This felt like an Irish John Updike. Freddie Montgomery is arguably worse than Rabbit; but the time period is the same and the language use and description was similar. Also reminded me a bit of McEwan's despicable main character in Solar.Unfortunately, it was a bit repetitive; I am starting to feel rather repetitive myself, ever since reading Didion my main complaint is that everything is repetitive. Is this an example of life imitating art or just that through art I have finally noticed the repetitiveness of everything?Anyway, Banville has a few themes and he is not afraid to stroke them repetitively throughout. Most frequently, he addresses the criminal's wish for self-efficacy and fame (and the psychological desire for attention and notice that is rewarded upon arrest and imprisonment): "I confess I had hopelessly romantic expectations of how things would be in here. Somehow I pictured myself a sort of celebrity, kept apart from the other prisoners in a special wing, where I would receive parties of grave, important people and hold forth to them about the great issues of the day, impressing the men and charming the ladies." He is so relieved as to be almost glorious in his arrest: "Yes, to be found out, to be suddenly pounced upon, beaten, stripped, and set before the howling multitude, that was my deepest, most ardent desire." and then in the capture: "From now on I would be watched over, I would be tended and fed and listened to, like a big, dangerous babe."He also loves to discuss the lack of intention in our actions. Freddie is convinced that he set out without purpose and that simple random coincidences led to his criminal behavior. This is, of course, absurdly ridiculous and yet 100% true. Always, in life, we can stop our actions or change course. However, most frequently it is easier to succumb to inertia and just follow along paths which previous actions have blazed. I really liked some of Banville's turn of phrase on this point: "[the question] assumes that actions are determined by volition, deliberate thought, a careful weighing-up of facts, all that puppet-show twitching which passes for consciousness. I was living like that because I was living like that, there is no other answer. When I look back, no matter how hard I try I can see no clear break between one phase and another." Later he again argues, "There is no moment in this process of which I can confidently say, there, that is when I decided she should die. Decided? I do not think it was a matter of deciding. I do not think it was a matter of thinking, even."A third theme is the inhumanity of humans. Like all nasty (self serving, self aware, and malicious) characters, Freddie is able to analyze his own actions and frequently describes himself as something less than human. He pardons himself with the excuse that he is really two beasts, the one under control and then the other under the surface. Freddie declares: "To do the worst thing, the very worst thing, that's the way to be free. I would never again need to pretend to myself to be what I was not." He is also: "Never wholly anywhere, never with anyone, either, that was me, always. Even as a child I seemed to myself a traveller who had been delayed in the middle of an urgent journey. Life was an unconscionable wait, walking up and down the platform, watching for the train." I love this description because it captures one of my favorite life issues (gotta figure out how to live in the moment to be happy), while simultaneously giving the example of this extremely dissatisfied being who cannot ever live in the moment. One complaint I have is that the narrator was not completely honest. He describes himself in the opening paragraph (which is well crafted and definitely grabs the reader's attention) as a cannibal: "the girl-eater, svelte and dangerous, padding to and fro in my cage". I was actually (surprisingly) sort of disappointed when it turned out that he just walked away from Josie while she was still alive. Certainly, leaving her to die on her own is horrid; but I read the whole book under the impression that Freddie would really lose it in the end and anticipated a gory scene that just didn't occur. Overall it was an interesting read with some worthwhile moments.
Freddie Montgomery tells us the story of his life and his crime. We can't be sure if this is post-conviction or pre-trial "confession." As such, he meanders through his adult life with brief flashbacks to sensual moments from his youth. Describing gin: "[it:] always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter." Discussing his theory that humans are not fit to live in this kind of world: "How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was made to contain us?" And my favorite bit when he "meets" the "woman" who will lead to his "downfall" (oh! how i love winkwink-nudgenudge quotes):Things seemed not to recede as they should, but to be arrayed before me--the furniture, the open window, the lawn and river and far-off mountains--as if they were not being looked at but were themselves looking, intent upon a vanishing-point here, inside the room. I turned then, and saw myself turning as I turned, as I seem to myself to be turning still, as I sometimes imagine I shall be turning always, as if this might be my punishment, my damnation, just this breathless, blurred, eternal turning towards her.