecer no esta del todo claro, puede llegar a confundirte, pero aun pero, tras leer El libro de la evidencia, con este puede caer sobre ti la frustración. Algo si tiene el texto es su descripción de las cosas, como la atmosfera de la isla, la entrada la luz por la ventana, como la va narrando, el olor de la habitación, la tela, el color, el movimiento del mar. “Mundos dentro de mundos. Sangran unos en otros. Estoy al mismo tiempo aquí y allí, entonces y ahora, como por arte de magia. Pienso en la quietud que habita en la profundidad de los espejos. Lo que se refleja ahí no es nuestro mundo. Es otro lugar totalmente distinto, otro universo, que imita con astucia el nuestro. Allí todo es posible; incluso los muertos pueden volver a la vida.”
Siendo Fantasma la segunda entrega de la Trilogía Montgomery del escritor John Banville, la cual inicia con la llegada de un naufragio a una isla abandona “Aquí, en la isla del Diablo,”, En dicha isla es dejado un grupo de turista temporalmente. Estos varados se dirigían hacia la gran casa aislada, que es la casa de veraneo del profesor Silas Kreutznaer, experto en el pintor Jean Vaublin, y su fiel compañero y ayudante Licht, pero a la vez, es el habita de otro presencia sin nombre. Una isla embrujada, donde un canto se suspende en el aire con la intriga de varios personajes. Las apariencias cambiantes, las transformaciones y las suposiciones frustradas hacen que este mundo de calma incomoda sea completamente rara.
“Las islas tienen algo que me atrae, la sensación de estar cercado, supongo, de estar protegido del mundo; y de que el mundo esté protegido de mí, eso también.”
Hay tres niños, que son atendidos por Flora, una fotógrafa, Sophie, que está haciendo un libro de fotos de ruinas, un anciano, Croke, y Félix, que pueden ser buscados por la policía y que pueden tener alguna sombra sobre el profesor e incluso en Freddie, pero nunca lo revelan. Los niños juegan, Sophie fotografía, Félix esquemas y Flora, sintiéndose enferma, descansa en la cama de Freddie. Mientras tanto, Freddie se esconde, Licht se queja y el profesor mantiene un perfil bajo. No pasa mucho y, presumiblemente, el barco se reflota y regresan al continente.
“Me trajeron, o quizá sea mejor decir que me deportaron: sí, me deportaron aquí en barco. ”
Personalmente, no es un texto a la altura de la primera novela de la trilogía. Las primeras páginas te toman, te hacen meter en lo que nos quiere contar el narrador, que resulta ser el asesino-protagonista de su novela anterior El libro de la evidencia. Con una escena ambientada, pero algo engañosa, implicando que lo que sigue es una trama, pero como le dije, el texto te arremete, pero a medida que vas leyendo, se va desinflado, pues al parecer no esta del todo claro, puede llegar a confundirte, pero aun pero, tras leer El libro de la evidencia, con este puede caer sobre ti la frustración. Algo si tiene el texto es su descripción de las cosas, como la atmosfera de la isla, la entrada la luz por la ventana, como la va narrando, el olor de la habitación, la tela, el color, el movimiento del mar. “Mundos dentro de mundos. Sangran unos en otros. Estoy al mismo tiempo aquí y allí, entonces y ahora, como por arte de magia. Pienso en la quietud que habita en la profundidad de los espejos. Lo que se refleja ahí no es nuestro mundo. Es otro lugar totalmente distinto, otro universo, que imita con astucia el nuestro. Allí todo es posible; incluso los muertos pueden volver a la vida.”
October 5, 2015
Freddy Montgomery, the Nabokovian killer from Banville's comic riot of a novel, The Book of Evidence, has been released after just ten years of incarceration, for "exemplary" behaviour.
He is living out the first weeks of his probated freedom on a rocky Irish island as an assistant to a professor compiling a study about an obscure (and fictional) painter.
