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Full disclosure here, after reading the announcement that John Banville writing as Benjamin Black would write as Raymond Chandler for a new Philip Marlowe novel I decided the scenario was too ridiculous for words and had to read what something so schizophrenic might be like before he ruins Chandler. Leggi tutto

Δεύτερο βιβλίο του Μπέντζαμιν Μπλακ που διαβάζω (ψευδώνυμο του Τζον Μπάνβιλ), μετά το πολύ καλό "Η ξανθιά με τα μαύρα μάτια" που διάβασα το 2015. Εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε με κάτι πολύ διαφορετικό, τόσο θεματικά, όσο κυρίως ποιοτικά. Λοιπόν, δεν ήταν τόσο κακό βιβλίο όσο περίμενα με βάση τη βαθμολογία τ Leggi tutto

John Glass used to be a cutting edge investigative reporter in Ireland. But he sold his soul when he married into a wealthy New York family who are hiding secrets. His father-in-law, owner of a communications company and a former CIA spook, hired him to write his biography. Glass is working in an up Leggi tutto

Somewhere around the end of the first chapter I started feeling like this book was going to be a disappointment. And that feeling never really went away. I wanted to like it, but I never cared about any of the characters and the plot twists were more like plot leaps, having little connection to what Leggi tutto

John Banville—the writer behind the writer Benjamin Black—used to thrill me with his surprising turns of phrase, peculiar situations and exposition of plot via the medium of a strong narrator’s speculative musing. Now I’ve come to expect these, indeed look forward to them; the thrill now comes from Leggi tutto

Ενδιαφέρον, μικρό και ευκολοδιάβαστο. Περιγράφει έναν εγκλωβισμένο ήρωα, βολεμένο στην πλούσια καθημερινότητα του από την οποία επιχειρεί να τον αποσπάσει ο Λεμούριος του τίτλου. Και ενώ ο Λεμούριος αποχωρεί από το προσκήνιο, ο ήρωας μένει να ξετυλίξει το κουβάρι της ζωής του, των υπαναχωρήσεων και τω Leggi tutto

Oh, John, John, John. Stop dressing up as Benjamin. This is the last, although it's also my first, straw. Not all hard-boiled fiction is 'easy', you smug little man. You make it look like a parody. Your characters say things that the embarrassed John Banville is saying in your head (e.g. 'You speak

Fairly good writing but totally lame mystery. One of the thinnest plots I've ever encountered. I thought the physical description of "The Lemur" made him sound more like a marmoset, but I won't belabor mammalian classification. One good line I got from this book: "The internet is not the world, my

The hero of The Lemur is John Glass, a one-time investigative journalist who has grown soft through his marriage into money. His wife, whom he married for love before the love wore off, is the daughter of William ‘Big Bill’ Mulholland, an Irish-American electronics billionaire. Big Bill has commissi Leggi tutto

John Banville’s alter ego, Benjamin Black, returns with this slender novella that was serialized in The New York Times earlier this year. Unlike Christine Falls and The Silver Swan, The Lemur doesn’t feature the dour Quirke, but instead dwells on John Glass, a one-time intrepid, passionate journalis Leggi tutto