Dark grey endpapers and fine unclipped pictorial dustjacket. A gem. First edition, first impression of the Booker Prize winner. Fine: tight and square in sharp blue boards, and very crisp and clean, presenting as unopened; tiny mark to the fore-edge of the page block.
The unclipped dustwrapper is likewise Fine: bright, crisp and clean, immaculate save for a 7mm closed tear to the foot of the rear flap; presents beautifully in a removable, archival-quality Brodart protective cover. A lovely copy. All orders are sent very carefully wrapped in bubble wrap and sturdy cardboard. Published by Picador. First edition. Fine in fine dust jacket. Man Booker prize winner. Published by Picador, Great Britain, Used - Hardcover Condition: As New.
From New Zealand to U. Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. Published by Picador, London, United Kingdom, Used - Hardcover Condition: Near Fine. Condition: Near Fine. This true first edition, first printing first impression with the number "1" to the copyright page to indicate a true first print. Signed by John Banville to the title page. Near fine unread, light rubbing to the spine. Man Booker Bookmark and the ticket to the reading and signing event laid in loosely. Picador, London, Signed by author on title page.
First ed. Protective, removable Mylar cover. BP - Case. Condition: As NEW. First printing. In as new condition this book is signed by author.
Published by London; Picador;, Used - Hardcover. Signed by the author. Booker prize winner. Condition: Fine. First Edition Thus. Fine, Flawless, Signed in archival protection. Signed by Author s. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. From Canada to U. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Fine first American edition in equally fine jacket.
Not price clipped. Signed by Banville on the title page. A flawless copy. Knopf, USA, Used - Hardcover Condition: As New. Condition: As New. A fine copy in a fine unclipped dustjacket. This copy is signed John Banville on the title page--signature only without any further inscription. A tight and clean copy--protected in an acrylic dustjacket covering.
A superb and collectible copy of the first printing. Published by Knopf, New York, Dust Jacket Condition: As New. The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife's death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child--a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. Also find Hardcover First Edition Signed. Published by Picador, London, Seller: books , Manchester, United Kingdom Contact seller.
Used - Hardcover Condition: Very Good. From United Kingdom to U. Condition: Very Good. Also find First Edition Signed. Knopf, New York. New - Hardcover Condition: New. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First American edition, first printing.
Very Fine in a very fine dust jacket. A tight, clean copy, new and unread. Still that day of license and illicit invitation was not done. As Mrs. Grace, stretched there on the grassy bank, continued softly snoring, a torpor descended on the rest of us in that little dell, the invisible net of lassitude that falls over a company when one of its number detaches and drops away into sleep.
Suddenly she was the centre of the scene, the vanishing-point upon which everything converged, suddenly it was she for whom these patterns and these shades had been arranged with such meticulous artlessness: that white cloth on the polished glass, the leaning, blue-green tree, the frilled ferns, even those little clouds, trying to seem not to move, high up in the limitless marine sky.
All is not darkness; the memories bring back those long ago days of lightness. Thus, there are furtive moments of carefree recollection that appear to console our protagonist: Happiness was different in childhood.
It was so much a matter of simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvelously finished pavilion of the self. And incredulity, that too was a large part of being happy, I mean that euphoric inability fully to believe one's simple luck.
I have always loved the sea with its ever changing tides and undercurrents, and its massive waters always invoked sentiments of peace or turbulence in me; never of melancholy and sorrow. Thus, Banville through Max seems to view a different sea from mine. Could a more austere sea invoke the sentiments Max tells us in his narrative? No, I do not think it comes from the sea but from inside.
However, there are rare moments of peace and hopefulness, even if short lived. And ultimately he returns to his sufferings and the loss that so ravaged him. We forgave each other for all that we were not. What more could be expected, in this vale of torments and tears? Do not look so worried, Anna said, I hated you, too, a little, we were human beings, after all. Yet for all that, I cannot rid myself of the convictions that we missed something, that I missed something, only I do not know what it might have been.
Thus, Anna tried to liberate Max of his guilt. Yes, we are allowed to hate those we love; and if we can hate is solely because we loved.
