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The Sea by John Banville
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The Sea

by John Banville

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2,273731,325 (3.48)147
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Showing 1-5 of 70 (next | show all)
i finally gave up on this book after 117 pages. The characters just didn't have any life or breath to them. I know the theme is grief, but I just couldn't get any feelings from this book and didn't understand it. For a Booker prize winner I was really disappointed in this book. ( )
1 vote benitastrnad | Nov 2, 2009 |
Age, loss, and rememberances. Wonderful language.
  jayhiker | Nov 1, 2009 |
A disappointment, this. I loved the opening, Banville has a wonderful style and it was hugely enjoyable to get lost in it. However, as the book progressed it didn't gain the fascinating characters or themes to go with that style - nothing really bit and my interest waned, particularly in the second half. ( )
  roblong | Oct 15, 2009 |
I was skeptical of critics' descriptions of this book, but I really did encounter a Nabokovian feeling in it. Spectacular! ( )
  KatrinkaV | Aug 16, 2009 |
As others have indicated, the prose in this slim novel is stunning, lush, and elegant. I would like to have been able to identify more with the main character. The juxtaposition of his childhood memories of summer with the Graces and his present-day end-of-life issues and grief over his wife's death are poignant; however, he seemed stilted, self-conscious, even posturing, as he related his feelings. As wonderfully as it is written, I have to connect with the character(s) in a book to give it a higher rating. ( )
1 vote pdebolt | Aug 10, 2009 |
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
To Colm, Douglas, Ellen, Alice
First words
They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Canonical titleThe Sea
Original publication date2005
Awards and honorsBooker Prize (2005), Irish Book Award (Novel, 2006), 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006/2008 Edition)
DedicationTo Colm, Douglas, Ellen, Alice
First wordsThey departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide.
Last words(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Blurbers"A brilliant, sensuous, dicombobulating novel." -The Spectator, "Banville writes novels of complex patterning, with grace, precision and timing, and there are wonderfully digressive meditations." -The Guardian
DescriptionThe 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 holidaysd as a child-a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life w... (show all)
Book description
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 holidaysd as a child-a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her, But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. The seductive mother; the imperious father; the twins-Chloe, fiery and forthright,m and Myles, silent and expressionless-in whose mysterious connection Max became profoundly entangled, each of them a part of the 'barely bearable raw immediacy" of his childhood memories. Interwoven with this story are Morden's memories of his wife, Anna-of their life together, of her death- and the moments, both significant and mundane, that make up his life now: his relationship with his grown daughter, Claire, desperate to pull him from his grief; amd with the other boarders at the house where he is staying, where the past beats inside him "like a second heart." What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of the elegiac, vividly dramatic, beautifully written novel-among the finest we have had from this extraordinary writer.

Amazon.com From Amazon.co.uk Review (ISBN 0307263118, Hardcover)

Incandescent prose. Beautifully textured characterisation. Transparent narratives. The adjectives to describe the writing of John Banville are all affirmative, and The Sea is a ringing affirmation of all his best qualities. His publishers are claiming that this novel by the Booker-shortlisted author is his finest yet, and while that claim may have an element of hyperbole, there is no denying that this perfectly balanced book is among the writer’s most accomplished work.

Max Morden has reached a crossroads in his life, and is trying hard to deal with several disturbing things. A recent loss is still taking its toll on him, and a trauma in his past is similarly proving hard to deal with. He decides that he will return to a town on the coast at which he spent a memorable holiday when a boy. His memory of that time devolves on the charismatic Grace family, particularly the seductive twins Myles and Chloe. In a very short time, Max found himself drawn into a strange relationship with them, and pursuant events left their mark on him for the rest of his life. But will he be able to exorcise those memories of the past?

The fashion in which John Banville draws the reader into this hypnotic and disturbing world is non pareil, and the very complex relationships between his brilliantly delineated cast of characters are orchestrated with a master’s skill. As in such books as Shroud and The Book of Evidence, the author eschews the obvious at all times, and the narrative is delivered with subtlety and understatement. The genuine moments of drama, when they do occur, are commensurately more powerful. --Barry Forshaw

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400)

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