I'm sorry John Banville, but I'm glad this uninspiring book is over. This is my forth Banville novel (might be my last for a while) so at this stage I know what to expect as far as his writing style goes, I'm a sucker for poetic fiction. There is no doubt he is a master wordsmith, look at this for example 'I had an image of him as a child, out on some bog in the wastes of the midlands, stacking turf with his da: quake of water in the cuttings, smell of smoke and roasting spuds, and the flat distances the colour of a hare's pelt, and then the enormous, vertical sky stacked with luminous bundles of cloud.'
But something didn't work for me in this book. I couldn't garner any feeling, affection or aversion, for the protagonist Freddie Montgomery, gentleman/murderer. I simply didn't care.
He's in a bind. Steals a painting. Murders someone. Waits it out at a friends house. The law finally catches up with him.
I didn't enjoy reading this novel but that doesn't mean it's not worth reading. I hate downing on JB. In his defence however, this was one of his earlier books, 1989, so I guess he hadn't quite honed his craft. I mean when you consider 'The Sea' which came in 2005, and won the Man Booker Prize, there's no comparison. Banville is a marvellous writer and if you're new to him, might I suggest starting with 'Infinities' - it's fun and frolicsome and contains all the usual lyricism and poetics, characteristic of the author.