Summer Challenge '08: The Sea by John Banville

[Scheherazade]

This summer we will be reading Banville's The Sea.

Please join us and share your thoughts in this thread.

[Virgil]

I probably will start this around mid July. I will be reading McCarthy's The Road first.

[Scheherazade]

Started reading it: Finding the initial flashbacks a little confusing as it seems like the story keeps going back and forth between 3 different time periods... but story is intriguing.

And I see that the poll is divided between "Waste of time" and "Good book."... Interesting! :)

Didn't know it was a Man Booker Prize Winner...

[Virgil]

Hmm, I see Babara didn't like it. I hope she'll tell us why.

[Nightshade]

Why are we calling it a challenge ? should I be worried?
:confused:

[Scheherazade]

Why are we calling it a challenge ? should I be worried?
:confused:Yes, be worried, Night, be very, very, veeeerrryyy worried! http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_scared.gif

Do you think the family surname "Grace" has a significance? The way it has been repeated, "the Graces", makes me wonder... Maybe it might be clearer as the story progresses; I have only read 1/4 of the book yet.

[Nightshade]

Yes, be worried, Night, be very, very, veeeerrryyy worried! http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_scared.gif
.

Rats! ahh well at least I got a new smilie source out of the deal ( nice smilie btw scher).

[Jozanny]

I am intrigued by the selection. Is there a schedule for chapters or spoiler rules?

Thanks

[Scheherazade]

Oh, I did not think you were literally posing a question for us to answer; thought it was more of a rhetorical question as I am sure most of us here are familiar with the Graces (otherwise, I would have put my hand up and shouted "Me, me, me, M'am!! :p)

I have read only 1/4 of the book... So do not feel ready for an in-depth analysis/discussion yet.

What's more I almost never read the study guides when I am pleasure-reading.

[JBI]

I'm going to be gone, but I guess I'll try and jump into the conversation when I get back in early August. Perhaps if it is a good book, the conversation will last that long.

[Scheherazade]

I'm going to be gone, but I guess I'll try and jump into the conversation when I get back in early August. Perhaps if it is a good book, the conversation will last that long.This is a summer reading so I am sure there wil be others who read the book later in the summer (I have to return mine to the library as soon as possible, which is why started so early to read).

Hope you have a great time wherever you are going, JBI! :)

[barbara0207]

Hmm, I see Babara didn't like it. I hope she'll tell us why.

I read the book last summer, and I thought it was one of the most boring novels I ever read. There were just very few passages that appealed to me, otherwise Banville wasn't able to get me interested in his characters. But I will follow this thread closely, maybe there was something I missed. Many posters seem to be fascinated by the book, and I'm eager to know why.

[Walter]

I read The Sea a little while back and had only a medium reaction to it. I felt I must be missing something, especially now in retrospect, since I have really taken such a liking to many other of Banville's works. Since I have also already read The Road for the other discussion, and don't have to read it again so urgently, it sounds like I'll pull The Sea back off the shelf and reread it to join this discussion in a little while. I'm sure I'll get more out of the reread and also the discussion, so I'm looking forward to it.
See you soon. :)

[bouquin]

I read The Sea 6 months ago. I found Banville's prose rather elegant but somehow the story in itself still came out dull and tedious, just a profusion of ramblings.





______________________________
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful.
In every one of these no man is free,
... These, my lord,
Are such allowed infirmities that honesty
Is never free of.
-- The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

[sofia82]

Now, I've been lost in the story

[Niamh]

I am currently reading it at the moment. bout 1/4 the way.
Nightie i'll send you your copy this weekend.

[Walter]

I liked The Sea a lot, but I liked some of Banville's other books more - Shroud, and the trilogy - Book of Evidence, Ghosts, and Athena.
Yes, Antiquarian, I've read those also, plus The Untouchable, all in one very happy binge. And maybe they are all different from The Sea in each having more of a story, or more action, or more dramatic conflict, or even just more characters -- all of the things that we usually see and expect in a novel.

I've now finished my reread (second read) and have learned much more about the literary structure of the novel and have properly placed many more details of the story. But still I feel that it will take once more through it -- quickly, now that I have it all marked up -- to get it all properly sorted out into a linear narrative.

So, it is definitely different, and on this third go-through I'll be looking -- I might say desperately looking -- for a theme or point to the whole story or to Morden's whole rumination. But, overall, it has been a fascinating book to read slowly and to absorb. Reading fast, I suspect one might miss all the turns in a very winding road.

Some puzzles I just won't allow to defeat me. :)

[plainjane]

I read The Sea about a year and a half ago, it was the first Banville and the real reason I picked it up was a blurb on the cover...


"John Banville is the heir to Nabokov' - The Sunday Telegraph".

Well, who could pass that up! :D

Have to reread as I can't remember details only the outline.
Back later.

[Scheherazade]

Finished reading and I cannot say I liked it much.

Banville's writing is beautiful at times but mostly I thought it was laborious and somewhat distracting due to his tendency for long and complicated sentences.

At the moment, I don't want to go into details not to spoil for others but the ending was disappointing for me as well.

[plainjane]

I'm practically finished, I am loving it more the second time around, and wonder if the second reading is really the charm. I did enjoy it the first time around, but this time around it is more revelatory.
The way Banville slips back and forth between the four time frames is easy and seamless.

Scheherazade,
I didn't find it laborious a bit, the detail was necessary for me to understand "Max" and his motivations. I don't want to post anything that will spoil it for those not yet finished, but I thought every detail was necessary.
Now when for the first time reading The Untouchable I was stymied by the 5 different names everyone seemed to have, but picked it up about a year later and could not put it down.

I've read, um....the trilogy, Shroud, The Untouchable and the Benjamin Black enteries, at least the Quirks. All vintage Banville.

[Walter]

Sounds like the makings for a good discussion shaping up! :)

[Niamh]

Argh! Have to get replacement copies! pages started going out of sequance and doubling up when i got to 85.
Soz Nightie! looks like you copy is too. good thing i hadnt posted it!

[Niamh]

Okay so i've finished the book. it was a fairly good book. wouldnt say absolutely wonderful.

[Nightshade]

Started reading it: Finding the initial flashbacks a little confusing as it seems like the story keeps going back and forth between 3 different time periods... but story is intriguing.

And I see that the poll is divided between "Waste of time" and "Good book."... Interesting! :)

Didn't know it was a Man Booker Prize Winner...

Started it today on the way to work, or did I start t yetsrday ? :confused: ahh well anyway THANKS NIAMH! ...I am finding it rather hard going actually and confusing, but thats good in a way for me becuase usually Id just inhale a book, and Im short on books supply anyway.

There was something thatdid make me raise an eyebrow or 2 , he says that on theday he met Chole grace he was 10 or 11, and yet he was hoping that rose would loose her towel, and has 'humid dreams' about Mrs Grace.
I just thought it was a bit weird is all- or have I got the age wrong?
:confused:

[Virgil]

I will be starting this novel by the weekend. I hope there are still people up for a good discussion.

[Virgil]

I started. Read about fifteen pages and then realized nothing registered. :lol: I'll have to start again. The language doesn't seem hard or anything like that, but for some reason it's not sinking in.

[Niamh]

oh dear! Poor Virgil! :p
yeah it would be good to get this discussion on the go. :nod:

[Victoria2133]

I'm sorry that I missed this one. I read it for a class about a year ago and it was beautiful - as Banville usually is. Has anyone tried any of his Benjamin Black novels? I just wrote a conference paper on his switch to crime fiction and I was wondering what others were thinking.

[plainjane]

Victoria, you haven't missed it at all. :)
This a marvelous book although now I may have to re-re-read....;)

And yes I have read his Benjamin Black outings. I loved them, although the second one The Silver Swan was not as satisfying. I put that down to building for the future additions to the series.

