John Banville

A novel

The Singularities

reddie Montgomery acaba de salir de prisión y es un hombre nuevo. Bajo el pseudónimo de Felix Mordaunt vuelve al viejo caserón de su infancia, donde ahora vive la familia del fallecido Adam Godley, el gran físico cuya teoría revolucionó la concepción del universo. Mordaunt se une a la constelación formada por el hijo eternamente a la sombra del famoso científico, su irresistible esposa Helen, una terca ama de llaves, un biógrafo enamorado ―casi rival― y una mujer del pasado que le pide a Felix un inesperado y peligroso favor.

Las singularidades

Miguel Angel Palmer Salva

Le encantaba asimismo el cine y asistía con frecuencia a las funciones de tarde de la Arcady Arthouse (Ilustración 7), una sala universitaria especializada en los clásicos en blanco y negro de los años dorados de Hollywood. Le gustaban los westerns en particular. Él y Gabriel Swan, que compartía su entusiasmo por "esos cuentos morales de nuestro tiempo", como Godley los definió, se sentaban en la primera fila.

From the revered Booker Prize-winning author comes a playful, multilayered novel of nostalgia, life and death, and quantum theory, which opens with the return of one of his most celebrated characters as he is released from prison. A man with a borrowed name steps from a flashy red sports car—also borrowed—onto the estate of his youth. But all is not as it seems. There is a new family living in the drafty old house: the Godleys, descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley, whose theory of existence threw the universe into chaos. And this mystery man, who has just completed a prison sentence, feels as if time has stopped, or was torn, or was opened in new and strange ways. He must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, with their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, with the recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr., and with a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request. With sparkling intelligence and rapier wit, John Banville revisits some of his career’s most memorable figures, in a novel as mischievous as it is brilliantly conceived. The Singularities occupies a singular space and will surely be one of his most admired works.

Brilliant prose. Felt stilted in the plot department. Views of women were stuck in the "male gaze."  

The Singularities A novel

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