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A review by sloatsj
The Book of Evidence by John Banville
5.0
I really enjoyed this book because I really enjoy despair and self-pity. Especially if it’s couched in a good story by an Irish writer with a fabulous vocabulary.
Banville is the saint of sumptuous sentences. Although the book is riddled with them, there’s a real knock-out on page 32:
“I drank my drink. There is something about gin, the tang in it of the deep wildwood, perhaps, that always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter.”
Okay, that’s three sentences. It’s mostly the center one I mean, but also the sequencing of these three with 1) the simple set-up, 2) the sensual ravishing, and 3) the kill-off, is masterful.
He also hits the bullseye when evoking the senses.
"...I caught a whiff of something, a faint, sharp, metallic smell, like the smell of worn pennies.”
“I had not thought paper would make so much noise, such scuffling and rattling and ripping, it must have sounded as if some large animal were being flayed alive in here.”
As above, he’s fabulous with “as if.”
“His left eyelid began to flutter as if a moth had suddenly come to life under it.”
“She drove very fast, working the controls probingly, as if she were trying to locate a pattern, a secret formula, hidden in this mesh of small deft actions.”
“Her pale colouring and vivid hair and long, slender neck gave her a startled look, as if some time in the past she had been told a shocking secret and had never quite absorbed it.”
“When I spoke to her the poor girl turned crimson, and wincingly extended a calloused little paw as if she were afraid I might be going to keep it.”
His words savor color and light:
“I have always loved that hour of the day, when that soft, muslin light seeps upward, as if out of the earth itself, and everything seems to grow thoughtful and turn away.”
Lying in bed, the main character describes watching lights scan across the room:
“Now and then a car or lorry passed by, and a box of lighted geometry slid rapidly over the ceiling and down the walls and poured away into a corner.”
There’s so much more! Just read the book if you like good writing. I warn you that the murder is horrible and sad. Also, the characters are horrible and/or sad. I recommend this to anyone who thinks the “general awfulness of everything” can be redeemed by art.
Banville is the saint of sumptuous sentences. Although the book is riddled with them, there’s a real knock-out on page 32:
“I drank my drink. There is something about gin, the tang in it of the deep wildwood, perhaps, that always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter.”
Okay, that’s three sentences. It’s mostly the center one I mean, but also the sequencing of these three with 1) the simple set-up, 2) the sensual ravishing, and 3) the kill-off, is masterful.
He also hits the bullseye when evoking the senses.
"...I caught a whiff of something, a faint, sharp, metallic smell, like the smell of worn pennies.”
“I had not thought paper would make so much noise, such scuffling and rattling and ripping, it must have sounded as if some large animal were being flayed alive in here.”
As above, he’s fabulous with “as if.”
“His left eyelid began to flutter as if a moth had suddenly come to life under it.”
“She drove very fast, working the controls probingly, as if she were trying to locate a pattern, a secret formula, hidden in this mesh of small deft actions.”
“Her pale colouring and vivid hair and long, slender neck gave her a startled look, as if some time in the past she had been told a shocking secret and had never quite absorbed it.”
“When I spoke to her the poor girl turned crimson, and wincingly extended a calloused little paw as if she were afraid I might be going to keep it.”
His words savor color and light:
“I have always loved that hour of the day, when that soft, muslin light seeps upward, as if out of the earth itself, and everything seems to grow thoughtful and turn away.”
Lying in bed, the main character describes watching lights scan across the room:
“Now and then a car or lorry passed by, and a box of lighted geometry slid rapidly over the ceiling and down the walls and poured away into a corner.”
There’s so much more! Just read the book if you like good writing. I warn you that the murder is horrible and sad. Also, the characters are horrible and/or sad. I recommend this to anyone who thinks the “general awfulness of everything” can be redeemed by art.