I also read The Lemur and have to admit to being disappointed, when I first read it I was not aware it had been a serialization in the NYT. Something seemed missing to me.

[Victoria2133]

I haven't read The Lemur, but I do agree with you when you say that The Silver Swan wasn't as compelling as Christine Falls. Also, considering what Banville has written in the past, Christine Falls wasn't as shocking as I expected it to be.

[Virgil]

It finally began to click, and and does seem wonderfully written. I am having a hard time keeping the time straight. Hopefully it become clear shortly. I'm enjoying it now. :) Here check this sentence out:

Immediately then, and for the first time in I do not know how long, I thought of Ballyless and the house there on Station Road, and the Graces, and Chloe Grace, I cannot think why, and it was as if I had stepped suddenly out of the dark into a splash of pale, salt-washed sunlight.

[Virgil]

I've now read 50 pages which is about a quarter of the book. Antiquarian was right, the prose is marvelous. I love the writing. I love the way Banville is flipping from the past and present, and the relationship between the narrator and his daughter is marvelous. The problem I'm having is that here I am a quarter of the way through and there is no inkling as to what the story is. There is the narrator's experience as a boy that keeps coming up and there is the death of his wife, but what's the story? The author is just waiting too long to get to the crux.

For those that have read this, there is no need to respond. The story line will become apparent shortly. At least I hope. :)

Here's a little passage that shows the past and present and its significance, and his marvelous prose:


When we arrived I marvelled to see how much of the village as I remembered it was still here, if only for eyes that knew where to look, mine, that is. It was like encountering an old flame behind whose features thickened by age the slender lineaments that a former self so loved can still be clearly discerned. We passed the deserted railway station and came bowling over the little bridge--still intact, still in place!--my stomach at the crest doing that remembered sudden upward float and fall, and there it was before me, the hill road, and the beach at the bottom, and the sea. I did not stop at the house but only slowed as we went by. There are moments when the past has a force so strong it seems one might be annihilated by it. (p34-35)

[Walter]

August is almost upon us so it sounds like time for me to go once through the book one more time to examine the notes I laboriously made to sort out the time frames and flashbacks, and then perhaps formulate the linear story behind the involuted narrative. Though I have been mostly quiet, I have to say I am making progress and getting toward sorting it out. The elusive part to me still is understanding what he learned from his rumination over all the past events described in the book. But if it is there, one should be able to find it.

[Walter]

I think the nickel has finally dropped for me in understanding Max Morden so, with about a hundred slips of paper sticking out of every part of the book, I think I'm ready for discussion when it arises. Tracing threads through the story has made for a fascinating puzzle that underlies what seems to be nominally a memoir.

[Virgil]

I think the nickel has finally dropped for me in understanding Max Morden so, with about a hundred slips of paper sticking out of every part of the book, I think I'm ready for discussion when it arises. Tracing threads through the story has made for a fascinating puzzle that underlies what seems to be nominally a memoir.

I'm approaching half way through Walter. I'll definitely be there for the discussion. Feel free to bring up a topic, preferably one toward the beginning of the book.

[Walter]

Virgil,
I think I'll prefer to wait because it is so hard to find the beginning of the book. I say that in jest, but only partly, because the allusions in that first paragraph stretch so deeply into the book, more than 3/4ths of the way, for their eventual resolution. And the next paragraph is fifty years later, although that is not so obvious either.
I think Banville has written an amazing tour de force of stream-of-consciousness narrative to tell a story that weaves back and forth through about five different periods of Max Morden's life in about four different venues, and which very nearly needs a score card to keep track of. I finally did have to resort to numerous bookmarks and extensive marginal notations to sort things out, but for me that is part of the total pleasure of reading a book of this complexity. I hope you are sailing along quite well and having an easier time of it.
No hurry. :D

[plainjane]

Walter,
Yes, tracing threads through 4 different time frames makes for a great puzzle! :D Max is a much more complex person than I thought the first time go around.

[Virgil]

Virgil,
I think I'll prefer to wait because it is so hard to find the beginning of the book. I say that in jest, but only partly, because the allusions in that first paragraph stretch so deeply into the book, more than 3/4ths of the way, for their eventual resolution. And the next paragraph is fifty years later, although that is not so obvious either.
I think Banville has written an amazing tour de force of stream-of-consciousness narrative to tell a story that weaves back and forth through about five different periods of Max Morden's life in about four different venues, and which very nearly needs a score card to keep track of. I finally did have to resort to numerous bookmarks and extensive marginal notations to sort things out, but for me that is part of the total pleasure of reading a book of this complexity. I hope you are sailing along quite well and having an easier time of it.
No hurry. :D


Walter,
Yes, tracing threads through 4 different time frames makes for a great puzzle! :D Max is a much more complex person than I thought the first time go around.

Can either of you list the time frames. I can see three so far:
1. As a child when he first meets the Grace family.
2. His wife's cancer and decline.
3. Present with his daughter Clair and the trip to the summer home of his childhood.

I must say I'm completely fascinated with the novel, but I can see how the delay of a real story line so far into the novel can turn people off. But Banville's writing is just gorgeous.

[plainjane]

Virgil, he also covers his younger adulthood, meeting and marrying his wife, all the whys and wherefores of the marriage that does lead into her illness, but I'd have to put that as a different time frame.
So I'd say,

1. Childhood/Graces/explanation of Max's parents situation.
2. Young adulthood, manner of meeting wife and early marriage, all the explaining of her father and his business.
3. Wife's diagnosis and illness to death.
4. The present at the Graces old house.

[Virgil]

Virgil, he also covers his younger adulthood, meeting and marrying his wife, all the whys and wherefores of the marriage that does lead into her illness, but I'd have to put that as a different time frame.
So I'd say,

1. Childhood/Graces/explanation of Max's parents situation.
2. Young adulthood, manner of meeting wife and early marriage, all the explaining of her father and his business.
3. Wife's diagnosis and illness to death.
4. The present at the Graces old house.

Thanks Jane!! You're right, I forgot the courtship of his wife. And who says you're plain. ;) :D

[Nightshade]

Actually I would split up the first one into
childhood_ at the beach the graces etc
and childhood_ afterwards parents divorce living in a flat in the city etc.
:D

[Walter]

Timeframes and locales intermingle to produce many combinations like that. After his wife dies and before he decides to return to the Cedars there feels like another combination where he is still at home but without his wife and it feels like a different time frame. It all makes counting them slightly fuzzy. Maybe those different combinations are different 'settings' for the story line, to add yet another word?

[Virgil]

Timeframes and locales intermingle to produce many combinations like that. After his wife dies and before he decides to return to the Cedars there feels like another combination where he is still at home but without his wife and it feels like a different time frame. It all makes counting them slightly fuzzy. Maybe those different combinations are different 'settings' for the story line, to add yet another word?

The intermingling of time frames is brilliantly done. I am really impressed with Banville's writing. But it's still hard to grasp a story line. Do memories of a central character constitute a story? I can't wait to finish to see. I hope there is some grand epiphany. :)

I really can't help but type out some of this magnificent prose. Here's another fine passage.


