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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cerebral., March 4, 2001
In this beautifully realized and complex book, Banville blurs the edges between a man's interior and exterior worlds. He draws the reader in at the same time that he holds him at arm's length and creates a book both realistic and surrealistic. In many ways this resembles a memoir more than a novel, and it's a haunting story of a man's search for himself.
Virtually all the "action" in this novel takes place inside the head of Alexander Cleave, and the "story," such as it is, emerges at a snail's pace. An actor who has "dried" onstage, Cleave has escaped to his childhood home to come to terms with his inner self and try to deal with his worry about his disturbed daughter Cass, with whom he has had no communication for months. In the midst of a breakdown, he cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, acting and action. He sees ghosts, spend a great deal of time sleeping and dreaming, and shadows townspeople at random, living their lives vicariously.
His alterego is Quirke, the sloppy caretaker, and his equally untidy daughter Lily. Creatures of the moment, the Quirkes are not at all introspective, indulging their basic desires without thinking about them and living entirely in the commonplace, the ordinary--they buy groceries, do superficial cleaning, go to the pub, read magazines. Only Lily's melancholy, which Cleave also associates with his daughter, suggests that she may have a nascent inner life.
If this sounds dull and abstract, it is, in a way. There is very little plot in the traditional sense, and the events that do occur are filtered through the mind of Cleave, who, though very self-conscious, is not self-aware. We do eventually find out what's happened to his daughter, we understand why the Quirkes are important, and we eventually see Cleave achieving an epiphany of sorts. But it is a measure of Cleave's remoteness that the turning point of the book is not an event over which he exerts any control, but a solar eclipse--the convergence of dark and light, shadow and substance, distance and connection. Still, this is a book full of unique insights and transcendent observations, with a main character who, in his earnest attempts to come to terms with the world, bears much in common with us all. Mary Whipple
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Enigma, April 23, 2001
While I have yet to read all of his work Mr. Banville's novels seem to fall in to two general areas, those that are complex but understandable, and those that no two people will agree on anything other than the most general of thoughts. His most recent work, "Eclipse", definitely falls into the latter category, and while some criticize the apparent lack of structure, others applaud it. Many Authors' work is often explained as being like the work of another writer, the, "it tastes like chicken syndrome". I cannot remember a parallel being drawn to this man's work and there is good reason for this, his writing is as original as one can read despite the millions of volumes that have gone before. He does not have a formulaic style that he follows like many contemporary writers, he is not the sort that fills in the blanks or connects the dots until all is finished or clear. Each of his books is written as the story they tell and the characters that inhabit them require. Moving from one novel to the next a reader could be easily convinced they are reading an altogether different writer. Much like his work, "The Book Of Evidence", the story unfolds from one primary viewpoint. That the view is from a man enduring a breakdown of sorts is apparent, however Mr. Banville gives us an actor in a state of decay so that we read of a breakdown that is assembled from his 30 years of the characters he has played. Add to this the corporeal players in the actor's life, a cast of others, ghosts, demons, real or conjured, a difficult marriage, and finally a daughter who is handicapped, but perhaps a savant. And the result is a very dense work that gives meaning to the word eclipse whether as one passing another, or the infinite degrees from an eclipse so partial, to darkness absolute and final. I found the cover art interesting as well although you have to open the jacket fully to appreciate the imagery that may or may not be there. A man is pictured at the apex of a path between two homes. Strong wind tears his hat or perhaps his mind away while the single candle he holds is impervious to the force of the wind he must lean in to. And in the far upper right hand corner there is...something, I have not a clue what, and if anyone decides please let me know. I have grown to be a great admirer of this man's work, I don't presume to absorb all he intends for his readers, but the process is a great deal of fun.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sheer Brilliance, September 10, 2002
This review is from: Eclipse: A Novel (Paperback)
John Banville is my favorite living novelist and certainly one of the great practitioners of the form of this century. He writes dense, inquiring profound books which are difficult but rewarding. To dismiss them as "navel-gazing" or other such stupidity is to miss the point entirely. These are layered works that reveal themselves gradually. Nothing is arbitrary in his world, everything is there for a reason no matter how random it may seem. His latest book, "Shroud," has been long-listed for this year's Booker Prize and picks up characters introduced in "Eclipse." Simply put, Banville is one of the great masters of the language, sadly overlooked but unforgettable. Once you've read his work, so much of everything else seems second-rate. If you have to have rip-snorting page turning narratives, he's not your man, go buy a Grisham; but if burrowing deep into character, if understanding essentials, core questions -- the thing itself -- is your bag, he is without equal.
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