John Banville – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.18 A DEATH IN SUMMER by Benjamin Black /2011/death-in-summer-by-benjamin-black/ Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:23:36 +0000 /?p=20420 Book Quote:

“You think you’ve seen the worst of the world,” she said, “but the world and its wicked ways can always surprise you.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  AUG 25, 2011)

Irish author John Banville continues to pick up a number of literary prizes (including the Booker Prize in 2005) for his novels, but he sidelines with the pseudonym Benjamin Black for a series of ‘50s crime novels set in Dublin. Banville aka Black has produced these crime novels steadily over the past few years: Christine Falls (2006), The Silver Swan (2007), The Lemur (2008), Elegy for April (2010), and now A Death in Summer.  The Lemur is a stand-alone mystery which shifts from New York to Dublin, but the other novels comprise the Quirke series–a series of mysteries featuring a Dublin pathologist. Banville states that reading the roman durs of Simenon inspired him to try his hand at writing crime fiction. While reading Simenon, he noted the “simple language and direct, lightweight narrative,” accompanied by existentialist thought and decided to “try it.”

In A Death in Summer, pathologist Quirke, a slipping-off-the-wagon middle-aged alcoholic with a fascination for amateur sleuthing is called to the scene of a death. The dead man is the fabulously wealthy newspaper tycoon, Richard Jewell, known to his few friends and his many enemies as Diamond Dick “a ruthless bastard, …, who would tear out your heart as quick as look at you.” Jewell is dead from a shotgun blast at close range, and someone put the gun in the victim’s hands in a poor attempt to pass the death off as a suicide. Only a rudimentary knowledge of guns is enough to know that a shotgun is not the natural or easy choice for a suicide, so Quirke who arrives on the scene soon after Inspector Hackett knows he’s looking at a murder case.

The book’s opening scene takes place at Brooklands, the palatial country estate of Dick Diamond. What should be an entrancing, delightful summer day is marred by the bloody, violent crime:

“It felt strange to Hackett to be standing here, on a fine country estate, with the birds singing all about and a slab of sunlight falling at his heels from the open doorway of Jewell’s office, and at the same time to have that old familiar smell of violent death in his nostrils. Not that he had smelled it so very often, but once caught it was never forgotten, that mingled faint stink of blood and excrement and something else, something thin and sharp and insidious, the smell of terror itself, perhaps, or of despair—or was he being fanciful? Could despair and terror really leave a trace?”

This scene, the juxtaposition of calm countryside beauty side-by-side with violent death sets the tone for the rest of the book as Quirke pokes around those connected to Jewell. These are the wealthy society elite of Dublin–an impenetrable set who holiday together, conduct business together, party together and whose lives contain many dark secrets. Quirke senses that there’s something not quite right about the family scene at Brooklands. Jewell was murdered and yet apparently no one noticed. Jewell’s servants, including the shifty yard manager Maguire, are noticeably shaken by the crime whereas Jewell’s family treats his death like some sort of minor social inconvenience. Jewell’s cool, elegant French wife, Francoise d’Aubigny, a woman Quirke met once before at a social event, was off riding one of her horses when the murder took place, and Jewell’s half-sister, Dannie is disinterestedly lounging on the sofa drinking gin and tonic when the police arrive:

“Dannie Jewell lifted her glass from the arm of the sofa and took a long drink from it, thirstily, like a child. She held the glass in both hands, and Quirke thought again of Francoise d’Aubigny standing at the window in the embassy that day, with the champagne glass, of the look she had given him, the odd desperateness of it. Who were these two women, really, he wondered, and what was going on here?”

With a man as despised as Dick Jewell, there’s no shortage of suspects. Carlton Sumner, Jewell’s crass business rival who is trying to take over Jewell’s newspaper empire declares he’s amazed that it took this long for someone to murder this much-hated man. Jewell’s wife, the French trophy wife, Francoise doesn’t seem to exactly be the grieving widow. While Inspector Hackett finds himself comparing Francoise to the cool impeccability of Ingrid Bergman, Quirke is inexorably attracted to the new widow. He’s intoxicated by her perfume and her glance. Turning a cold shoulder to his actress girlfriend, Isabel Galloway, Quirke begins peppering his thoughts with French phrases, buys French newspapers, and tries desperately to limit his alcohol consumption to just a few drinks a day.