It was an evening just like that, the Sunday evening when I came here to stay, after Anna had gone at last. Although it was autumn and not summer the dark-gold sunlight and the inky shadows, long and slender in the shaped of felled cypresses, were the same, and there was the same sense of everything drenched and jewelled and the same ultramarine glitter on the sea. I felt inexplicably lightened; it was as if the evening, in all the drench and drip of its fallacious pathos, had temporarily taken over from me the burden of grieving. Our home, or my home, as supposedly it was now, had still not been sold, I had not yet had the heart to put it on the market, but i could not have stayed there a moment longer. After Anna's death it went hollow, became a vast echo-chamber. There was somethig hostile in the air, too, the growling surliness of an old hound unable to understand where its beloved mistress had gone and resentful of the master who remains. Anna would allow no one to be told of her illness. People suspected something was up, but not until the final stages, that what was up, for her, was the game itself. Even Claire had been left to guess that her mother was dying. And now it was over, and something else had begun, for me, which was the delicate business of being the survivor. (p.109)

[plainjane]

Banville certainly has an unconventional manner of presenting "flashbacks", I don't think I've encountered his method before. I know I missed a lot on the first reading and I'd lay odds I could get even more from a third rereading.
In a way it is a quest novel, yes? Questing for himself, his life, his meaning, his future.
I don't want to go into the end till you finish though Virgil.

[Virgil]

Banville certainly has an unconventional manner of presenting "flashbacks", I don't think I've encountered his method before. I know I missed a lot on the first reading and I'd lay odds I could get even more from a third rereading.
In a way it is a quest novel, yes? Questing for himself, his life, his meaning, his future.
I don't want to go into the end till you finish though Virgil.

Thanks Jane. I am enjoying it. I don't know if the flashback technique is unconventional. It's just that he's such a smooth writer that it appears seemless.

[Walter]

Virgil, I am glad to hear that you are still going forward. As long as you have made it this far, you can now look forward to many of your questions being resolved as the closing pages approach -- and some surprising new scenes as well.
You definitely have your fingers on the two major features of the book, though: an enigmatic plot being carried forward by magnificent prose. This book is not quite like any others I have read, even including Nabokov or Virginia Woolf. I think Banville's dissection and rearrangement of the time-line is in new territory, far beyond any stream-of-consciousness I have read. So, as you are still with it, you are doing well. :)

Anyone else still reading, or starting?

[Scheherazade]

I read it in June.

I am afraid I do not share your enthusiam for the book. Find it too much work for too little of a storyline.

I don't want to ruin the story for others by giving too much away but ending left a bad taste in my mouth as well.

[Virgil]

Hopefully I should finish the novel over the weekend.

[Walter]

I read it in June.

I am afraid I do not share your enthusiam for the book. Find it too much work for too little of a storyline.

I don't want to ruin the story for others by giving too much away but ending left a bad taste in my mouth as well.

I thought the end was quite ambiguous, assuming that we are speaking of the same 'ending.' But that sounds like a good item for eventual discussion.

[Virgil]

Ok I finished today. I have to say i am very disappointed. Such brilliant prose and frankly it seems to me such a flawed structure. Does Banville understand the nature of telling a story? A story isn't just exposition and climax. There has to be a building to the climax, as if things propell toward it. What in heaven's name does the Chloe part of the story have to do with Anna's death? Why in heaven's name does Chloe and a Myles go for that swim and you know what happens? Why is Max so in love with Mrs Grace and then it gets dropped? And why did he hold back all that information about Rose and Miss Vavasour until the last thirty pages? It seems to me that Banville gives 160 pages worth of background only to concoct a story in the last thirty pages. I hate to make such strong statements on one reading, but I just don't get it. Walter, Plainjane, please set me right. I so want to like this novel, but this just baffles me. What am I missing?

[Walter]

Such brilliant prose and frankly it seems to me such a flawed structure. Does Banville understand the nature of telling a story? A story isn't just exposition and climax. There has to be a building to the climax, as if things propell toward it. What in heaven's name does the Chloe part of the story have to do with Anna's death? .... What am I missing?

Hi Virgil, exactly my reactions after my first reading -- a very disappointing story.

But it seems to me that you do get at the deep questions that relate to this novel (much better than I did), and I don't think you are missing anything; I think you have the pieces. I think the disconnect revolves around what exactly the 'story,' or plot, of the novel is, and that the true story emerges only after appropriate rearrangement of the pieces and refocusing of the reader's point of view.

To simplify, and probably oversimplify, the death of Anna and the Chloe parts of the novel, indeed, have nothing to do with each other as parts of a single story. They are separate and disjoint subplots. But they both appear in this novel because the story of this novel is about Max Morden's revisiting his life, and they are both episodes in different stages of his life. The novel is not about their lives.

The back cover of the book says that "What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac gorgeously written novel." At first it wasn't clear to me that he came to understand anything about anything, or if so, where that happened in the book.

So, to abbreviate considerably, as I see it now, this novel is about Max's changing perception of his own life. But to complicate matters, that is not told in linear fashion, but rather in a disjointed structure more akin to (Max's) wandering stream-of-consciousness. After much searching. I would put the beginning of Max's enlightenment on page 45, at his answer to Claire's comment that he lives in the past. At first he is going to challenge her, but then he realizes there is truth in what she says, and I think that is the beginning of his mental rumination back over his life while at the Cedars, until he finally comes to see the truth of her observation.

Then his separate relationships to both Chloe and to Anna come into single focus for him and the reader. They were both his immersion into the wealthy life of leisure that he always wanted to lead (and to be able to get sozzled occasionally when he felt like it). The way I see it, his final realization is that with Anna he indeed finally got to lead the well-to-do kind of life he wanted to lead. No great moral for the future, just an acceptance of what his life had been and an insight into himself as a person.

You might still say that is thin gruel for a story, and I would probably again agree. But unraveling his thought process from the individual pieces here and there, and reassembling the underlying timeline of events in his life did contribute to the overall enjoyment for me and made the time spent quite worthwhile. It became rather like solving a detective mystery.

Hope this helps.

[plainjane]

THAR BE SPOILERS BELOW




The first time I read The Sea I knew I loved it, but was still throughly confused. :) The second time was the charm for me, and I'd lay odds that a third reread would uncover even more gems.

To me the story was of Max's learning to accept himself the way he was and not someone else's concoction. Not Anna's view, not Claire's, nor the friends of his youth. Max always wanted to be someone else, was never satisfied with, or never truly knew who or what he was. He wanted to better himself by becoming friends with the 'summer people', deserting his local friends.

By going back to that summer he went back to his roots, finally realizing he'd believed in a dream. The dream of Mrs. Grace...little did he realize back then that she was looking right past him to Rose...not him as he'd dreamed/fantasized. Finally realizing the reality of what he overheard in the tree that day he heard Mrs. Grace and Rose talking. Who the affair really involved.

The dream of Chloe, wondering after all those years just what she really meant to his life, the possibilities missed. Or were they?
On page 160...


"I knew myself, all too well, and did not like what I knew. Again, I must qualify. It was not what I was that I disliked, I mean the singular, essential me--although I grant that even the notion of an essential, singular self is problematic--but the congeries of affects, inclinations, received ideas, class tics, that my birth and upbringing had bestowed on me in place of a personality. In place of, yes.

So maybe it's as simple [and as complex] as "Who was I?" and "Who am I now?"

[Walter]

So maybe it's as simple [and as complex] as "Who was I?" and "Who am I now?"

I like that way of putting it, because it suggests that the novel is not especially about events and characters and their interactions, but more about Max's developing frame of mind.

[plainjane]

I like that way of putting it, because it suggests that the novel is not especially about events and characters and their interactions, but more about Max's developing frame of mind.
That's exactly it, the events are described in such a disjointed manner, I think because Max's frame of mind is so disjointed when the book begins, that is when he decides to go back to what he considers The Beginning. For Max that summer was the point of disbursement, but he was not thinking in a linear manner so was unable to consider his life in a linear way. His wife's death made him question his whole way of thinking about himself.

[Walter]

Ah! This is Max telling his story, isn't it? :nod:
After everything in the novel has transpired.

[Virgil]

So maybe it's as simple [and as complex] as "Who was I?" and "Who am I now?"

It still doesn't answer the questions I layed out. What are the connecting links between the various elements of the story, and why hold back such critical information only to spring it on the reader as a surprise? Max is I guess over 60 years old. Of the many, many incidents of his life, why does he pick the Cedars incident to be so important? I don't get it.