However, Max was not ready to give up on his guilt that still hangs on together with his memories of Anna. Still drowning in his grief, from his hard and recent loss, we read and feel for its inevitability, like the tide that stops for nothing, and Max unavoidable memories hurt and haunt him.
His memories only escalate his sentiment of gloom and remorse. I have to confess that this was one of the scattered moments where I read more than the beauty of Banville well-chosen words; his suffering with the loss of his wife touched me deeply. I sat in the bay of the window and watched the day darken.
Bare trees across the road were black against the last flares of the setting sun, and the rooks in a raucous flock were wheeling and dropping, settling disputatiously for the night. I was thinking of Anna. I make myself think of her, I do it as an exercise. She is lodged in me like a knife and yet I am beginning to forget her. However, Max not ready yet to let Anna go, calls for her in his immense sadness, like a sinking boat that is missing the saving grace of a gracious wind that picks up on the waves of forgetfulness, which would push him to a safe shore and acceptance.
I said something, some fatuous thing such as Don't go, or Stay with me, but again she gave that impatient shake of the head, and tugged my hand to draw me closer. Yes, I was carried away by his lyricism and kept going between quotes. Banville mostly gives us poetry in prose. However, I felt Banville's eloquence and his gorgeously passionate way of phrasing what he wants to say somehow impacts adversely on his storytelling ability.
There was no storyline, no plot and it worked perfectly. I ended loving it for its poetry but not loving it so much for his characters. Yes, Max is not the kind of protagonist I appreciate. Yes, the themes are explored to the fullest. Yes, Banville tells his tale alluringly, with a delightful language that few writers can glue together. Yes, I loved the theme, it's profound reflections on love, loss, regret, and the role memory plays in the grieving process. His insights are certainly great literature.
But it left me wanting more, wanting a protagonist I could fully comprehend and grasp. Perhaps it is not so terrible to be left wanting more, hence do not judge me harshly for my dissatisfaction.
Nevertheless, highly recommended. View all 37 comments. Oct 05, Will Byrnes rated it liked it. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is a Booker Prize winner. The language in this short novel is very, very rich, evocative and annoyingly, sent me to the dictionary far too many times for comfort. Banville is just showing off, descending into literary affectation perhaps.
Two time-lines interweave as Max, a retired art critic, now living at The Cedars, a grand house of note from his youth, recalls those days when he lived with his family in much more modest surroundings and peered longingly into this place. Of course, it wa This is a Booker Prize winner. Of course, it was not wealth per se that drew his 11 year old interest, but the presence of The Graces, not a religious fascination, but a family.
A pan-like, goatish father, Carlo, an earth mother, Constance, white-haired and thus summoning Children of the Damned notions twins, a strange mute boy, Myles, who is sometimes comedic and sometimes sinister, a maybe-sociopathic girl, Chloe, and another girl, Rose, who appeared to be a mere friend, but was their governess. That this is left unclear for much of the book seems odd. Young Max enjoys the social step up he gets by hanging out with the twins, and is quite willing to go along with their cruelties to subservient locals, but is most taken with Constance Grace, pining for her in an awakening sexual way, until, of course, his heart, or some bodily part, is stolen by Chloe.
There is a scent here of Gatsby-ish longing, and Max is indeed a social climber. Death figures very prominently in The Sea.
I will spare you the final death scene, but Max does indeed cope with death, the passing of his wife, Anna, contemplation of his own ultimate demise and how death, as personified by the sea, not only affected his life, but seems always with us. This is I suppose a novel of coming and going of age. Banville is quite fond of deitific references, finding a different god or goddess for each of his characters.
And his art-critic narrator sprinkles the narration with references to paintings. Sadly for me, I am completely unfamiliar with the works noted, so may have missed key references. Max is not a nice person. I was almost satisfied with the ending, which recalls the most significant event of his youth, but I felt that it left unsatisfactorily unexplained the reasons for its occurrence. I was also frustrated by the slowness of the book.
Although it is a short novel, it seemed to take a long time to get going. And the central characters do not call out for any of us to relate to them. All that said, while I might not award it a Booker, I would recommend it.