As with any series detective novel, the private life of the protagonist (Quirke in this case) is juggled with the crime under investigation. A Death in Summer finds Quirke half-heartedly investigating while struggling with his interest in Francois. A large portion of Quirke’s private life in this novel contains Phoebe, Quirke’s daughter and her relationship with Sinclair, a pathologist who works with Quirke. For those late to the Quirke series, some mention is made to the story threads from earlier volumes in the series, but these references are woven into the plot so effectively that it’s easy to catch up with these prior relationships.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 62 readers
PUBLISHER: Henry Holt and Co. (July 5, 2011)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Benjamin Black
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

 

Also by John Banville:

 

Bibliography:

Stand-alone:

]]> ELEGY FOR APRIL by Benjamin Black /2010/elegy-for-april-by-benjamin-black/ Thu, 20 May 2010 01:50:54 +0000 /?p=9549 Book Quote:

“Before he went on the latest drinking bout, when he was supposed not to be taking alcohol in any form, he used to take Phoebe to dinner here on Tuesday nights and share a bottle of wine with her, his only tipple of the week. Now, in trepidation, he was going to see if he could take a glass or two of claret again without wanting more. He tried to tell himself he was here solely in the spirit of research, but that fizzing sensation under his breastbone was all too familiar. He wanted a drink, and he was going to have one.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett (MAY 19, 2010)

Black’s third 1950s Dublin thriller featuring pathologist Garret Quirke (after Christine Falls and The Silver Swan) finds Quirke in a rehab hospital, from which he will shortly spring himself, for his daughter’s sake.

“Quirke had never known life so lacking in savor. In his first days at St. John’s he had been in too much confusion and distress to notice how everything here seemed leached of colour and texture; gradually, however, the deadness pervading the place began to fascinate him. Nothing at St. John’s could be grasped or held.”

The fog does not dissipate all that much once he’s out, however. Quirke buys himself a fancy car, though he can’t drive – this injects some comic moments into an essentially dark tale – but it can’t quench his thirst for drink, which he fights and succumbs to throughout the story.

Quirke’s daughter Phoebe sets the plot in motion – her friend April Latimer, a junior doctor and very independent woman, is missing though no one will admit it. April’s prominent family has essentially washed their hands of her and most of her friends assume she’s gone off with some man. But Phoebe asks her father to investigate.

Quirke consults his friend Inspector Hackett, stirs up the hornet’s nest of April’s family, and questions April’s rather brittle circle of friends – devious journalist Jimmy, beguiling actress Isabel and exotic and polished Patrick Ojukwu, a handsome Nigerian student, suspected of sleeping with everyone, including April.

Black’s characters, even those who strive for type, like April’s snooty family, become individuals as the story progresses, which doesn’t always make the reader like them better.

Quirke, a canny, opinionated, floundering loner, works at himself, but succumbs easily to temptation. Selfish as he is, though, he is not self-absorbed and his idle reflections often lead to thoughts of others, particularly Phoebe and her concerns.

“Idly he pondered the distinction between solitude and loneliness. Solitude, he conjectured, is being alone, while loneliness is being alone among other people. Was that the case? No, something incomplete there. He had been solitary when the bar was empty, but was he lonely now that these others had appeared?

“Had April Latimer been lonely? It did not seem probable from everything he had heard of her so far.”

Black’s (aka John Banville) plot rises from these well-fleshed characters and the damp, wintry setting as Quirke probes corrosive family secrets and challenges the reign of the Catholic Church in an insular, hidebound city.

Readers of Ken Bruen and Ian Rankin will enjoy Black’s fine atmospheric prose and noirish insight.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 68 readers
PUBLISHER: Henry Holt and Co.; 1 edition (April 13, 2010)
REVIEWER: Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Benjamin Black
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Also by John Banville:

Bibliography:

Stand-alone:

]]> THE INFINITIES by John Banville /2010/the-infinities-by-john-banville/ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:08:46 +0000 /?p=7999 Book Quote:

“The father of the gods is in a sulk. It is always thus when one of his girls, all unknowing, goes back to her true, that is, her rightful mate, as she must. What does he expect? He comes to them in disguise, tricks himself out as a bull, an eagle, a swan, or, as in the present case, a husband, and thinks to make them love him–him, that is, and not what or who he is pretending to be, as if he were a mortal just like them. Ah, yes love, what they call love, it drives him to distraction…”

Book Review:

Review by Doug Bruns (FEB 28, 2010)

Where have all the gods gone? Hermes, Pan, Zeus and the group? We haven’t heard from them in a very long time. But wait, maybe we have, perhaps we have met them, dined with them, slept with them (that Zeus is quite the horny old god) and don’t realize it. Perhaps they walk among us, watching, listening, trying to understand us. This is a wonderful book–and that is it’s wonderful premise. It is one of the few books that upon finishing I wanted to immediately start all over again.