[Walter]

The Cedars incident was his first love? The moment that changed his life forever, as he said? His first introduction to the life of wealth and leisure? The beginning of his escape from his own poor background? His 'coming of age' passage?

[plainjane]

Such brilliant prose and frankly it seems to me such a flawed structure. Does Banville understand the nature of telling a story? A story isn't just exposition and climax. There has to be a building to the climax, as if things propell toward it.
No climax!? Max's acceptance of self is quite an achievement in my book.

What in heaven's name does the Chloe part of the story have to do with Anna's death?
Groundwork. That was the beginning of Max's attempt to define himself by something other than his own disjointed, poor family. Plus I think Max always wondered if he'd missed out on the 'love of his life' when Chloe died. So really it was a comparative study of Chloe and Anna for him.

Why in heaven's name does Chloe and a Myles go for that swim and you know what happens? Myles only followed Chloe, as for her, her anger at Rose and the affair was so strong...remember just before they walked into the sea she'd half heartedly started something with Max? [her inclusion of Myles was rather startling] It was all rebellion against her mother and Rose.

Why is Max so in love with Mrs Grace and then it gets dropped?Hormones. Adolescent male. :rolleyes: I can't remember right now, and can't seem to find the passage I want, but I think he just became disillusioned with Mrs. Grace.

I did find something I'd like to bring out though regarding Max's frame of mind...page 143

These days I must take the world in small and carefully measured doses, it is a sort of homeopathic cure I am undergoing, though I am not certain what this cure is meant to mend. Perhaps I am learning to live amongst the living again. Practicing, I mean. But no, that is not it. Being here is just a way of not being anywhere.[bolding mine]

A little explanation for those not familiar with homeopathy...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
Pertinent bit from link.

Homeopathic practitioners maintain that an ill person can be treated using a substance that can produce, in a healthy person, symptoms similar to those of the illness.
That's why Max went back to the scene.

[Virgil]

The Cedars incident was his first love? The moment that changed his life forever, as he said? His first introduction to the life of wealth and leisure? The beginning of his escape from his own poor background? His 'coming of age' passage?

Yeah, I'll buy that. But did you see a connection with his life with Anna? It seems like there are linking passages that Banville doesn't include. And why does Banville spend so much time describing Col Blunder (sp? I can't remember his name exactly and I don't have the book handy)? And still, the surprise of Rose and her affair (and I still don't understand what that has to do with the drownings) and the surprise of Miss Vavasour at the end is just too much for me. I have to question Banville's arrangement of episodes. A writer can juggle episodes in time, but there still has to be a trajectory of story.

[plainjane]

Yeah, I'll buy that. But did you see a connection with his life with Anna?
Foundation. We have to know what the past was before we can understand his life.

It's Colonel Blunden. After all it is a rooming house now, would you have Max the only resident? Then it could be said to be unrealistic, because after all, what rooming house has only one tenant?

I thought the bit about Miss Vavasour at the end tied up the questions of her affair with Mrs. Grace beautifully, she was paid off after all.

[Walter]

THIS POST IS ALL SPOILER

This may be overkill for the current discussion, but these are my notes that trace Max Morden's state of mind in the novel, as well as I am able, and also the trajectory of the story when it is straightened out in time.

In his childhood at Ballyless
p25 And my life is changed forever.
p79 Chloe, Myles and I. How proud I was to be seen with them, these divinities, for I thought of course that they were the gods.
p79 My former friends were resentful "He spends all his time now with his grand new friends."

Marriage to Anna
p76 Charlie was a crook.
p76 Anna invited me to marry her
p77 The wedding party was held under a striped marquee
p79 Charlies died a few months after we were married. Anna got all his money . . . there was a lot.

Anna is diagnosed
p12 Well doctor is it the death sentence, or do I get life?
p15 It was not supposed to have befallen us, We are not that kind of people.
p17 From this day forward, all would be dissembling. There would be no other way to live with death.

Anna dying
p114 We shut ourselves away in our house by the sea.
p115 She was in the nursing home by then

Anna dies
p177 I have stopped time. And she nodded, a solemn, knowing nod, and smiled too. I would swear it was a smile.
p195 just another of the worlds great shrugs of indifference
p195 I felt as if I were walking into the sea.

Deciding to go to the Cedars
p18 A dream it was that drew me here.
p19 The journey did not end, I arrived nowhere, and nothing happened
p19 I awoke with the conviction that something had been achieved, or at least initiated.
p19 It endured less than a minute that happy lightness but it told me where I must go.
p111 You're mad Claire had said you'll die of boredom there.
p111 "Then come and live with me, there's room enough for two."
p111 Live with her! Room for two! I said no, I wished to be on my own.
p111 I do not want solicitude. I want anger, vituperation, violence

Driving past the Cedars with his daughter Claire
p44 "You live in the past" she said.
p44 I was about to give an abrupt reply, but paused. She was right after all.
p45 I saw myself as something of a bucaneer . . . but now I. . . acknowledge this was a delusion
p45 To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there.. . .That is why the past is such a retreat for me.
p50 When we got home I went straight into the house . . . and telephoned Ms Vavasour

On arriving at the Cedars
p95 When I first came here I thought of growing a beard
p97 I see the black ship in the distance . . . I hear your siren song . . I am there almost there.


On arriving at the Cedars
p111 Was it all a hideous mistake [going there]?
p116 Would you like to see your room now? Miss Vavasour asked
p117 When Miss vavasour left me in what was now to be my room . . . I felt that I had been traveling a long time, for years, and had at last arrived at the destination to where, all along, without knowing it, I had been bound, and where I must stay, it being for now, the only possible place, the only refuge, for me.

While at the Cedars
p30 The work I am supposed to be engaged in is a monograph on bonnard.
p30 Work is not the word I would apply to what I do. Workers work.
p30 Dabble I do not accept. We are nothing if not professional

While at the Cedars
p69 I wonder if other people when they were children had this kind of image of what they would be like when they grew up . . . from the outset I was very precise and definite in my expectations
p69 This is exactly how I would have foreseen seen my future self, a man of liesurely interests and scant ambition sitting in a room just like this one, in my sea-captain's chair, leaning at my little table . . . yes this is what I thought adulthood would be.

While at the Cedars
p145 what the whole house reminds me of . . .
p145 this must be the real reason I came here to hide in the first place . . .
p145 . . . the rented rooms my mother and I were forced to inhabit through my teenage years

While at the Cedars
p159 I was thinking of Anna
p159 what I found in Anna was a way of fulfilling the fantasy of myself.
p160 From earliest days I wanted to be someone else.
p160 Be anyone you like. That was the pact we made . . .
p160 . . . that we would relieve each other of being the people whom everyone else told us we were
p160 The question I am left with now anyway is precisely the question of knowing
p160 Who if not myself was I? (THE QUESTION - Part 1)
p161 . . . . we forgave each other for all that we were not.
p161 Could I have lived differently? Fruitless interrogation. (THE QUESTION - Part 2)
p161 yet for all that, I cannot rid myself of the conviction that we missed something. (THE RUB)

While at the Cedars
p.182 I do not want to be alone like this
p183 Why this silence day after day
p183 Send back your ghost

Night out getting drunk
p186 I fell into a mood of bitter melancholy
p187 under the shaking radiance of a street light awaiting some grand and general revelation

After he's back from getting drunk
p183 Ms Vavasour knows the questions I want to ask
p183 Ms Vavasour says "I can't help you...You must know that"
p183 All this in the historic present.

