Reviews

• obsessive young love

  'Billy Gray was my best friend and I fell in love with his mother." という書き出しで始まるこの物語は、一世を風靡した老俳優の回想。あるとき突然舞台でセリフが出てこなくなり引退していたが、65歳になって初めての映画出演の依頼が舞い込み、その関係者や共演することになったスター女優たちと関わっていく。その自分の人生をあれこれと回想して独白していく。 1950年代のアイルランドの小さな町で、15歳のときに友人の母親である35歳の女性と恋に陥り、そのひと夏の情景が折にふれ繰り返し語られていて、それが本書の多くを占めている。これがタイトルの Ancient Light か。一方では10年前に最愛の娘が自殺し、妻と嘆きつつ労わりあって暮らしてきた日々。そしてロンドンでの映画出演にとりくんでいるとき、共演の女優が自殺未遂をおこし、彼女を連れてイタリアへ癒しの旅にでる。そこは自分の娘が自殺を図った地･･･。 また一方では少年のときに愛した人のその後の行方をたどって、思わぬ結果を知ることになる。 回想は時系列で語られず、脈絡もなく錯綜して、本人自身も混乱していて、なにが真実でなにが虚構なのかわからなくなる様相も呈する。英文自体は難しくはなく、詩的で美しくもあるのだが、読み進めるのが難解だった。

• Va a menos

  Lo dejé a medio. El autor no consigue en ningún momento no ya que te emocione sino ni siquiera que te interesa la historia. John Banville va a menos desde The Sea.

• Under The Sea

  A slight disappointment; I adored The Sea, read it twice and probably will again. None of the characters in this book convinced me as much as those in The Sea - especially the narrator. But I always enjoy Banville's writing, i probably won't read it twice! One of the finest novelists in the UK today.

• "Time and Memory are a fussy firm of interior decorators...always shifting the furniture about and redesigning rooms."

  John Banville has always specialized in short, dense novels in which his narrators are unreliable, even dishonest. These characters actually see themselves differently from what they really are, and as they remember and talk about the past, their memories are at least as much invented as factual. In Eclipse (2000), the first novel of this trilogy which deals with the same characters as Ancient Light, Banville's narrator is Alexander Cleave, a stage actor who has "dried" onstage and who has returned to his childhood home to relive memories and come to terms with the inner self which has betrayed him onstage. Shroud (2002) tells the story of the disturbed Cass Cleave, Alexander's missing daughter, presumed dead, told from the point of view of Axel Vander, a mysterious professor, unknown to Alexander Cleave, who was traveling with Cass in Italy when she vanished. Now, in Ancient Light, the final novel of the trilogy, Banville brings the arc of his plot to its conclusion, both in terms of story and of his theme of memory and our reinvention of it. Here, sixty-five-year-old Alexander and his wife Lydia (whose real name is Leah) are still mourning Cass ten years after she vanished. A former stage actor whose career is dormant, Cleave spends much of his time in an "attic aerie" musing about the past while writing a memoir about an affair he had fifty years ago with Celia Gray, the mother of his best friend. He was fifteen and she, thirty-five. His memories of Mrs. Gray, still so vivid and exciting, dominate much of Cleave's inner life, and as he describes this affair, his life as a teenager becomes vibrant and understandable within the context of the 1950s in which it took place. Though he feels that his memories are real, he is constantly getting confused about the seasons in which certain events took place, and even he recognizes and admits that some of these memories could be false. The turning point in Cleave's life occurs when a film production company selects him to play the role of the mysterious professor Axel Vander, whose specialty is in "deconstruction." The film, to be called "The Invention of the Past," will also star the emotionally fragile Dawn Devonport. "She was Cora, Vander's girl, and I was Vander." With its parallel narratives of Cleave as a young man having an affair with his best friend's mother, and Cleave as a sixty-five-year-old actor trying to save self-destructive Dawn Devonport, the reader is kept totally engaged with two vibrant stories, yet the scenes and events constantly suggest that there is more to the action than meets the eye. The result is thrilling, with the reader willingly assuming the roles of both detective and psychologist, analyzing the details, and finding the answers all related thematically, every detail on every level connected to every other detail. In prose that is relaxed but elegant, smooth, and evocative, the book is completely engrossing, and much of the novel also contains humor and a great deal of dramatic irony. Most readers will be haunted by the similarities of names here: "Alexander Cleave" is almost an anagram for "Axel Vander," raising another whole set of tantalizing connections and suggestions. The ending brings all the themes full-circle, and while some may accuse the author of falling prey to the convenience of a tour de force, it is perfectly fitting in its details, thematically. Stunning as a stand-alone, Ancient Light is even better as part of a trilogy.

• How lovely!

  Seit langem wieder einmal ein englisches Buch, das ich innerhalb von einer Woche "verschlang". Von John Banville hatte ich - zu meiner Schande - vorher noch nichts gehört und muss das nun dringend nachholen. ;) Einigen Kommentaren zufolge, ist das Buch eher "schwer zu lesen" und man "müsse sich an den seltsamen Stil des Autors anpassen". Das finde ich ehrlich gesagt gar nicht, oder bzw. da war auch der Grund, warum mir dieses Buch so gut gefallen hat: der einzigartige Stil. Das Buch besticht durch tolle Beschreibungen, sowohl von Personen, Gegenden, Jahreszeiten als auch Objekten. Außerdem fließen mehr oder weniger zwei Geschichten ineinander: die Erinnerung der Hauptperson an eine Liaison im Jugendalter und die gegenwärtigen Erlebnisse rund um einen Filmdreh. Ein echt sehr schönes und absolut lesenswertes Buch!

• A Banville Beauty

  I won't bore you with a synopsis of the plot as many of the other reviews here have done, I'll just recommend you read this superb book from John Banville without delay. It's typical Banville book with all his hallmarks from the quirky words, detailed scene setting, to the excellent characterisation. The plot is relatively simple and the ending, though it is not earth shattering it is certainly believable. I couldn't put it down and it brought out all of my emotions - sadness, laughter and repulsion. In my humble opinion it's one of his best books. Well done Mr Banville keep it up. Looking forward to see what you come up with next.

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