John Banville

The sea

Sarah Sammis

The Sea (2005 Man Booker winner) by John Banville follows Max Morden as he revisits his wife's last year before she died of cancer. Much of the novel is written as a flash back as the scenery brings back memories. Max's daughter comments near the end of the novel that her father lives only in the past and after a short protest ends up agreeing with her.

The back of the book compares Banville's writing style to Vladimir Nabokov. I've read a number of his books and can see the connection but he isn't the author that first jumped to mind. The two the came immediately to me were Daphne du Maurier for the lingering melancholia that permeates the story and Marilynne Robinson for how environment reflects the protagonists emotional state.

The Sea is light on dialogue and heavy on description. The novel exists mostly in Max's head as he dwells on Anna and the memories of other people in his life. His thoughts are a carefully choreographed portrayal of stream of consciousness but there is a traceable narrative thread from start to finish.

I have to admit that I started The Sea feeling somewhat intimidated. I've only read two other winners, Blind Assassin (didn't like) and The English Patient (loved). When I saw the it didn't have chapters I wasn't sure at first if I would finish The Sea. Then an hour had passed and I was a quarter of the way through the novel. Although it was a challenging book to read it was a rewarding one.

When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace twins, Myles and Chloe, fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, and what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years.

The Sea

Valentina

Granting it a second star even if the protagonist hates & blames women for everything; only because it’s a well written book. No doubt Banville has a talent but that is the only saving grace of this book.

Alexia

At-times-beautiful prose wasted in a pointless story without character development or a narrative thread. I’m disappointed because it wasn’t what I expected, and certainly not what the synopsis promises.

In this luminous new novel about love, loss, and the unpredictable power of memory, John Banville introduces us to Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child to cope with the recent loss of his wife. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, gorgeously written novel — among the finest we have had from this masterful writer.

Granting it a second star even if the protagonist hates & blames women for everything; only because it’s a well written book. No doubt Banville has a talent but that is the only saving grace of this book. 
The obvious disdain and inferiority Max portrays over all the women in his life is just too much. I know he’s not meant to be likeable but constantly making women the “butt” of the joke is too much. It distracts from the whole book-who’s premise is intriguing. The obvious veiled misogyny is too obvious. Would not recommend and baffled as how this won a man booker prize.

Jade Flynn

Conflicted. It appealed to the reader in me which loves pretentious, tinselly language and plotless meanderings through a single life. So at the time of reading it was a four star read but regretfully it just hasn't stayed with me the way I thought it would.

Trevor Berrett

How this book won the Man Booker Prize I just don't know. It's one of those books where the idea is great but not the execution. Each book on the short list in 2005 was better than this one.
Banville had some fabulous, even profound, sentences in this book. Furthermore, the atmosphere Banville created was great. But overall I felt really let down.

Gary Homewood

Beautifully written, moving study of grief and adolescence, with appropriately bleak seaside B&B setting.

The sea

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