Daughter comes to take him home
p191 I must packup and leave the Cedars forthwith.
p191 I had not the heart to tell her my book had not gotten further than half a first chapter.
p192 Well it is no matter. there are other things I can do. I can go to Paris and paint.
p192 I can see myself in my cell, long-bearded with quill pen and hat and docile lion, through a window beside me minuscule pesants making hay, and hovering above my brow the dove refulgent.
p.192 Oh yes, life is pregnant with possibilities.

[Virgil]

No climax!? Max's acceptance of self is quite an achievement in my book.

I'm not denying there wasn't a climax, I'm denying that there was a relavant building to it. I didn't see it. I probably should re-read it. I just don't know if it's worth my while.


Groundwork. That was the beginning of Max's attempt to define himself by something other than his own disjointed, poor family. Plus I think Max always wondered if he'd missed out on the 'love of his life' when Chloe died. So really it was a comparative study of Chloe and Anna for him.
Wait a second. Chloe is what ten years old? How is it credible that a love at ten who he knew for a summer compares to someone who he has been married to for decades?


Myles only followed Chloe, as for her, her anger at Rose and the affair was so strong...remember just before they walked into the sea she'd half heartedly started something with Max? [her inclusion of Myles was rather startling] It was all rebellion against her mother and Rose.
It's not clear to me that she drowns on purpose. And if so, she drowns herself because she fought with Rose?


Hormones. Adolescent male. :rolleyes: I can't remember right now, and can't seem to find the passage I want, but I think he just became disillusioned with Mrs. Grace.
:lol: I know that. I just don't understand why he makes such a big deal, spends pages on it, only for it to be a side show. I'm not questioning Max's hormones; I'm questioning Banville's selection for emphasis.


I did find something I'd like to bring out though regarding Max's frame of mind...page 143
[bolding mine]

A little explanation for those not familiar with homeopathy...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
Pertinent bit from link.

That's why Max went back to the scene
That is a good connection.


It's Colonel Blunden. After all it is a rooming house now, would you have Max the only resident? Then it could be said to be unrealistic, because after all, what rooming house has only one tenant?

I thought the bit about Miss Vavasour at the end tied up the questions of her affair with Mrs. Grace beautifully, she was paid off after all.

But Banville spends pages describing Col Blunden which lead to no point.

[plainjane]

Walter, that is perfect! :D

p111 I do not want solicitude. I want anger, vituperation, violence
One of the stages of grief. Well brought out.

Virgil, you say...
But Banville spends pages describing Col Blunden which lead to no point.What point would you have it lead to other than what I said in my previous post? Was he supposed to murder someone? Should he be a long lost resident of Max's past? Really if you think about it, it was hinted throughout the book that he and Ms. V would 'get together', obviously a ridiculous thought considering her sexual proclivity.

I'm not denying there wasn't a climax, I'm denying that there was a relavant building to it. I didn't see it. I probably should re-read it. I just don't know if it's worth my while.
Without understanding Max's past the climax would have meant nothing, we had to understand why Max returned, why he felt he lacked a personality and why Anna was so very important to his sense of self.

Wait a second. Chloe is what ten years old? How is it credible that a love at ten who he knew for a summer compares to someone who he has been married to for decades?In reality it doesn't, otoh, in the back of Max's mind I feel he always wondered if Chloe was the lost love of his life. It's not unusual for someone of a certain age to wonder what they've missed out on in life, éh? :)

I know that. I just don't understand why he makes such a big deal, spends pages on it, only for it to be a side show. I'm not questioning Max's hormones; I'm questioning Banville's selection for emphasis.
I believe the emphasis is so strong because it was Max's first time feeling that way.

[Walter]

But Banville spends pages describing Col Blunden which lead to no point.

Perhaps Col. Blunden is there to present subliminally the external view of a strong silent man who keeps it all inside himself and swallows huge disappointment without great external show. In effect, he may be the exterior view of what Max Morden looks like all the while that his own inner life is actually in such turmoil. Max, in first person, can't quite tell us what he himself looks like from the outside, but he can tell us what col. Blunden looks like. Just a thought.

[plainjane]

Virgil, I accidentally skipped this quote of yours...
It's not clear to me that she drowns on purpose. And if so, she drowns herself because she fought with Rose?
Chloe was a most deliberate and passionate child person, she did nothing 'by accident'. I would like to know what was said when they argued at the seaside just before the twins death. I speculate, mind you this is only speculation considering the Banville/Nabokov connection...I speculate that Chloe had feelings for Rose herself, and this was perhaps a quarrel about that considering Max had just told Chloe about the affair he thought was taking place. Chloe felt betrayed and was perhaps sexually confused...I'm just not sure which way that fell.
Chloe felt betrayed somehow, that much I am certain of, just how I am not sure at this point.

AIE: Now that I think about it, Chloe's rather desperate attempt to engage with Max sexually just before hand could have been to try to feel something with a boy? As opposed to her [possible] feelings for Rose?


Perhaps Col. Blunden is there to present subliminally the external view of a strong silent man who keeps it all inside himself and swallows huge disappointment without great external show. In effect, he may be the exterior view of what Max Morden looks like all the while that his own inner life is actually in such turmoil. Max, in first person, can't quite tell us what he himself looks like from the outside, but he can tell us what col. Blunden looks like. Just a thought.

I like that. Blunden was all of that, the exact opposite of Max internally.

[Virgil]

Virgil, I accidentally skipped this quote of yours...
Chloe was a most deliberate and passionate child person, she did nothing 'by accident'. I would like to know what was said when they argued at the seaside just before the twins death. I speculate, mind you this is only speculation considering the Banville/Nabokov connection...I speculate that Chloe had feelings for Rose herself, and this was perhaps a quarrel about that considering Max had just told Chloe about the affair he thought was taking place. Chloe felt betrayed and was perhaps sexually confused...I'm just not sure which way that fell.
Chloe felt betrayed somehow, that much I am certain of, just how I am not sure at this point.

AIE: Now that I think about it, Chloe's rather desperate attempt to engage with Max sexually just before hand could have been to try to feel something with a boy? As opposed to her [possible] feelings for Rose?

Well, that's all speculation. I didn't read anything to suggest that. How old is Chloe? I frankly don't know.

[Walter]

That's a very puzzling event.

I have the feeling that the sea has something like a mystic significance for this story, possibly also underlying its choice as a title. The story opens with the stange high tide, and it ends with Max feeling as if he 'were walking into the sea' when he reenters the hopsital after his wife dies. Moreover Myles has webbed toes (fingers?) suggesting a sea creature to me, and Myles and Chloe were exceedingly close as twins -- even communicating without hardly speaking if I recall.

Chloe had just gotten angry at Rose for intruding on herself and young Max in embrace, and had stomped off to sulk on the beach where she was joined by Myles, seemingly commiserating by sitting shoulder to shoulder with her. It read to me as if, unspoken, they agreed 'enough of this' and decided to end their land-based frustrations in the sea, their 'natural' domain. That is all speculation, but that's how the body language came across to me.

Separately I think the episode also served a literary purpose, to show how passive a person Max really was. He was a good swimmer, but he stood immobile, instead of perhaps charging into the waves to at least attempt to help Myles and Chloe. The passive response of almost everybody else involved also stands out starkly. There was little commotion even among the Graces when Max brought the news. So there was something strange, but definitely different, about the whole episode, as if to suggest a symbolic or mystic significance beyond the mere happening. And that, also, is just my subjective reaction to what I read.

I might add that it provides a close parallel, to Max's later marriage to his wife. Both of the loves of max's life were with women better off than he was, and both came to untimely ends for reasons beyond his contol. That is literary parallelism whose significance is hard for me to see, but it is there.

[plainjane]

Well, that's all speculation. I didn't read anything to suggest that. How old is Chloe? I frankly don't know.
page 22 - 23...
What age were we, ten, eleven? Say eleven, it will do.

