Teoria degli infiniti

I've read somewhere that the main thing a novelist needs to accomplish in the first 10% of a story is to convince the reader to keep reading. John Banville obviously does not feel bound by this advice. Hell, no, with a kind of oblivious arrogance that might almost be admirable, if it weren't so irri Leggi tutto

What do we think of when we think of the abode of the gods? Swans gliding across still waters, laurel hedges from which butterflies tumble, birdsong hidden in dappled sunlight? That's the atmosphere of Arden, the home of the Godley family in The Infinities, also the home of the gods. Infinities here Leggi tutto

CRITIQUE: Infinite Ease (as if by Wings of Desire) Within the realm of this novel, the gods are among us, they sometimes make love to us covertly, and they cause some of us to write gorgeous prose, out of the words they fashioned for us, with infinite ease. (1) Markus Hoffmann - "Bent to Infinity" ( Leggi tutto

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. It's clever, witty, imaginative and filled with ideas -- all things I prize in a book. And yet it lacks coherence, perhaps even a sense of full commitment by the author to his novel. I don't feel Banville's dedication to the material, a sense that h Leggi tutto

I cannot resist reading Banville aloud. His command of prose style is without equal among contemporary writers in English. When Banville uses a comma, it is for a very good reason and must be read to preserve the rhythm of the sentence as well as the sense. Despite the beauty of his prose, which bor Leggi tutto

“Banville has astonishing powers…This is unequivocally a work of brilliance” blurbs the Spectator on the back of the dust jacket. And my hometown paper, the KC Star placed it among its top 10 novels of 2009. So what the heck, I bought it on discount at Borders a year ago. It has been in my “to read” Leggi tutto