It is a delightful mid-summer day in the Irish countryside and old Adam Godley, a famous theoretical mathematician, lay in a gloomy upstairs room, suffering the effects of a debilitating stroke. His family and a couple of friends mill about Arden, the family estate. They stroll the gardens and grounds, awaiting the end. There is his obtuse son, young Adam, and his lovely wife Helen; his troubled nineteen year-old daughter, Petra; her “young man” boyfriend, who wishes to write a biography of her father; and the second wife, Ursula, driven to drink by her husband’s dalliances and remoteness. A friend of Adam senior also stops by, a frumpy, club-cloven-footed perspiring mystery of a man. And there are the gods: Zeus, who has an eye for Helen; Pan, the shape changing mysterious visitor; and the breezy omniscient narrator, Hermes. Together the mix affords us a view of the human and godly condition with humor, hope and occasional dismay.

Hermes is a delightful tour guide through this world of human foibles and godly pursuits. His observations are not only earth bound. He shares with us his frustration in keeping “Dad,” his father Zeus, in check. Early in the novel Zeus instructs Hermes to hold back the dawn an hour so that he can stay with the comely mortal Helen just a bit longer. He has visited her in the night, changing form to replicate her husband, ravishing her to a frenzied state that she will only recall as a dream. But for the most part the god’s are shy, making themselves known only in increments. “Strange, how tentative we are when we come into their world, shy amongst the creatures we have made,” muses Hermes. “Is it that we are worrying we might leave the order of things calamitously disturbed? Everything is to be put back exactly as it was before us, no stone left unturned, no angle unaligned, all divots replaced. This is the rule the gods must obey.”

As the gods come and go on this single day in the life of the Godley household, the family, friends and two staff members are revealed in increasing detail. The narrative moves from young Adam and Helen, shortly after Zeus’s libidinal visit, through the entourage to the comatose mind of the patriarchal mathematician. Only perhaps the coma is not all it appears to be. In fact, there is a torrent of consciousness behind the lifeless form. “No two things are the same, the equals sign a scandal; there you have the crux of it, the cross to which I was nailed from the start. Difference: the very term is redundant, a nonce-word coined to comfort and deceive.” It is revealed that his complex mind, is streaming along, nicely, thank you very much. And it echoes what we know of his mathematical work, theories of parallel worlds, just as the narration reveals parallel and intertwined complexities. For instance, the old man continues: “Perhaps that is my trouble, perhaps my standards are too high. Perhaps human love is simple, and therefore beyond me, due to my incurable complicating bent.”

For someone who relishes good prose, this book is a delight, as one would expect from a writer of such accomplishment. (The Seas won the  Man Booker Prize and  he holds a host of other recognitions, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Guardian Fiction Award.) For example, this passage: “Time too is a difficulty. For her it has two modes. Either it drags itself painfully along like something dragging itself in its own slime over bits of twigs and dead leaves on a forest floor, or it speeds past, in jumps and flickers, like the scenes on a spool of film clattering madly through a broken projector.” Or this passage, describing the dead-start liftoff of a locomotion: “Now the engine bethinks itself and gives a sort of shake, and a repeated loud metallic clank runs along the carriages from coupling to coupling, and with a groan the brutish thing begins to move off, and as it moves the risen sun strides through each set of carriage windows in turn, taking its revenge on the still-burning light bulbs, putting them to shame with its irresistible harsh fire.”

There is little dramatic momentum to this book. Instead the book progresses like a stroll through a garden, a morning filled with illuminated reserve and observation. Too, there is the constant agitation of revelation, like a chemical slowly dissolving an element. No one is who they seem. Rather, they are more complex, more disorderly and fraught; more in love, more afraid than the surface belies. Reading The Infinities is rather like watching the sun come up. The shadows give way to the low light, the low light increases to eventual brightness. There is never not pleasure in watching the sun come up. But then Hermes was ordered to hold it back for a hour, remember? Zeus can alter even that. Certainly the mathematician Adman Godley would find the challenge to such mathematical certainty an obverse pleasure.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 29 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (February 23, 2010)
REVIEWER: Doug Bruns
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on John Banville
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

And if you want more of the old gods:

Bibliography:

* Loose trilogy, each narrated by Freddie Montgomery, a convicted murderer.

++ Shroud is a sequel to Eclipse

Plays:

Writing as Benjamin Black:

Stand-alone:

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