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A review by jasonfurman
The Infinities by John Banville
3.0
This novel unfolds in the form of a classical drama -- a single day spent by a family in the house of their dying father, a mathematician. And like a good classical drama, it also has some mischievous gods wandering around interfering in the lives of the mortals, including Zeus, Hermes and Pan. The story extremely loosely follows Amphitryon.
The writing is beautiful, it is filled with moments that are both poignant and funny, and the entire novel is disorienting -- it is largely realistic but in addition to the gods there are the occasional throwaway lines that make it clear the setting is somewhat different than we imagine -- e.g., Wallace's theory of evolution recently disproven, Einstein's theory of relativity recently disproven, and the modern train is a steam engine straight out of the mid-19th century. These odd throwaways are never explained.
The 3-/12 stars, however, are because reading the book went from a delight to a slog. Although in theory it had a classical unity, it seemed somewhat random with one characters thoughts or perspectives following right after the other, with no clear forward momentum, greater depth of explanation, or resolution. Which was disappointing because the premise was so promising and appealing.
The writing is beautiful, it is filled with moments that are both poignant and funny, and the entire novel is disorienting -- it is largely realistic but in addition to the gods there are the occasional throwaway lines that make it clear the setting is somewhat different than we imagine -- e.g., Wallace's theory of evolution recently disproven, Einstein's theory of relativity recently disproven, and the modern train is a steam engine straight out of the mid-19th century. These odd throwaways are never explained.
The 3-/12 stars, however, are because reading the book went from a delight to a slog. Although in theory it had a classical unity, it seemed somewhat random with one characters thoughts or perspectives following right after the other, with no clear forward momentum, greater depth of explanation, or resolution. Which was disappointing because the premise was so promising and appealing.