Subject
Banville's The Sea
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Date
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A short reader's report on John Banville's Man Booker Prize-winning novel
THE SEA (2005). The dust jacket bears this commendation: "John Banville is
the heir to Nabokov." It's a story of a middle-aged Irishman, who has
recently lost his wife to an incurable disease, and who returns to the
seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a boy. I won't tell too
much for fear of spoiling the pleasure of those who might wish to read the
book. However, there are some obvious allusions to VN's oeuvre in the book.
For example, to LOLITA:
I looked in at the windows, too, especially the bedroom ones upstairs, and
was rewarded one day - how my heart hammered! - by a glimpse behind a
shadowed pane of what seemed a nude thigh that could only be hers. Then the
adored flesh moved and turned into the hairy shoulder of her husband, at
stool, for all I knew, and reaching for the lavatory roll. [p. 56-57]
The protagonist has a daughter of whose plain looks he talks with a
Shade-like acceptance. There is a lesbian governess in the story and a Swan
fountain pen, as in SPEAK, MEMORY, and an unconsummated and tragic teenage
love, as in LOLITA again. I must admit, though, I'm not sure there is a
pattern; those allusions seem random to me. A case of cryptomnesia perhaps.
Incidentally, April 13, 2006, is another Irishman's centenary.
Hibernically,
Sergey Karpukhin
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
THE SEA (2005). The dust jacket bears this commendation: "John Banville is
the heir to Nabokov." It's a story of a middle-aged Irishman, who has
recently lost his wife to an incurable disease, and who returns to the
seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a boy. I won't tell too
much for fear of spoiling the pleasure of those who might wish to read the
book. However, there are some obvious allusions to VN's oeuvre in the book.
For example, to LOLITA:
I looked in at the windows, too, especially the bedroom ones upstairs, and
was rewarded one day - how my heart hammered! - by a glimpse behind a
shadowed pane of what seemed a nude thigh that could only be hers. Then the
adored flesh moved and turned into the hairy shoulder of her husband, at
stool, for all I knew, and reaching for the lavatory roll. [p. 56-57]
The protagonist has a daughter of whose plain looks he talks with a
Shade-like acceptance. There is a lesbian governess in the story and a Swan
fountain pen, as in SPEAK, MEMORY, and an unconsummated and tragic teenage
love, as in LOLITA again. I must admit, though, I'm not sure there is a
pattern; those allusions seem random to me. A case of cryptomnesia perhaps.
Incidentally, April 13, 2006, is another Irishman's centenary.
Hibernically,
Sergey Karpukhin
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm