Tough going in spots, but an impressive addition to Banville’s varied and eloquent body of work.
Good writing overcomes an intermittently stately pace in this increasingly absorbing 13th outing (The Untouchable, 1997, etc.) from the literary editor of the Irish Times.
The story serves as a partial prequel to Banville’s most recent, Eclipse (2001), whose climactic actions included the suicide of its protagonist’s emotionally unstable adult daughter Catherine (“Cass”) Cleave. Here, Cass is a historical researcher who confronts protagonist Axel Vander, a Belgian-born literary theorist who was a WWII refugee and is now comfortably ensconced in a prestigious college in Arcady, California. The opening section reveals Cass’s interest in Vander’s buried past, as it moves toward their meeting in Turin, home of the revered Holy Shroud, and (very improbable) love affair. Its long middle section contains Vander’s “confession” (of sorts): of his escape from the Nazi threat, experiences in wartime London, and move to America (financed by money stolen from one of several women he has exploited); callow treatment of his loving wife Magda(lena); and appropriation of the identity of a former friend who was a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator, and perhaps, paradoxically, also a Resistance leader. Finally, Banville gives us the old man’s despairing acknowledgement of his unforeseen love for the troubled young woman whose “knowledge of my duplicity ran deeper than more [sic] detail, it reached far down into my very essence”: who is the “Cassandra” to his manipulative “Svidrigailov” (the preening villain of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment) and, in a stunning last line, his bereft and heartbroken Lear. Ironic metaphors (notably, references to the commedia del’ arte figures of Harlequin and Columbine) and telling allusions to the mordant philosophy of Nietzsche further deepen the texture of a rich portrayal of painstakingly earned self-understanding.
Tough going in spots, but an impressive addition to Banville’s varied and eloquent body of work.Pub Date: March 10, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-41130-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2003
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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