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A review by blchandler9000
The Infinities by John Banville
3.0
I have long wanted to read a book by John Banville. I've started a few, sometimes among the shelves of a local bookstore, but have never gone past a few pages. Banville's stated goal when writing prose is to provide it with "the kind of denseness and thickness that poetry has." As a lover of especially poetic prose, I was curious.
Quickly put, "The Infinities" follows the Greek god Hermes as he watches a modern family come together to pay final respects to their dying patriarch. He narrates their actions, explains their thoughts, and waxes on immortals' place in the universe. As the book progresses, the identity the narrator comes into question and subtle hints that this book takes place in an alternate universe emerge from the memories of the Godley family.
I found the conceit of the book intriguing, but I'm afraid it starts to lose its charm half-way through the book. By the time some of the characters begin to reveal their true selves, Banville had lost my interest. (Granted, I still finished the book.) The man's prose is pretty solid and remarkably particular in its word choice. (Sometimes Banville even seems to be showboating, using 25ยข words which I had to look up the meanings for. [Thanks Kindle for the handiness of your dictionary function!]) But his pedantic devotion to saturating his language drowned the story and its characters, obfuscated the alternate world he was trying to hint at, and just lost any of the whimsy that a modern tale featuring ancient gods may have had. Even with hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-hammer symbolism in the character's names, references to Greek myth and Bible stories, the novel just seems to reference itself and never comes to anything more than the book it is. Banville is somewhat disliked in some circles because of his clear statements that his writing, unlike those of many of his colleagues, is art. If so, his dexterity with words is impressive, but in the end this work of art had the curious and oxymoronic distinction of being heavy-handed and empty. Oh, well.
Quickly put, "The Infinities" follows the Greek god Hermes as he watches a modern family come together to pay final respects to their dying patriarch. He narrates their actions, explains their thoughts, and waxes on immortals' place in the universe. As the book progresses, the identity the narrator comes into question and subtle hints that this book takes place in an alternate universe emerge from the memories of the Godley family.
I found the conceit of the book intriguing, but I'm afraid it starts to lose its charm half-way through the book. By the time some of the characters begin to reveal their true selves, Banville had lost my interest. (Granted, I still finished the book.) The man's prose is pretty solid and remarkably particular in its word choice. (Sometimes Banville even seems to be showboating, using 25ยข words which I had to look up the meanings for. [Thanks Kindle for the handiness of your dictionary function!]) But his pedantic devotion to saturating his language drowned the story and its characters, obfuscated the alternate world he was trying to hint at, and just lost any of the whimsy that a modern tale featuring ancient gods may have had. Even with hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-hammer symbolism in the character's names, references to Greek myth and Bible stories, the novel just seems to reference itself and never comes to anything more than the book it is. Banville is somewhat disliked in some circles because of his clear statements that his writing, unlike those of many of his colleagues, is art. If so, his dexterity with words is impressive, but in the end this work of art had the curious and oxymoronic distinction of being heavy-handed and empty. Oh, well.