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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Narrative Strong Enough to Keep the Pages Turning, March 25, 2010
This review is from: Elegy for April: A Novel (Hardcover)
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"Elegy for April" is a new mystery novel by Benjamin Black: a none too mysterious pen name for award-winning Irish author John Banville. Under this pseudonym, he has penned Christine Falls: A Novel and The Silver Swan: A Novel. "Christine" was nominated for both the Edgar and the Macavity awards for Best Novel, and was a New York Times Best Seller.
"Elegy," like "Christine," (I've not read "Silver Swan"), is set in 1950's Dublin, the author's home town, presumably the better to continue beating it up for its stultifying social life, deeply conservative patriarchal mores, and oligarchy by the Catholic Church and select prominent families. It centers again on Quirke, the hard-drinking pathologist, adopted himself into a prominent family, who gets involved in helping his only recently acknowledged daughter Phoebe search for a friend of hers who has just mysteriously disappeared. That would be April Lavery, also of a locally prominent family, a junior doctor at the same hospital in which Quirke, and his stepbrother/brother-in-law Malachy work. April is her family's black sheep; for example, she's currently been seeing Patrick, a handsome, charismatic Nigerian student of surgery.
Fortunately, in "Elegy," Black tends to restrict his ever so Irish `literary' writing to the description of Dublin's winter, which comes out sounding so bone-chilling I was reminded of the old joke that you wouldn't want to move to/live in Ireland unless they put a roof on it. The writing overall is quite good, dialog, narrative, descriptive, and the plot is reasonably complex. The author also tells us quite a lot about an Alvis, a beautiful, pricey car Quirke decides to buy, without knowing how to drive. Furthermore, in "Elegy," Black does do better by his mystery elements than he did in "Christine," at least to my taste. The mystery is much better paced and developed, and does not rely, as did "Christine," on confusing the reader. And I found the narrative of this book was strong enough to keep me turning the pages.
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21 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dear and dirty... but also drab, April 17, 2010
This review is from: Elegy for April: A Novel (Hardcover)
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The fourth of John Banville's noir mystery novels written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, ELEGY FOR APRIL proves that any hope that Banville would get the real hang of the genre has by this point pretty much evaporated. Although Banville is an excellent prose stylist no matter what kind of fiction he writes, this novel, the third of his mysteries set in 1950s Dubin starring pathologist Garret Quirke (whom the other Benjamin Black novel, THE LEMUR, does not feature as its protagonist), just doesn't seem to come very naturally to him: he seems to be repeating a lot of the cliches of hardboiled mystery fiction yet while producing none of the frissons usually associated with reading them.
Quirke's adult daughter Phoebe is here involved with the disappearance of a close friend, a scion of one of the wealthy and unlikable families that often populate the Benjamin Black novels: here it's the Latimers, a clan of well-to-do Dublin physicians, who (as per usual) are snobbish and cruel and harboring secrets. When the secrets are unraveled by novel's end, they don't really much seem worth it: Banville does little to generate much suspense beforehand, and almost none of the characters are very interesting to begin with. Despite his name, Quirke is yet again less quirky than you might hope: he still seems pretty flat, despite his attempt at alcoholism recovery and at buying a fancy new car, and his sweet daughter Phoebe doesn't seem very three-dimensional either. Banville seems convinced atmosphere and fine prose alone can substitute for narrative suspense or for intriguing characters (usually the staples of the genre). Alas, they do not: and as a result this book really seemed to plod along.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quietly Intriguing Yet Mesmerizing, June 4, 2010
This review is from: Elegy for April: A Novel (Hardcover)
It's no secret that Benjamin Black is the mystery-writing alter ego of John Banville, which is a way of distinguishing Banville's mainstream work from his genre fiction. He brings the same beauty of craftsmanship and appreciation of language to both branches of his career, though he might deny it. The quiet sense of humor that intermittently informs his work makes one wonder if he is just putting his readers on when he indirectly disparages his mystery novels. In any event, ELEGY FOR APRIL, the fourth of his Black novels and the third featuring the enigmatic Quirke, does not suffer from lack of attention or anything else for that matter. It is wonderful in every conceivable way.
The Quirke novels are set in the Dublin, Ireland of the 1950s. The brilliantly named Quirke, a pathologist whose erratic behavior belies a keen intelligence, is at the beginning of ELEGY FOR APRIL, newly released from an alcoholic rehabilitation facility. His reaction to sobriety is telling and two-fold: he almost immediately buys an expensive automobile --- one of only three in existence --- despite the fact that he has no insurance or driver's license, and he begins testing the waters of his tolerance for alcoholic beverages (wine, it seems, does not count). Phoebe Griffin, his quietly but deeply troubled daughter, wanders into this slowly building maelstrom, seeking his assistance. It seems that one of Phoebe's friends has vanished, and Phoebe wants Quirke to find her.
April Latimer, a new doctor at a local hospital, is what was referred to in the mid-20th century as a libertine, and her disappearance is not inconsistent with her behavior, which is regarded as wild and unpredictable. April's prominent and influential family finds her disappearance to be of little or no consequence, and her absence is greeted by them with more a sense of relief than worry or dismay. This is true even as Quirke brings his erstwhile acquaintance, Detective Inspector Hackett, into the fray. When Hackett discovers that April's absence is possibly due to foul play, the family grows even more resentful and instructs Quirke to stop his de facto investigation. He does not lack for suspects, particularly among the small group of friends with whom April associated --- at least two have potential motive to have done her harm. Quirke keeps pressing but with mixed results.
Black combines a quietly intriguing yet mesmerizing plot with an addicting character study that focuses on inflammatory relationships and smoldering emotions, and the effect of power --- both official and otherwise --- on both. By the end of the book, one story ends while one or more begin. Perhaps.
ELEGY FOR APRIL is one of those worthy books that begs to be read in one sitting. It defies the conventional wisdom that a modern novel must begin with an explosive event; instead, this one builds slowly to a conclusion that is emotionally charged yet subdued by today's standards. It is no less riveting, however, for the understatement of its action. One feels the ground shifting under Dublin and Quirke on every page, and can be left with the certainty that the next Quirke book cannot come fast enough.
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