John Banville: Ancient Light

[leyla]

Here's my review from today's Independent on Sunday of the Man Booker- winning Irish writer John Banville's Ancient Light. This is a cert for the Man Booker shortlist. It takes time to read as the prose is so rich and demanding of reflection, but it's poetically gorgeous.


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...e-7922384.html

[Liam]

Any idea what the title means/refers to?

[Eric]

I liked your review of Banville, Leyla, till I came to the penpenultimate paragraph, which jarred a little. I would have quietly excised the lake of praline and the Nabokov. But the review did make me curious about the novel, even if I am rather allergic to yet another author cashing in on the murderous Nazis. Nonetheless, the Paul De Man connection is, of course, interesting. He is not the only literary theorist or linguist who has a dark past. You may note that "Le Soir" exists to this day, and is perfectly respectable. Likewise, the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet was pro-Nazi during WWII, but has survived.

As you are such a prolific reviewer, you should perhaps review "Sailing Against the Wind" by Jaan Kross, also a complex novel about compromising with the Nazis and mental and physical health. It appeared with the Northwestern University Press earlier this year and is readable, though hardly Nabokovian.

[Liam]

As you are such a prolific reviewer, you should perhaps review "Sailing Against the Wind" by Jaan Kross...

If you do, Leyla, dear, upon your life don't overlook the fact that it was translated by Eric Dickens!

Eric, if you haven't read anything by Banville before, I would suggest starting elsewhere. I haven't read the two books preceding Ancient Light in content, so it would be a bit jarring to take it up prior to reading the first two.

[Liam]

A recent interview in The Scotsman.

[Eric]

Thank-you, Liam, for drawing people's attention to my own translation, not least amongst the reviewing classes. But that book has been out since January, and I have looked occasionally on the internet and found very little mention of it indeed. When you translate a 340-page novel, it would be nice if people read it before it gets pulped.

[Eric]

Looking at the other, non-Leyla, review of the Banville, I have to say that he looks hellishly smug in the photo. I wonder whether this David Robinson chappie realises that Nabber Cough died in 1977 (I suppose we must allow him his little joke), so the master's not likely to be around to be interviewed mellifluously and sycophantically by the likes of David Robinson. A "reverse Lolita"? Whatever next? Can't people stop mentioning the only Russian 20th century writer they've ever heard of, the only one that's got a bit of paedophilia and modernistics lurking within?

From my experience, it's much better to write reviews of books by people who are dead, or whom you've never met. This means you don't have to come with all the eyewash and drool about "when poor little insignificant interviewer me met the greatest author since sliced bread, ászlik, ászlik", to use a Hungarian colloquialism. So: fuck the Dublin restaurant, and tell us about the fucking author and the fucking books he's written, especially this one, Robinson, and cut the crap.

Leyla's review got me interested in the book; Robinson's has put me right off again. See how an all too eager interviewer-groupie can destroy one's interest in his interview object.

[Liam]

I agree with you about the Scottish interview. I'm tired of reading those interviews that focus more on description as opposed to what the subject of the interview actually said. I was reading a piece about a film-director at Cannes the other day, and the interviewer spent the entire first paragraph describing the wine they ordered at the local restaurant, where she met the said director. I was like, is this typically French, or just nonsense, or both?

[leyla]

Thanks for the comments, guys. Am just rushing off out so can't read the interview now, but thanks for the link, Liam, I look forward to reading it later. Eric, yes, the lake of praline bit might sound disrespectful or flippant but I was trying to express how tiring it can be to read prose as rich, and yet how simultaneously one is aware of its quality and depth of flavour.
I pretty much only read books I'm commissioned to review nowadays because that's all I have time to read, what with my heavy facebook habit and other committments. Sorry, Eric. But congratulations on the job, it must be great to see your name in print in a book.
Oh, and Banville doesn't cash in on the Nazis at all. They have nothing whatsoever to do with this story. Le Man is only mentioned in that one sentence in this novel, and the Nazis not at all.
Liam, I think you could read this novel without reading the prior two - it stands completely alone, and you don't need to remember anything from the previous books to appreciate it.
Got to dash now.x

[Liam]

you could read this novel without reading the prior two

That's good to know; my last Banville was The Sea, which I liked a lot. Also read one of his Benjamin Black mysteries, Elegy for April, and it was amazing.

^If anybody is obsessed with Nazis (or commies), it's Eric.

[leyla]

I loved The Sea too, Liam, though I saw the final twist coming a mile off.
btw, in answer to your question about the title of Ancient Light, I think it refers to the light thrown on the past at the end of the novel when he makes certain discoveries about the situation he was in as a teenager having the affair. Trying not to give anything away :-)

[Liam]

Ancient Light looking great in ppbk: