What do You think about Birchwood (2007)?
Birchwood is Banville at his best. It is a book about a man who comes home after being away for many years. The estate is run down and the place is filled with eccentric souls in strange situations. His grandmother is insane, his mother unhappy, and his father always treated him badly. The story is interesting, humorous, and once again, told in Banville's inimitable eloquent style. The description of the house and characters is incredible. The plot is well thought out and credible. In a way, Birchwood is a reminder of all families, I would think. Don't we all have a nutcase or two running around at family reunions? And, of course, there is the uncle locked in the cellar. Birchwood is an enjoyable read. I read it again after I'd completed reading it. I highly recommend it. (Of course, I like Banville. I wish I could write like him.)
—James Wharton
Written by the now eminent John Banville in 1973.Set around the 1840's, referencing the Great Famine and the British Occupation, Banville's novel centre's around the decline of a family in the "big house" caused by the madness, in-fighting and ineptitude of it's inhabitants.As has now become his trademark, the literature is well crafted prose with John Banville displaying his awesome talent for creating interestingly and richly descriptive off-beat characters, no matter what the genre. I look forward to exploring more of the work of Ireland's probably most revered living author of modern English literature.
—Steve Petherbridge
John Banville one of the best novels writer and I think I could not read his novels in a hurry, and he wrote this novel in his twenties from 1973 with his poetic and careful chosen phrases . Firstly, I was think about "what does the title mean"; birch-wood or (birch tree) means slender fast growing tree that has thin bark and bears catkins.He has put that name on an estate in Ireland.Gabriel Godkin in the story is a man who returned to his disintegrating family and the reality of his family and his country and within enlarge flash back, and he is striving with his cold father and crazy mother and grandmother. All moving side to side on the edges of an extreme foolishness and shows that Gabriel acknowledges runs in his blood. In the main time, the famine potato led Irish people suffered and specially for gentry lose their high positions in the society, Gbriel find his way in traveling and savouring circus.The author make Gabriel exploring the idea of family, that with whom we are connected by blood and for ever or we born into this family. The author is a professional at developing the personalities and searching for their interior landscapes as well as the exterior ones. I released , that banville provide to the reader a series of small enjoyments while he giving details and appearing interesting people and places.
—Madiya Alsalty