Soon after his arrival some unexpected visitors are ship-wrecked near their house, all of whom seem to mirror characters from the painter's masterpiece, entitled "Le Monde D'or".
After really enjoying The Book of Evidence, I was looking forward to reading this sequel, which I bought half way through reading that first episode and have had sitting comfortably in my "to read" pile ever since.
Sadly, though still good, Ghosts is a little bit of a disappointment.
Freddy himself (no doubt intentionally given the title) feels somewhat like a ghost in three of the four parts, only really stealing the show in the second part, where he describes his first day out of the clink and we get to enjoy his ridiculous inner meanderings to the full.
Freddy says that he feels "required" somehow, so I was expecting a fulfilling climax, yet the story ended with a whimper where he is hardly needed at all from a dramatic stand-point, despite several overtures of coming atonement.
As for the rest of the characters, they do little more than bring the painting to life, but like a painting they only offer a frozen moment, some speculations, no resolutions.
Ghosts is still a good read because I fancy that Banville is incapable of writing a bad novel considering his great command of language and winning way with esoteric vocabulary (favourites here included "borborygmic", "glossolalia" and "popliteal".
Knowing that there is a third novel in the series I can only imagine that this is very much a "middle" book in a trilogy, which I will confirm one way or the other by reading the third and final part at some stage.
That said, the first volume would have stood alone fine, but this book seemed incomplete to me, or if complete then more than a little obtuse.
He is living out the first weeks of his probated freedom on a rocky Irish island as an assistant to a professor compiling a study about an obscure (and fictional) painter.
Soon after his arrival some unexpected visitors are ship-wrecked near their house, all of whom seem to mirror characters from the painter's masterpiece, entitled "Le Monde D'or".
After really enjoying The Book of Evidence, I was looking forward to reading this sequel, which I bought half way through reading that first episode and have had sitting comfortably in my "to read" pile ever since.
Sadly, though still good, Ghosts is a little bit of a disappointment.
Freddy himself (no doubt intentionally given the title) feels somewhat like a ghost in three of the four parts, only really stealing the show in the second part, where he describes his first day out of the clink and we get to enjoy his ridiculous inner meanderings to the full.
Freddy says that he feels "required" somehow, so I was expecting a fulfilling climax, yet the story ended with a whimper where he is hardly needed at all from a dramatic stand-point, despite several overtures of coming atonement.
As for the rest of the characters, they do little more than bring the painting to life, but like a painting they only offer a frozen moment, some speculations, no resolutions.
Ghosts is still a good read because I fancy that Banville is incapable of writing a bad novel considering his great command of language and winning way with esoteric vocabulary (favourites here included "borborygmic", "glossolalia" and "popliteal".
Knowing that there is a third novel in the series I can only imagine that this is very much a "middle" book in a trilogy, which I will confirm one way or the other by reading the third and final part at some stage.
That said, the first volume would have stood alone fine, but this book seemed incomplete to me, or if complete then more than a little obtuse.
July 19, 2009
A very intriguing, beautifully written novel, but not what I ever thought I'd like. There's no plot, it's rambling, emotionally diffuse and self-indulgent . . . so why did I like it so well that I'm going to start the sequel, Athena, immediately? The wit, wrenching self-exploration, and poetical expression of the narrator, Freddie Montgomery, are enormously affecting, both aesthetically and empathetically.
In The Book of Evidence, Freddie committed murder, and Ghosts can be likened to Crime and Punishment if it had continued after Raskalnikov went to jail. Freddie's struggle with his own guilt and all its ramifications is very powerful. I'm wondering if Banville will locate Freddie's redemption (if, indeed, he ever finds it) in religion, as did Dostoevsky. For, as Freddie realizes he cannot atone for his crime, it seems the only solution is grace, a forgiveness not based on his merits. And isn't Freddie an everyman in this respect? As Hamlet affirms, "use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping?"