Speculation? Perhaps 'tis, but based on facts.
Chloe was a passionate individual, her tastes were well formed and definite. on pages 168-171 Max climbs the tree and overhears Rose and Mrs. Grace speaking together and comes to the erroneous conclusion that Rose is having an affair with Mr. Grace but at the end learns that it was in fact Mrs. Grace that was having the affair with Rose.
Max couldn't stand keeping it to himself and immediately told Chloe about the affair he thought he knew about, page 172. Chloe was skeptical, even to the point of annoyance. Max thought she was annoyed with him, but here supposition enters...suppose she was annoyed with Rose, or she could have been annoyed with Max as well for being the bearer of bad news. We, like Max at the time have no knowledge of what did or didn't go on between Rose and Chloe.

At the bottom of page 173 through to 174...

Strangely, though, it was not Chloe whose power was thus increased over Rose, but the contrary, or so it seemed. The governess's eye had a new and steelier light when it fell on the girl now, and the girl, to my surprise and puzzlement, appeared cowed under that look as she had never been before. When I think of them like that, the one glinting, the other shying, I cannot but speculate that what happened on the day of the strange tide was in some way a consequence of the uncovering of Rose's secret passion.
He didn't know at the time what Rose's secret passion was did he. Fact, not supposition.

Walter, I like your thoughts on the meanings of the Sea, it makes sense to me.
Separately I think the episode also served a literary purpose, to show how passive a person Max really was. He was a good swimmer, but he stood immobile, instead of perhaps charging into the waves to at least attempt to help Myles and Chloe. The passive response of almost everybody else involved also stands out starkly.
That bowled me over! Not to even make the smallest attempt was just beyond the pale.
But it's true, Max let life happen to him, rather that attempting to guide events, even down to the end when he gave in to Claire's entreaties to live with her, which frankly I think was a good thing for him. That way he gets to keep living the life he wants to.

[Scheherazade]

I am not a fan of this book and reading all your posts has been very interesting; thank you, all! :)

I did not think that Chloe might have a crush on Rose (which is an intriguing suggestion but I will echo Virgil's doubts... These children are supposed to 11 - 12?). To me, even though it seemed unnecessary and meaningless, the twin's act was a kind of reaction to the realisation that their parents (whichever one they might have thought that was having an affair) were not "theirs" purely and also to the fact that Rose, towards whom they were contemptuous throughout the book, turned out to have a great influence on their parents - the kind of influence they could not compete with.

I don't think the twins cared much for Max himself either; both Rose `and Max seemed to mere "play things" for them; to tease and make fun of at times and discard when fancy took them.

Isn't it interesting that the survivors of the story are Rose and Max, who are the ones without a "class"?

[Virgil]

I have the feeling that the sea has something like a mystic significance for this story, possibly also underlying its choice as a title. The story opens with the stange high tide, and it ends with Max feeling as if he 'were walking into the sea' when he reenters the hopsital after his wife dies. Moreover Myles has webbed toes (fingers?) suggesting a sea creature to me, and Myles and Chloe were exceedingly close as twins -- even communicating without hardly speaking if I recall.


There is an element of mystery to the sea, and it is a multifacet symbol. I do think the central meaning of the sea is death. And perhaps that's what is so mysterious.

[Walter]

There is an element of mystery to the sea, and it is a multifacet symbol. I do think the central meaning of the sea is death. And perhaps that's what is so mysterious.

Virgil, That is a new allusion to me and one I shall definitely keep in mind. In the book it certainly has that ominous overtone. Many thanks. :)

[Virgil]

Virgil, you say...What point would you have it lead to other than what I said in my previous post? Was he supposed to murder someone? Should he be a long lost resident of Max's past? Really if you think about it, it was hinted throughout the book that he and Ms. V would 'get together', obviously a ridiculous thought considering her sexual proclivity.

:lol: No Col Blunden should not have murdered Mrs. Grace in the conservatory with the candlestick. :p My point is that an good author does not waste effort and pages on a character that has no function in the story. Now Walter makes a very good point that the Col is a contrast to Max, I think that is on the mark, but it does seem forced to me. The Col has no real function in the central plot. It does not seem as elegantly done as some of the other charcterizations. I admit, I did not pick up on Miss V's sexual proclivity. Banville spends so much time on a minor character like the Col and really just touches on Miss V's character? Where's his sense of proportion? Where's the development of the whole Rosie/Chloe relationship if indeed it leeds to the climax? You don't spring something like that in the last 30 pages. Perhaps I need to re-read this.

Right now I would give this the same vote as Scher, average. I love the prose, I was engaged with the characters, but story line was a mess (flawed if you ask me) and the shock surprises at the end trivialized the whole thing. But I will withhold my vote. I may pick this up again in a couple of months.

[plainjane]

I don't think the twins cared much for Max himself either; both Rose `and Max seemed to mere "play things" for them; to tease and make fun of at times and discard when fancy took them.

Isn't it interesting that the survivors of the story are Rose and Max, who are the ones without a "class"?
I fully agree, the twins were a force unto themselves, not particularly caring for at least Max...I can't put my finger on the relationship with Rose. I know a jealousy comes in and I feel as though I've missed a major hint along the way that would clear that confusion up.


:lol: No Col Blunden should not have murdered Mrs. Grace in the conservatory with the candlestick. :p My point is that an good author does not waste effort and pages on a character that has no function in the story. Now Walter makes a very good point that the Col is a contrast to Max, I think that is on the mark, but it does seem forced to me. The Col has no real function in the central plot. It does not seem as elegantly done as some of the other charcterizations. I admit, I did not pick up on Miss V's sexual proclivity. Banville spends so much time on a minor character like the Col and really just touches on Miss V's character? Where's his sense of proportion? Where's the development of the whole Rosie/Chloe relationship if indeed it leeds to the climax? You don't spring something like that in the last 30 pages. Perhaps I need to re-read this.

Right now I would give this the same vote as Scher, average. I love the prose, I was engaged with the characters, but story line was a mess (flawed if you ask me) and the shock surprises at the end trivialized the whole thing. But I will withhold my vote. I may pick this up again in a couple of months.

Virgil, on page 192...

Miss Vavasour says that she will mess me, but thinks I am doing the right thing. Leaving the Cedars is hardly of my doing, I tell her, I am being forced to it. She smiles as that. "oh Max," she says, "I do not think you are a man to be forced into anything." That gives me pause, not because of the tribute to my strength of will, but the fact, which I register with a faint shock, that this is the first time she has addressed me by my name. Still, I to not think it means that I can call her Rose. A certain formal distance is necessary for the good maintenance of the dainty relation we have forged, re-forged, between us over these past weeks. At this hint of intimacy, however, the old, unasked questions come swarming forward again. I would like to ask her if she blames herself for Chloe's death--I believe, I should say, on no evidence, that it was Chloe who went down first, with Myles following after, to try to save her--and if she is convinced their drowning together like that was entirely an accident, or something else.
Bolding mine.
On the next page a very good reason for the Colonel's existence is acknowledged...he saved Max's life. Remember he scooped Max off of the beach...I don't remember all the details, but he did save Max when he was drunk that night.

[Walter]

Banville spends so much time on a minor character like the Col and really just touches on Miss V's character? Where's his sense of proportion?

Well, you have a good question there about Banville's craftsmanship. I suppose I just don't mind reading detailed description, as of the Colonel, -- in fact I rather enjoy descriptions of 'atmosphere' -- and I don't often think of the author's craftsmanship except where it glaringly bad and I notice it. I mostly read along with what the author has put on the page and, if parts of it seem slow, I don't really mind slow novels. I have read some in my time. Yes, I could have been interested in hearing more about Miss Vavasour, but I think sufficient was provided for someone who was not a major figure. Regarding surprises at the end, there certainly were some, but that is where I expect to find them, as closure is being approached and dramatic tensions or open plot issues are being resolved. Right from the outset this was clearly not a linear narrative, so I suppose I was ready for considerable jaggedness in the narrative and that is part of what led to the zest for me, trying to keep it all in place.