The language is sublime tote a dictionary while you read. You will need it. PS - for a very different and fascinating take on the novel be sure to check out Cecily's review View all 24 comments.
Jun 08, Fabian rated it really liked it. The narrator chronicles, basically, two points in his life which left him devastated. He meditates on the last one of these presages of death, that looming event itself, so final and sad—and the end really is like dynamite.
The poetry which had been glimpsed at before creates a lasting impact on the reader at its speedy conclusion. Here is a paramount example of how the ending makes the book. View all 8 comments. Jun 05, Andy Marr rated it it was amazing Shelves: favourites. If I was John Banville, I'd be tremendously proud to find my masterpiece resting a mere two million places below Fifty Shades of Shite in the Goodreads rankings. View all 9 comments. Sep 13, Katie rated it liked it. The narrator of The Sea is an odious man.
As a child he hits his dog for pleasure; he pulls the legs off insects and burns them in oil. He makes constant allusions to his acquired humility and wisdom but he comes across throughout the book as largely ignorant and arrogant. Because Max is present The narrator of The Sea is an odious man. Because Max is presented as a mediocrity with artistic pretensions I was often perplexed how seriously Banville wanted us to take the rarefied outpourings of his sensibility.
At times it seemed like the ambition of this novel was to write as many pretty sentences as possible rather than a novel. You could save yourself time by simply reading all the favourite quotes here rather than the entire novel without missing very much. Like I said I was never sure if he was sending up his character by making a lot of his lofty musings deliberately vacuous, of no consequence whatsoever.
Neither did it explain anything. The Sea might be described as a grumpy meditation on growing old. I much preferred The Untouchables which had a plot, a sense of purpose Banville could embroider with his elegant prose. View all 35 comments. Shelves: literature-english-language , booker-listed , irish-writers. When my wife died suddenly in from a cerebral aneurysm, one of the things that I did in the wake of her death was to begin to reconnect with people and places that had meaning both for us as a couple and for me alone.
In many cases, I ended up returning to places from my own childhood and reconnecting with people whom I had not contacted for years. Both the process itself and the actual reconnections to past places and friends helped me cope with the loss. It also activated memories that I When my wife died suddenly in from a cerebral aneurysm, one of the things that I did in the wake of her death was to begin to reconnect with people and places that had meaning both for us as a couple and for me alone.
It also activated memories that I had either forgotten or had feared I would be unable to recall. For Max Morden, the journey to his past was certainly more focused. And his reawakening memories swirled around a family, the Graces, he had met during a single summer when he was around 11 years old.
For Max, mystery and tragedy were deeply embedded in his youthful past. At one point, toward the end of the novel, Max reflects: There are times, they occur with increasing frequency nowadays, when I seem to know nothing, when everything I did know seems to have fallen out of my mind like a shower of rain, and I am gripped for a moment in paralyzed dismay, waiting for it all to come back but with no certainty that it will. That feeling I know well. I more generally read fiction to open up new horizons for me, new worlds—to help me see and understand with the eyes of others the world around me.
The Sea , however, was a far more personal adventure: in a sense, it was a return to old worlds along already trodden roads. Here Max describes a moment when he and the Graces are at the beach: The sand around me with the sun strong on it gave off its mysterious, catty smell. Out on the bay a white sail shivered and flipped to leeward and for a second the world tilted. Someone away down the beach was calling to someone else.
A wire-haired ginger dog. The sail turned to windward again and I heard distinctly from across the water the ruffle and snap of the canvas. Then the breeze dropped and for a moment all went still. Banville fills his novel with the kinds of descriptions that pull the reader directly into the story, seeing, hearing and smelling with the protagonist.
Banville, as Ted Gioia emphasizes in his review of The Sea , also builds his story with words that will send most readers to a dictionary: assegais, horrent, cinereal, knobkerrie, prelapsarian and mephitic Gioia's selection. It is that use of an elegantly mature vocabulary that seems to off put many readers. He is clearly in his selection of words not an Ernest Hemingway. But he is a different type of stylist than Hemingway.
Reading The Sea is not effortless. View all 17 comments. Mar 07, Kathy rated it it was ok Shelves: fiction. The Sea really bugged me. I've never read another John Banville novel, so I don't know whether this one is typical of his writing in general, but nothing irritates me more these days than a writer who has considerable gifts at his command who writes novels that function as elegant window displays for the considerable gifts at his command.
The plot of the book, such as it is, finds middle-aged Max Morden retiring to a rented house by the sea, near the "chalets" where he spent his boyhood summers, The Sea really bugged me. The plot of the book, such as it is, finds middle-aged Max Morden retiring to a rented house by the sea, near the "chalets" where he spent his boyhood summers, to mourn his wife's death and think about the past.
The first person account intercuts Max's memories of his wife's final months with his memories of a "significant" summer he spent by the sea, during which he became fascinated with the Graces, a family a rung or two higher on the social ladder than Max himself.
I put "significant" in quotation marks, because I can't for the life of me figure out what's significant about Max's relationship with the Graces, other than the opportunity it affords Banville to display his considerable gifts, and -- what's worse -- I can't even fathom what's significant about his wife's death other than the opportunity it affords Banville.
The premise of the novel seems to be "Hey, look at me, everybody, I'm the 'heir to Nabokov. And besides, my book is filled with Beautiful Prose.
I kept expecting withering satire and a devastating prose style Banville is good, but he's not that good , and all I got was the narrator's tendency to pepper his recollections with big, bloated words. Perhaps my favorite novel of the last thirty years Gilead relies more on character than on plot.
If you're going to rely on character, however, you'd better make sure your characters are at least one, and preferably all, of the following: a sympathetic; b compelling; c more than merely a place marker for inflated, if not particularly profound, ruminations on the Big Questions. One of Banville's passages may illustrate what bothers me most about this book. In the passage, Morden describes the photographs his terminally ill amateur-photographer wife has taken of fellow hospital patients -- all of whom have, apparently cheerfully, consented to expose their scars, wounds, and afflictions for the sake of.
I got stuck, as I read this passage, trying to figure out why the people in the photographs had agreed to present their private suffering in so public a fashion. Then I realized they were props, placed on stage to be rearranged and remarked upon, to give the leading man something to do while he wows us with his method acting. Oh, come on, one might object, isn't Yorick's skull a prop? Of course, but it's not merely a prop. We admire Hamlet's ability to make him live again, but that's just it.
He makes him live again. Nobody really lives in Banville's novel, including his narrator, and perhaps that's not surprising in a novel that is mostly about death. What's more surprising, though, is that, for all his lovely style, Banville leaves us with very little impression that anyone in this book ever really has lived. In the book's final passages, Max Morden likens the moment of his wife's death to a moment in his childhood when he had been lifted up by a suddenly surging sea, carried toward shore a bit, and then set down again.
It was, he says, "as if nothing had happened. And indeed nothing had happened, a momentous nothing, just another of the great world's shrugs of indifference. View all 11 comments. Sep 16, Vessey rated it really liked it Recommended to Vessey by: Seemita. Shelves: 4-stars. I wish to thank my wonderful friend Seemita, who is truly an amazing reviewer, for inspiring me to read this book.
It is a special kind of language. The language of the dead, of those long gone, of the forgotten, the misunderstood, the hurt, the mad and, sometimes, the content.
What do they tell me? What does silence tell me? What does it tell Max Morden? It tells him a story. The story of his life. It embraces him, caresses him, whispers to hi I wish to thank my wonderful friend Seemita, who is truly an amazing reviewer, for inspiring me to read this book. It embraces him, caresses him, whispers to him of everyone and everything lost.
He holds on to it. It is his only companion, his only friend, the lover that will never tire of him. It is his secret path to a better world. The world of the past. He knows and understands it like he has never known and understood anybody, including himself. I know so little of myself, how should I think to know another? Has he truly wanted to? The past or the present? And when we cannot find refuge in the past, the present is painful, the future unattainable, unimaginable, where is the sanctuary?
Is it within us? What does lay within us besides ourselves? Those whom we refuse to let go of? Max believes that no one is truly gone as long as they are remembered. We die, yet, we go on living. Time passes, nobody can escape change. And the more we walk within the realms of our own minds, the more we realize that we are like the sea. We are cruel and merciful, placid and tempestuous, generous and harsh, known and mysterious.