In The Book of Evidence, Freddie committed murder, and Ghosts can be likened to Crime and Punishment if it had continued after Raskalnikov went to jail. Freddie's struggle with his own guilt and all its ramifications is very powerful. I'm wondering if Banville will locate Freddie's redemption (if, indeed, he ever finds it) in religion, as did Dostoevsky. For, as Freddie realizes he cannot atone for his crime, it seems the only solution is grace, a forgiveness not based on his merits. And isn't Freddie an everyman in this respect? As Hamlet affirms, "use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping?"
February 1, 2018
A beautifully written, meditative, intriguing novel about convicted criminal, Freddie Montgomery's thoughts and how he is coming to terms with himself, now that he is out of prison and living in a large house on an island with the owner and an old painting provenance expert, Professor Kreutnaer. There are other minor characters introduced that are not developed. The Book of Evidence is a good place to start reading Banville and should be read prior to reading Ghosts.
If you haven't read any Banville, here's a random example of his prose that I have chosen from page 221, "All my life I had been on my way elsewhere, despising the present, pressing always into the future, wanting the next thing, always the next thing; now at last I had come to rest, if that is what it can be called, as sometimes in my dreams I land with unexpected lightness after a long, tumbling, heart-stopping plunge through emptiness and dark air." Easy to read and very reflective. I really enjoy reading Banville and aim to read a majority of his literary fiction books.
If you haven't read any Banville, here's a random example of his prose that I have chosen from page 221, "All my life I had been on my way elsewhere, despising the present, pressing always into the future, wanting the next thing, always the next thing; now at last I had come to rest, if that is what it can be called, as sometimes in my dreams I land with unexpected lightness after a long, tumbling, heart-stopping plunge through emptiness and dark air." Easy to read and very reflective. I really enjoy reading Banville and aim to read a majority of his literary fiction books.
July 27, 2008
I hate it when books build an interesting premise and then don't deliver. The mystery isn't solved, the grisly details of the narrator are not revealed. And there is much ponc-y art talk to add to my annoyance. I got the definite impression this was written by a pretensious git.
January 29, 2013
Non capito. Troppa nebbia, troppo non detto, niente storia; non fa per me.
July 21, 2019
"The past was gathering even more thickly around me, I waded through it numbly like a greased swimmer, waiting to feel the chill and the treacherous undertow."
It was not supposed to be like this. I would have never expected that I would have to struggle to get through a John Banville's book. Yet I did. It took me three weeks to read Ghosts (1993) and the first hundred pages were the most difficult. Despite Banville's trademarks, extraordinarily accomplished prose and the underlying wisdom shining through page after page, I could not connect with the text. I did not understand the events and the characters sounded artificial to me, like empty templates, promises of something that might possibly come in the future. For instance, Alice and Flora: what are they about? Why should I care about seven castaways from a ship grounded on a coast of an island? Or about their intersecting the lives of Professor Kreutznaer and his "faithful companion" Licht?
Later, things began making a little more sense. A connection to Banville's The Book of Evidence is revealed. The motif of a (fictitious) French painter, Vaublin, and his Le monde d'or emerges. There are more extraordinary passages of prose like
Naturally, I don't regret that I persevered and finished the novel. While I am probably too obtuse to fully comprehend its meaning, I suspect that the author gives the reader a hint in the following passage:
Three stars.
It was not supposed to be like this. I would have never expected that I would have to struggle to get through a John Banville's book. Yet I did. It took me three weeks to read Ghosts (1993) and the first hundred pages were the most difficult. Despite Banville's trademarks, extraordinarily accomplished prose and the underlying wisdom shining through page after page, I could not connect with the text. I did not understand the events and the characters sounded artificial to me, like empty templates, promises of something that might possibly come in the future. For instance, Alice and Flora: what are they about? Why should I care about seven castaways from a ship grounded on a coast of an island? Or about their intersecting the lives of Professor Kreutznaer and his "faithful companion" Licht?
