Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5560 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

The Observer -Paperback of the Week
‘One of the most rewarding and humane novels of recent years'

The Observer -Paperback of the Week
'What a tremendous guide the phenomenally talented Banville is to the strangeness of ourselves and our journey’

Sunday Times -Paperback Pick of the Week
‘An undeniably important work of fiction, whose soaring Joycean lyricism can take your breath away'

Customer Reviews

Not as brilliant as I thought it was going to be
I was really looking forward to reading this book as it was a man booker prize winner and I have always been an avid reader of the runners up and winners and usually been impressed. Sadly I was disappointed. I felt JB concentrated more on the lengthy chunks of prose, describing things in great detail with a plot as an afterthought. His prose was like poetry and some of it very beautiful. The plot had a bizarre twist and was trying to compete with an 'Ian McEwan'type novel. Together it just did not work. Well written but not well crafted.

There is more to this than meets the eye
The Sea is a very odd little book. On the surface, it is very simple. An elderly man, Max Morden (Morbid - geddit?), revisits the dingy little town where he grew up, recalling his relationship with an odd family that holidayed there, and the recent death of his wife.

On my first reading, I found the novel disappointing. I am a Banville fan. I've read several of his books, and this has given me a sense for what he is about. Even so, The Sea seemed weak at first encounter. I imagine that readers drawn to him for the first time, perhaps seduced by the MAN Booker prize award, will be deeply perplexed as to what is going on.

Banville's books seem to be connected in a loose sequence, and this is the latest installment. Though the characters all have different names, they are all very similar, progressively aging males. They share an interest in art criticism, though not as creators themselves. This is significant, I feel. These people are all fascinated by the creation of artifice. They are not to be taken at face value.

And all speak with very similar voices. Some people find Banville's dense language off-putting. I've read enough of his work to say - I THINK - that this stuffy, affected tone is a deliberate ploy on his part, not merely him being monotonous. His characters use language as a shield or a disguise - often shielding themselves from themselves as from the outside. But when Max faces up to his grie in The Sea, he expresses it in short and brutally obscene spurts of grief.

So, what of the book itself? On my first reading, I think I fell for Max's trick. The whole novel is an exercise in misdirection, as Max tries to focus our attention - and his - on the long dead past. Don't be fooled by him. His grief is raw and deeply felt, but hidden under a miasma of postures and fine words.

Overall, a very effective, subtle novel. It may not be rewarding on a first reading, or to those unfamiliar with Banville's work, but it is worth getting to know.

Perhaps poetry but no plot
The first thing that struck me as I was reading this on holiday recently was the number of words used that I've never come across before! As an avid reader since childhood this is a bit unsettling. Am I really that illiterate or does John Banville scour his thesaurus looking for unfamiliar language that has the reader scrabbling for the dictionary? I'd genuinely love to know. I'm still not sure what to make of this to be honest. If you're going to read it you may be best forewarned that nothing really happens in it and as mentioned in other reviews it is unashamedly self-indulgent. I haven't read any of John Banville's other books so I've no idea if this is typical of his style, but for me a prize-winning novel should have something compelling about it and this certainly didn't, for all it's verbal posing.