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 enlarge | Author: John Banville
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 7760
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 200
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0330483293
EAN: 9780330483292
ASIN: 0330483293
Publication Date: April 21, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: We post next working day. Book covers are slightly tatty. Book has normal wear and marks associated with a used book.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Poetic and acute August 17, 2008
I think this was a fairly worthy winner of the 2005 Booker Prize. Primarily an unfolding memory interspersed with reflections on death and grief and ageing, gradually Banville's acute and finely phrased observations work their magic. The description of the narrator's wife's consultation, where she learns her condition is incurable, and the aftermath when they return home, is stark and unsettling, and we understand the need in Max to return to retreat into the past, a common reaction to the touch of death. He brings situations alive in his descriptions; some that have stuck for me are the `cruel complacency of ordinary things', in how for example the kettle boils in the same old way when they get home from the consultation, their world completely changed; his preoccupation with smells - `the brownish odour of women's hair when it is need of washing'; his observations on the lonely life of the Colonel; his realisation that all he has ever really wanted was `to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there, hidden from the sky's indifferent gaze'. Much of the novel is concerned with indifference, with the cruel arbitrariness of life, with our inability to finally understand or inhabit the private world of the other person, even though we exist primarily as manifestations of our interactions with them; in this he is often reminiscent of Samuel Beckett. Max is not a morose narrator though, and his wry humour made me laugh out loud more than once, in his description of his ageing features and preoccupation with the medical dictionary, and in his drunken escapades. The main problem is a certain slackness in its unfolding; the denouement continues in the vein of the random and illogical, by which stage the reader wants something more substantial; not a 'neat closing twist' particularly (there is a small one), but something more involving and significant. The poeticism, fine observation, introspection, and literary and academic allusion are admirable, but perhaps need more of a framework, a little more tightness and structure and cohesion, to make this a truly great novel.
 Shame about the melancholy June 27, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great use of language - had no all sympathy for whining lead character to the point of losing interest in the book. Wanted him to stop being soi self-indulgent and get on with his life.
It is possible to reflect without being so dull and melancholoy - just try "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom
Not all will like May 21, 2008
While I appreciated and enjoyed Mr. Banville's control of language (and choice of the word 'lightsomeness'), I was conscious of having to be patient with the pace at which the story was revealed. Not all fiction should be expected to move swiftly along, but there seemed to me moments of excess detail (e.g., a description of the veins between one character's toes) that distracted me from fully caring about the narrator. Still, I can say that the book has a distinctive sense of place and the author is very observant about memory. And for these reasons he won the Man Booker. It will not however 'grip' everyone.
Poetry on grief and childhood March 9, 2008
If there is one phrase that describes John Banville's The Sea, it is fluent, if wordy poetry. The plot: Max Morden, a recently bereaved widower, returns to the seaside village where he spent a childhood holiday. He recalls meeting the Grace family to whom he is drawn. In his recollection of that holiday it becomes obvious that something terrible must have happened. Slowly, Max, the narrator lets us in on a secret: He had a crush on 10-year old Chloe, who is surprisingly mature for her age. They explore their prepubescent love, and steal kisses until they are caught in the act. And then something happens to Chloe (and her brother Myles) that changes Max's life forever...
I loved John Banville's writing style. It was self-indulged without being narcissist, fluent yet well grounded in real emotions. The narrator's flashbacks are delicious-nay precious-exhibitions of dexterity with the English language. He describes the smallest details of the scence to produce an almost cinematic effect on the reader. Yes, even reading this book in rainy Paris, I could still picture the puddles in the seaside resort and the belching smoke from the locomotives of the narrator's childhood.
However, you cannot read this book without a dictionary, except you are an English major. The Sea has added more words to my vocabulary than I care to count: integument, cracaleured, cinereal to name a few. Notwithstanding this small shortcoming The Sea is a wonderful read. I recommend it and it does deserve my 4 stars.
 A difficult but rewarding read December 30, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There is plenty to dislike - first the narrator is himself a writer (not in my eyes a good start!) of books on art-history, and the references to obscure painters and their works I did not find so helpful.
Then there was the use of obscure words which I found objectionable - do authors really believe that digging up these words is in some way bringing them back to life? To make matters worse, here the narrator uses them without conviction.
With only two chapters there is little to mark the breaks between the present, recent past and childhood memories.
The background has nothing singular or outstanding - it could be summarized as 'clouds in the sky, trees blowing in the breeze, a patch of land grown wild.' The atmosphere is somehow heavy, and probably damp.
I have heard this book described as 'poetic' which I imagine means the words have some hidden meanings which the reader has to struggle to figure out! On the effects of his wife's illness: "So many things were only to be expected, now that the ultimate unexpected had arrived." Surely, baring accidents, illness and death is the one expected in life! But of course there is truth - we have a way of excusing ourselves and those we love from the inevitable.
The central character, in his 'present' aged and recently widowed form, is far from good company - withdrawn, disillusioned and bitter.
And the significant childhood memories - like the first kiss in a darkened cinema and a favourite drink in the café afterwards, are experiences not of sheer joy but ones touched with the uncertainty of something stolen.
Through all this, though, it is possible to see an old man struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife, the grief not lessened by the acknowledgment their relationship was never a perfect one. His otherwise good and successful life has not equipped him to deal with the crisis and he reaches back to his childhood for some consolation or understanding. On the brink of despair, with all pretense gone, his life is revealed with an honesty which is striking.
Eventually it is possible to see all the negative aspects I have listed are in some way used to reflect the character and his state of mind. The parts make up an whole.
It is so much easier to pretend tomorrow will be brighter. But when you reach that point when the truth can no longer be hidden, when "the drugs don't work," this is what is left....
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