Later, things began making a little more sense. A connection to Banville's The Book of Evidence is revealed. The motif of a (fictitious) French painter, Vaublin, and his Le monde d'or emerges. There are more extraordinary passages of prose like
"The world was luminous around him. Everything shone out of itself, shaking in its own radiance. There was movement everywhere; even the most solid objects seemed to seethe, the table under his hands, the chair on which he sat, the very walls themselves. And he too trembled, as if his whole frame had been struck like a tuning fork against the hard, bright surface of things."or
"And somehow by being suddenly herself like this she made the things around her be there too. In her, and in what she spoke, the world, the little world in which we sat, found its grounding and was realized. It was as if she had dropped a condensed drop of colour into the water of the world and the colour had spread and the outlines of things had sprung into bright relief."The thread of travel with Billy, first to the narrator's house, then to the ship, and eventually to the island will captivate the reader's attention. As will the cool story about a mayor of a Spanish village sitting for a painting.
Naturally, I don't regret that I persevered and finished the novel. While I am probably too obtuse to fully comprehend its meaning, I suspect that the author gives the reader a hint in the following passage:
"I would look out the window and see that little band of castaways toiling up the road to the house and a door would open into another world. Oh, a little door, hardly enough for me to squeeze through, but a door, all the same."The charming story of the narrator's relationship with Mrs. Vanden reminds me of Cees Nooteboom, to me the best writer of literature for adults. Still, the beauty of prose remains the best aspect of Ghosts: Mr. Banville makes a worthy companion to James Joyce, Patrick White, or Vladimir Nabokov among the most accomplished masters of the English language. I still have a lot more Banville to read.
Three stars.
August 28, 2021
A tour boat runs aground on an island near a house occupied by a Professor of art history and his associate Licht. The passengers from the boat then become uninvited guests who invade the house. The tale is narrated by a separate guest in the house who, although never named, is obviously Freddie Montgomery, the unremorseful murderer from Banville's "Book of Evidence". After ten years in prison Freddie is trying to put his life back together and has ended up on the island. The first half of the book is about the various characters from the boat and then slowly transitions to Freddie's story of his prison time and the time after his release. There really is no plot involved in the story but simply seems to be a vehicle for Banville to show off his magnificent prose and what magnificent prose it is.
February 25, 2024
Be forewarned, dear reader. This book presents itself as a narrative of depth and intrigue, promising tales of shipwrecks, ex-prisoners, and erudite professors. However, do not be deceived by its facade. This is nothing more than a haphazard collection of disjointed musings and half-baked ghosts of concepts.
Banville's attempts at weaving a cohesive plot are feeble at best, leaving the reader adrift in a sea of confusion. Instead of delivering on its promises, the book serves up a buffet of pompous ideas that reek of self-importance.
Each page turned feels like a wasted opportunity, as the reader is subjected to a relentless barrage of pretentious prose and meaningless pontifications. The narrative, if it can even be called that, meanders aimlessly, leaving one wondering if there was ever a destination in mind.
To those who value their time and intellect, steer clear of this literary shipwreck. It is a disrespectful affront to readers everywhere, squandering both precious time and hard-earned money. Rarely have I encountered a piece of writing more devoid of substance and merit.
Save yourself the agony and pass over this worthless tome. There are far better literary endeavors deserving of your attention.
Banville's attempts at weaving a cohesive plot are feeble at best, leaving the reader adrift in a sea of confusion. Instead of delivering on its promises, the book serves up a buffet of pompous ideas that reek of self-importance.
Each page turned feels like a wasted opportunity, as the reader is subjected to a relentless barrage of pretentious prose and meaningless pontifications. The narrative, if it can even be called that, meanders aimlessly, leaving one wondering if there was ever a destination in mind.
To those who value their time and intellect, steer clear of this literary shipwreck. It is a disrespectful affront to readers everywhere, squandering both precious time and hard-earned money. Rarely have I encountered a piece of writing more devoid of substance and merit.
Save yourself the agony and pass over this worthless tome. There are far better literary endeavors deserving of your attention.
June 9, 2013
Banville's command of language is second to none, but he's put his talents to work on far greater novels than this. It's a slight, slightly experimental sour-dream of a novel; a brief flirtation with conscience and consciousness is all that occurs before the reader is left adrift as adrift as the protagonists. A huge cast of characters are thrown at you, Dickensian stereotypes lurk in the corners, but there's never the effort shown to breathe life into any of them, and the lack of resolution (or even beginning) becomes increasingly apparent as the number of remaining pages become fewer.
A wasted opportunity.
A wasted opportunity.
May 27, 2013
I sprinted through Ghosts by John Banville, the second in a trilogy starring Freddie our reluctant murderer. Reluctant...well sorta, kinda. Smile Our Freddie is a tortured soul for a certainty and this entry is a bit of a halfway house for him and perhaps his kind. Doppelgangers, art forgeries, references to other Banville characters flit through the pages bringing a smile of recognition to Banville readers, and bear us along on a grand ride.
Pick it up, but if so, buy all three. I can guarantee you won't be sorry.
The Book of Evidence
Ghosts
Athena
Pick it up, but if so, buy all three. I can guarantee you won't be sorry.
The Book of Evidence
Ghosts
Athena
July 20, 2014
Johnny B. does it again! This book is a meditation, of sorts, on perception, on relationships, on society, on art. It continues, roughly, some time after The Book of Evidence, though Freddie Montgomery is a much more pensive person these days. No less callous, perhaps, but more pensive. His island becomes peopled with a cast of characters who are all guilty in various degrees. It isn't exactly pleasurable to hang out with this people, but it is intriguing, and I can't seem to get them out of my mind.
September 1, 2017
I have no idea what this book is about. It may be about the construction of self, death, alienation or the imagination. The writing though is undoubtedly tremendous. I remember reading someone describing Austen's writing and saying it was impossible to point to one specific moment of genius. It seems so here too. I can't remember the last time I read anything quite so otherworldly, disorienting or troubling, as though there was a stream of some imminent catastrophe bubbling calmly beneath everything.
August 15, 2015
Low 2. Banville once more falls prey to excess attention towards the wording of his prose as opposed to plot development. Though at times intriguing, the allegory inherent within this work is too convoluted and too veiled. Only those passages where the reader is reacquainted with the character of Freddy Montgomery save this from an even lower rating. Has he returned to try and reintegrate himself to society or are these the musings of a criminal mind trying to escape from the crimes committed?
April 26, 2009
This is all style, no substance, and the style certainly isn't enough to save it.
June 21, 2013
Did not like. Couldn't finish, got bored, which is disappointing because I genuinely like John Banville's writing and loved The Sea. Oh well :/
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February 23, 2023"Böyle anlarda zaman zaman, uzaklara sürüklenebileceğimi ve oradaki her şeyin bir parçası haline geleceğimi, sürüklenip çözüleceğimi, yavaşça sönerek hiçleşen bir ışık parıltısı olacağımı düşünüyordum. Beyaz geceler mevsimine giriyorduk, uyumakta zorlanıyordum. Loş ışıkta görüntüler olağanüstüydü, o solgun renkli gök kubbesiyle, sinmiş, kararsız, düşsel uzaklıklarıyla burası bir başka gezegen olmalıydı. Dinginliğin ve gölgelerin içinden geçerek evde dolaşırdım, bazen kendimi kaybettiğim olurdu, diyeceğim, bir biçimde kendimden çıkar ve bir hayalet görüntü, çevremdeki daha açık karanlığın içinde devinen bir kara leke olurdum. Gece sanki konuşmak üzereymiş gibi görünürdü. Bu her yerde bulunma, nesnelerin ortaya çıkmayı bekleyerek zamanlarını doldurma duyusu, bunlar yalnızca bir imgelem ve beklenti mi? Geceler bana hep insanlarla dolu görünüyor; konuşma özlemiyle dopdolu, çevreme toplanıyorlar, ölüler."
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