L'intoccabile

It took a while for the magic of this to work on me. Initially I thought Banville’s prose had the quality of bracken on a forest floor – the light picks out some beautiful tones and textures but there was a pervading sense of brittle lifelessness. I felt he wrote like someone who never leaves his st Leggi tutto

After reading something written so well, it’s a disappointment having only my own less eloquent words available to praise it. Maybe it’s better to let Banville’s passages sell themselves. I’ll get to those soon, but first a bit of context. The book, I learned only today, is a Roman a clef -- more or Leggi tutto

This is my second try with John Banville. Once again, he impresses me with his ability to write nearly perfect prose and characters who are as flesh and blood and flawed as any who ever breathed, while completely boring me . That's strike two, Mr. Banville, and two is all most authors get from me. Ban Leggi tutto

ALL HIGH TALK AND LOW FROLICS: Part I ("My Other Secret Life") I first encountered the Judge, professionally, in Court. Early in my career, I appeared in the Family Court 400 times over two years. 50 or so appearances would have been before him. He was a precise and impatient judge. He had little tolera Leggi tutto

As readers we have all experienced or come across books that either make a siren call to us, which we can’t ignore, or speak to us in a way that makes us drown within its pages, or even sing to us, a beautiful melody that soothes our spirit and enthralls us in a way nothing else does. This book had Leggi tutto

"Metamorphosis is a painful process" for Victor, an art expert and ambitious man who turns to the life of a spy. In the end, his ambitions ruin him and his friends betray him. His journey of exploration begins late: when he has been ousted in public, deserted, and he tries to make sense of his life

This is a great novel based on a blending of the lives of several real-life British men, “The Cambridge Five,” who were spies for the Soviets in the 1930’s through the 1950’s. Our main character, given the name Victor Maskell, is a gay man who found out he was gay only after being married and having Leggi tutto

I've been spending the last month reading novels written by John Banville. It's fun with authors that have multiple works to stick with them one after another for a while to glimpse their depth and soak their craft. If at all possible the author should be wise and a good artist so that you see a lit Leggi tutto

What forces a person to betray his country? Where do all the spies come from? What makes them ticking? Some true espionage stories are much stranger than fiction, especially when the tale is told by such master as John Banville . “To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must fir Leggi tutto

“Espionage has something of the quality of a dream. In the spy’s world, as in dreams, the terrain is always uncertain. You put your foot on what looks like solid ground and it gives way under you and you go into a kind of free fall, turning slowly tail over tip and clutching on to things that are th Leggi tutto