But unlike it, we are boundless. I am there. I am there, almost there. What do they eagerly whisper to us? What song do they sing to us? What is revealed, what is left concealed?
Are we ready to take that chance? Are we ready to immerse into the depths of the dark and mysterious past, are we ready to face the cold and painful present, do we dare hope for the obscure future? Who are we, what stories do we have to tell, and to whom do we tell them? Sometimes silence is the only one that listens. And sometimes it is not. The whole time while reading the book and then, while writing my review, I was listening to The Cure's "Lullaby".
I think it fits perfectly View all 63 comments. The title says it all: the main character is neither the narrator, his late wife, nor Rosie; the plot is not only one that unfolds over the pages.
No, the main point of this novel is the sea. The sea and the tides. The ocean and its threat, the sea and its beauty, the sea and its sounds. After the death of his wife, Max returns to the scene of his childhood, summer in particular. He made friends with a neighbouring family: two children, twins, a young housekeeper and the parents. Everything is The title says it all: the main character is neither the narrator, his late wife, nor Rosie; the plot is not only one that unfolds over the pages.
Everything is going well, almost. John Banville delicately captures the little things that break the apparent harmony, a sleeping woman, a girl a little too far away, unexpected confidence.
And the drama we feel is not the one we believe. A novel to be tasted softly, of high sensitivity, which makes you want to discover the other books of the author.
View 2 comments. Jun 04, Agnieszka rated it it was amazing Shelves: john-banville , favorites , , own-a-copy , reviewed , books. The past beats inside me like a second heart. Max Morden had met once gods. They came in the guise of Grace family. Father, noisy lecherous satyr. Mother, oozing sensuality indolent goddess, will become his first erotic fascination. And twins. Chloe, very mature for her age, feisty girl with rather strong personality and Myles, shy and impish boy.
There was Rose yet, nanny or governess, a sad nymph holding a secret in her heart. They rented at the seaside a summer house, called The Cedars. And no The past beats inside me like a second heart. And now, half a century later, widowed and lonely Max is in that place again. I was always a distinct no-one whose fiercest wish was to be an indistinct someone as he disarmingly admits.
He takes a room in the Cedars but memory plays tricks on him. Everything has changed though seems to be the same and invariant. Only the sea appears to be unchangeable. What is he looking for here? Alleviation, calm, death, answer, missing piece of the puzzle?
This memorable summer, painted with golden sun and inky shadow, creates the first plan of the novel. Just then Max had gained this sad knowledge that there is always a lover and a loved and which role he would be playing in that act. There is another plan as well also given in flashbacks.
These two plans are mixing alternately with his present stay at the seaside. Such is the nature of memory that one recollection leads to another gradually unveiling more and more from our past and showing intimate image of our life. The sea then, with its tides, is a record of that process, coming to terms with loss, dismantling of memory, family, love, past.
And concluding paragraph is profoundly purifying. I do not remember well that day when the gods departed. But I know where I can find them now. They remain incessantly like insects caught in a drop of resin, like the blades of grass trapped in the amber. They possessed for good this mythical land, that distant Arcadia of my childhood. And I believe that still have the key to that land.
View all 19 comments. Jan 19, Darwin8u rated it it was amazing Shelves: The first was given to me by a girl I liked in HS, but never got around to reading it or dating her. I was finally inspired or moved? It was beautiful. It was poetry. It was nearly perfect. It is easy to borrow images and allusions from other critics. It is a snap to fit the Banville piece in the puzzle among his Irish peers piers?
It is a picnic to park Banville's summer blanket next to Beckett or Joyce yes, fine, they all dropped from their mother's wombs onto the same emerald island.
It is easy to play the literary cousin game and compare Banville to Proust or Nabokov or Henry James. These things are all true. They are also all fictions and obvious short cuts.
I haven't read enough of Banville to say he measures up to Proust or Nabokov, but damn this book was fine. There really must be something in the water because I'm reading Enright's The Gathering right now and my first thought was 'da feck'?
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