Or, on the other hand, it may just be that I have read quite a bit of Banville by now and have grown acclimatized to his style. Wonderful prose and detailed description are certainly outstanding parts of his writing in general. In addition, a protagonist like Max, who has no readily definable job, except something vaguely (very vaguely) to do with art criticism, and who mopes along the sleazy edge, boozing more or less occasionally, is a recognizable character in several of Banville's novels. So maybe, for me, rereading The Sea was like 'coming home' and curling up with a good book again.

[Virgil]

Well, you have a good question there about Banville's craftsmanship. I suppose I just don't mind reading detailed description, as of the Colonel, -- in fact I rather enjoy descriptions of 'atmosphere' -- and I don't often think of the author's craftsmanship except where it glaringly bad and I notice it. I mostly read along with what the author has put on the page and, if parts of it seem slow, I don't really mind slow novels. I have read some in my time. Yes, I could have been interested in hearing more about Miss Vavasour, but I think sufficient was provided for someone who was not a major figure. Regarding surprises at the end, there certainly were some, but that is where I expect to find them, as closure is being approached and dramatic tensions or open plot issues are being resolved. Right from the outset this was clearly not a linear narrative, so I suppose I was ready for considerable jaggedness in the narrative and that is part of what led to the zest for me, trying to keep it all in place.

Or, on the other hand, it may just be that I have read quite a bit of Banville by now and have grown acclimatized to his style. Wonderful prose and detailed description are certainly outstanding parts of his writing in general. In addition, a protagonist like Max, who has no readily definable job, except something vaguely (very vaguely) to do with art criticism, and who mopes along the sleazy edge, boozing more or less occasionally, is a recognizable character in several of Banville's novels. So maybe, for me, rereading The Sea was like 'coming home' and curling up with a good book again.

Walter you have made Banville sound wonderful. I really did enjoy this novel until the last 30 pages. I am going to give it another try in a few months. Perhaps I missed something. But you and Jane must admit that quite a few people, good readers all, had their issues with this work.

[Walter]

Walter you have made Banville sound wonderful. I really did enjoy this novel until the last 30 pages. I am going to give it another try in a few months. Perhaps I missed something. But you must admit that quite a few people, good readers all, had their issues with this work.


SPOILERS GALORE

Virgil, If I have made it sound wonderful then maybe I should take up writing blurbs for the back covers of books. :lol:
But, seriously, my first reaction was the same disappointment as yours, noting the excellent prose style but wondering where the story was, and what all the hullabaloo was about (Booker Prize winner etc).
There is no doubt, it seems to me, that it is a different kind of book -- at least complex, quite possibly difficult, and certainly not easy to read -- and that it requires a certain devotion to make it yield up its secrets. In fact, I think it is more complex and difficult than comparable others I have read from Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and William Faulkner. So I think it is pretty high up on the scale of difficulty/obscurity.
Furthermore, I have the suspicion that Banville set out to make it complicated by deliberately employing more literary techniques than I have yet seen in any single other work. And I'll ennumerate.

1. It is certainly stream-of-consciousness, very extremely so I would say, with largely random transitions from one remembered episode to another and nothing near a linear evolution of the story.
2. We are at twice-remove from the basic plot, as we try to see the basic plot through the eyes of a bewildered first-person narrator who is himself trying to see the basic plot of his life.
3. If we distinguish time-line from narrative, then the beginning and end of the time-line are both to be found in the middle of the narrative in the book.
4. And, likewise, the beginning and end of the narrative are both from the middle of the time-line. So it is difficult to grab onto either end of the narrative or the plot.
5. The plot is about Max's frame of mind, a rather more elusive and ephemeral thing than the conclusion to an event- or character-driven story.
6. If one surmises that it is Max's quest for the meaning of his life -- because that is essentially the question he asks at one point -- then one might expect some sort of epiphany or insightful wisdom to be extracted by Max from a review of his life. One does get the review of episodes of his life, but one looks in vain for that sort of epiphany.
7. Instead, as near as I can tell, Max's epiphany is simply an accurate view of what his life has been like, with no lessons or wisdom distilled from it. So one can spend the entire book looking for the wrong sort of ah-ha moment, as I did for the longest time.

And that is all clearly the author's deliberate doing, as if he wished to put together a tour-de-force of total literary misdirection using all the techniques at his disposal. If there is a simpler way to see the book, I would be overjoyed to hear it, because these items only reflect in essence the obstacles that I found in trying to finally come to some sort of sensible understanding of The Sea. Others might certainly see it differently, and more clearly, and have an easier time of it.

So finally, yes I can easily agree that one can have a difficult time reading it. I too am one of those who did. :bawling:

[plainjane]

There is no doubt, it seems to me, that it is a different kind of book -- at least complex, quite possibly difficult, and certainly not easy to read -- and that it requires a certain devotion to make it yield up its secrets. In fact, I think it is more complex and difficult than comparable others I have read from Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and William Faulkner. So I think it is pretty high up on the scale of difficulty/obscurity.

I agree it is a different sort of book, but otoh, it's complexity is really simple once the time lines are sorted out, the thing I found is that one cannot zone out, skim or anything along those lines for even an instant. Banville keeps his readers right up on their tippy toes every second of every page. I know I've missed vital details even after a second reading. I know the explanations to these vital details were very casually mentioned and I missed it.

....Max's epiphany is simply an accurate view of what his life has been like, with no lessons or wisdom distilled from it. So one can spend the entire book looking for the wrong sort of ah-ha moment, as I did for the longest time.
It doesn't seem to be Banville's style to have a true ah-ha moment, instead to me aside from the character assessment that Max accurately comes to, I thought his acceptance of that assessment was the closest thing to an ah-ha moment. To accept what one has been and what one is and the direction one is headed in is most satisfactory.
That's the crux of the book to me I think. [at least at this moment] ;)

[Walter]

It doesn't seem to be Banville's style to have a true ah-ha moment, instead to me aside from the character assessment that Max accurately comes to, I thought his acceptance of that assessment was the closest thing to an ah-ha moment. To accept what one has been and what one is and the direction one is headed in is most satisfactory.
That's the crux of the book to me I think. [at least at this moment] ;)

I'm with you there completely. He fulfilled the admonition "Know thyself."

I also agree completely with "at the moment." :D

[Virgil]

There is no doubt, it seems to me, that it is a different kind of book -- at least complex, quite possibly difficult, and certainly not easy to read -- and that it requires a certain devotion to make it yield up its secrets. In fact, I think it is more complex and difficult than comparable others I have read from Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and William Faulkner. So I think it is pretty high up on the scale of difficulty/obscurity.
Furthermore, I have the suspicion that Banville set out to make it complicated by deliberately employing more literary techniques than I have yet seen in any single other work. And I'll ennumerate.

...

And that is all clearly the author's deliberate doing, as if he wished to put together a tour-de-force of total literary misdirection using all the techniques at his disposal. If there is a simpler way to see the book, I would be overjoyed to hear it, because these items only reflect in essence the obstacles that I found in trying to finally come to some sort of sensible understanding of The Sea. Others might certainly see it differently, and more clearly, and have an easier time of it.

So finally, yes I can easily agree that one can have a difficult time reading it. I too am one of those who did. :bawling:
To be honest I didn't find it difficult. Maybe because I'm used to time shifts and stream of consciousness, though I don't think this is purely stream of consciouness. Max is apparently writing this down as a diary/essay or something. Of course it took me a couple of starts to get my bearings. This is definitely worth another read.