(Occurred to me just now: that's reminiscent of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman!)More often than not, i enjoy Freddie's perceptiveness and descriptiveness, but occasionally the artifice of Banville's Narrative Device feels forced or Freddie's voice irks me. For example on page 51 (of my edition), the interruption of the fictive illusion seems meaningful:I put my arm around him, laid a hand on his forehead. He said to me: don't mind her. He said to me --Stop this, stop it. I was not there. I have not been present at anyone's death.Both statements cannot be true; we see that Freddie's yet another late-20th century unreliable narrator. But then there will be one of these:Of the various kinds of darkness I shall not speak.My cell. My cell is. Why go on with this.I am just grateful there aren't more of these burstings of the bubble.Reviewing my marginalia and highlighted words, sentences, paragraphs, "Children should be seen and not heard" comes to mind. Banville seems to be examining what it's like to see and be seen but the act of writing is really about being heard ... in order to be seen? There is a lot of playing with the idea of children, childishness, parents, parenting, responsibility, dependence, and how seeing and being seen/heard relate to them.I made several notes in the margins when i was reminded of other fictional works--Rilke, Kafka, Burgess, Goethe, Shakespeare, Proust--all of which (except Proust & Kafka?) alluded to evildoers or killers.For people interested in comparing/contrasting other contemporary Irish books about murder/murderers (this ain't really a spoiler of any kind), i recommend Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (one of my new all-time favorites) and Edna O'Brien's In the Forest. All 3 murders/murderers are different. All 3 styles of writing are different. Seems the only sameness is the seeming centrality of murder and the setting being 20th century Ireland. Banville's ranks a distant 3rd (but that's like an Olympic bronze medal). Edna O'Brien's prose is the prettiest and her descriptions/evocations of Place the best; her ability to change gears and write from different personal and distanced, objective perspectives is virtuosic. Flann O'Brien's book just happens to deal with issues that are of the most interest to me and his brand of writing felt most like what i'd aspire to if i ever wrote a novel. When i read The Third Policeman, it was as if i were reading my own thoughts: i wished i'd been able to write that book before he did; i loved O'Brien for writing it the way he did; i thrilled at the feeling of union. I think Banville's work falls short of greatness; maybe i'm just biased against first person narration or the obvious unreliable narrator biznaz. Y'know, maybe people who liked Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers might like Book of Evidence. I never finished reading that one; maybe someday. [it was the last book i read in 2011!]
What do You think about The Book Of Evidence (2001)?
Montgomery, the murderer, the protagonist of this narrative, strikes me as he tells his tale to be the foremost unreliable narrator. He is guilty, of course, of course, but of what? Some sort of existential botch to hear him tell it. Not murder where a person with a soul is taken forcably. Oh no. Montgomery is much to delicate for that. He shirks duties and agrees with himself on every pleasure he takes, and regards himself first as a man deserving of enjoyment; a connoisseur of pleasure that he curates like the Dutch paintings that in the end so inflamed him. But, alas, he's not a hard worker at his pleasures. He is entitled to them, a taker of them, a thief of pleasures earned and kept by others. After duping a hustler of his own ill gotten gains, he is forced to leave his wife and child in some unnamed demi-paradise and hustle home to Ireland to try and get the money he needs to return them. There is so little urgency in this task and at times it seems he has forgotten it altogether. The first sin he permits of himself is laziness, a profound laziness that first drives his cynicism and ultimately engenders his murderous rage. This book is told by a lazy man who gradually becomes sinister because of his failure to create over a lifetime anything of value, and so in the end, he decides that it is the murder itself that will be his creation, indeed he has really no idea why he's done it. He wants you to know that he's guilty, and he wants you to know that he's smart and aesthetically sensitive about it. What emerges from his narrative of his acts is the portrait of a sociopath who is startled by other's humanity. It's a brief, incisive read, that harkens to Nabokov. First of a trilogy the second volume of which has sat on my shelf for 25 years unread. I guess I'll manage to choke the second volume Ghosts down now and put it to rest, if you pardon the pun. Banville is a cold writer. His sentences maintain tension, are smooth and round and don't call attention to themselves. There is a clinical feel to this writing that I appreciate, but not all readers will, I expect. Still, the craftsman will admire it. Well done.
—Kyra
I am a passionate Banville fan. Not that every book of his has enchanted me...but those that have...and there are quite a few...remain on my recommended list.This book, like so many written by Banville, is like a long prose poem. The narrator, Freddie Montgomery, is a well-educated man, alienated, cynical at odds with the world.And he murders a woman with intent. Not a jolly figure to invite into one's living room...BUT..Banville drew me in so completely that I felt I was living Freddie's psyche. His one redeeming trait is his excrutiating honesty. He is writing his "defense"...that is no defense...but an account of his life...told in interrupted segments...now the past, now the present. This book is the first of a kind of loose trilogy...with "Ghosts" (loved it!) and "Athena" (still to read). If you haven't read Banville and like beautiful language and well-realized characters...but are not very big on plot...I'd urge you to give him your attention.
—Peggy Aylsworth
Banville es un estilista desde la médula del lenguaje. Me cuesta explicarme cómo un libro relativamente breve haya sido de difícil lectura para mí, quizá porque la novela nos obliga al avance a tramos, para no rasparnos con su aspereza. Por supuesto, es de los libros que se aman o detestan sin tonos medios: deslumbrante por donde se le vea, incómoda, poderosa. Uno de los mayores logros de Banville, amén de su prosa tan depurada, es la creación de Freddy Montgomery, un ser erudito, humano y aborrecible. Repito mi apreciación: no se trata de una lectura complaciente, pero es una lectura indispensable.
—Isaí Moreno