[barbara0207]

What a pity that I was offline for such a long time, tonight I saw what an interesting discussion I missed on this thread. As it seems that I was the one to give the book the worst mark in the poll, perhaps I'd better explain a few things although most of what I want to remark has been said by Virgil already.



my first reaction was the same disappointment as yours, noting the excellent prose style but wondering where the story was, and what all the hullabaloo was about (Booker Prize winner etc).


My own disappointment was such that I didn't even notice the 'excellent prose'. And I wasn't put off by the difficulties at the beginning because once you got used to the timeline you could work it out nicely. It was rather the flaws and inconsistencies Virgil described that made me disappointed - just as you, I had high expectations. That always makes to seem disappointment worse.

I read the novel last summer, but thanks to your frequent quoting in the thread and especially your synopsis, Walter, I could refresh my memory a bit so I don't have to reread the book - which I won't, whatever you may say.

Walter, you say it is a novel not driven by event or character but by insight. I agree. And I simply couldn't get interested in the insights of this old man; his ruminations didn't appeal to me. So maybe it's a very personal thing whether you like this book or not. I have a problem with Hermann Hesse's books, too, and once a colleague of mine told me it would be completely out of (my) character if I did like Hesse because my thinking was too scientifically-minded and too rational for that author and that I wanted more straightforwardness (is there such a word?) in a book. Maybe he was right, I'm not sure. And maybe that is why you, Virgil, as an engineer, were not quite happy with the book, either. But then again, you, plainjane and Walter may claim to be rational people, too. I don't know.

[Walter]

Virgil, I'll be eager to hear your reactions after another read. This is certainly the kind of book that rewards re-reading, by having forward allusions whose significance one could not yet be aware of on first reading. The whole opening paragraph would be an excellent example, if you wanted to try just one paragraph.

[Virgil]

What a pity that I was offline for such a long time, tonight I saw what an interesting discussion I missed on this thread. As it seems that I was the one to give the book the worst mark in the poll, perhaps I'd better explain a few things although most of what I want to remark has been said by Virgil already.



My own disappointment was such that I didn't even notice the 'excellent prose'. And I wasn't put off by the difficulties at the beginning because once you got used to the timeline you could work it out nicely. It was rather the flaws and inconsistencies Virgil described that made me disappointed - just as you, I had high expectations. That always makes to seem disappointment worse.

I read the novel last summer, but thanks to your frequent quoting in the thread and especially your synopsis, Walter, I could refresh my memory a bit so I don't have to reread the book - which I won't, whatever you may say.

Walter, you say it is a novel not driven by event or character but by insight. I agree. And I simply couldn't get interested in the insights of this old man; his ruminations didn't appeal to me. So maybe it's a very personal thing whether you like this book or not. I have a problem with Hermann Hesse's books, too, and once a colleague of mine told me it would be completely out of (my) character if I did like Hesse because my thinking was too scientifically-minded and too rational for that author and that I wanted more straightforwardness (is there such a word?) in a book. Maybe he was right, I'm not sure. And maybe that is why you, Virgil, as an engineer, were not quite happy with the book, either. But then again, you, plainjane and Walter may claim to be rational people, too. I don't know.
Barabara, as always you insight is worth millions. :)



Virgil, I'll be eager to hear your reactions after another read. This is certainly the kind of book that rewards re-reading, by having forward allusions whose significance one could not yet be aware of on first reading. The whole opening paragraph would be an excellent example, if you wanted to try just one paragraph.

I will give this another try Walter. I will use your notes and Jane's comments to guide me. I probably won't be able to get to it until the autumn sometime. I will defintely come back to the thread and if I'll try to send you and Jane a PM that I've returned to the novel. Thanks to you both. :)

[Walter]

I read the novel last summer, but thanks to your frequent quoting in the thread and especially your synopsis, Walter, I could refresh my memory a bit so I don't have to reread the book - which I won't, whatever you may say.

Barbara! I'm very very sorry not to have responded sooner; the page turned before I realized your post was there. But really, neither you nor Virgil have to feel that I am twisting your arms to reread the book; that is the furthest thing from my mind. I enjoy rereading and it is entirely your preference what you do to enjoy a book. I'm contributing to a discussion here, not twisting arms.

I'm not sure where I stand on a rationality scale, but I too am an engineer. Perhaps the difference is in our approaches to reading. Someplace relatively recently, in some lit crit book or other, I came across the advice to read the book the author wrote, not the book I might wish the author had written. And I have started trying to do that. So, if this book was about a rather uninteresting old man, I would call it a good book about an uninteresting old man, rather than an uninteresting book about an old man. Banville tends to write about unappealing main characters, but I would say that, though they may be unappealing, I still find their stories irresistible. But again that's me, and you are under no obligation whatever to share the view.

Sincerely,
Walter


But then again, you, plainjane and Walter may claim to be rational people, too. I don't know.

Actually, for the record, I do claim to be a rational person. You need doubt no longer.

[plainjane]

Well hello Barbara,
To my eyes, the so-called inconsistencies can be explained by careful and through reading. Many are explained by a casual passage with no fanfare attached.
I do think that Banville, like Nabokov attract a type of reader that is not linear in thinking, and perhaps require a certain faith that human nature will act irrationally whenever possible.

But perhaps that is not rational. :)

Besides one can claim to be a rational person till the cows come home, and it doesn't make it so.

Not you Walter, I know you are rational. :p

[barbara0207]

Barabara, as always you insight is worth millions.
Thank you. :blush: (I take it you weren't being ironic. :D)


neither you nor Virgil have to feel that I am twisting your arms to reread the book;
Please forgive me if I gave you the impression I felt harrassed by you. I didn't intend that.


I'm not sure where I stand on a rationality scale, but I too am an engineer. That's another theory gone west... :)


Perhaps the difference is in our approaches to reading. Someplace relatively recently, in some lit crit book or other, I came across the advice to read the book the author wrote, not the book I might wish the author had written. And I have started trying to do that. So, if this book was about a rather uninteresting old man, I would call it a good book about an uninteresting old man, rather than an uninteresting book about an old man. Banville tends to write about unappealing main characters, but I would say that, though they may be unappealing, I still find their stories irresistible.



I do think that Banville, like Nabokov attract a type of reader that is not linear in thinking, and perhaps require a certain faith that human nature will act irrationally whenever possible.

I think you are both right. Reading novels is a very personal thing, and 'rational', the word my colleague used, seems to be out of place here. Probably it's a matter of my personality that I got so impatient with the book - or rather the character with his ruminations. I like books with insight plus a good story. The main characters may be as irrational or even 'uninteresting' as they please. It's very hard to explain, but to give a few examples I love Austen, Dickens, George Eliot, David Guterson, Paul Auster, Goethe, Thomas Mann, Günter Grass, to name just a few.

[Walter]

Slip of the tongue, then.

[plainjane]

Reading novels is a very personal thing, and 'rational', the word my colleague used, seems to be out of place here.
I would have to agree with that.

Probably it's a matter of my personality that I got so impatient with the book - or rather the character with his ruminations. I like books with insight plus a good story. The main characters may be as irrational or even 'uninteresting' as they please.
I found The Sea most insightful into human nature and our manner of dealing with our lot in life, and found Max a fascinating study. But I do like to take characters apart and see what makes them tick.
All of which proves nothing about any of us, except what we already know, readers have a huge range of tastes, so it's a good job we have so much variety from which to choose.

[Virgil]

Thank you. :blush: (I take it you weren't being ironic. :D)



Of course not.

[barbara0207]

readers have a huge range of tastes, so it's a good job we have so much variety from which to choose.

Yes, and discussions are so much more interesting when we disagree! :D

[elita]

did you guys finish with your discussion on the sea? i finished reading the book for the university and i agree with most of your points although i feel you miss some points of the book