Banville, John
Entry updated 27 January 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1945- ) Irish author active from an early age, his first book being a collection of stories, Long Langkin (coll 1970), followed by Nightspawn (1971), each of these nonfantastic titles focusing variously on twins and their complex interplayings, a focus which would characterize much of his work from this point; he also writes nonfantastic crime novels [not listed here], the early titles as by Benjamin Black, most of them making up the Quirke series of tales set initially in 1950s Ireland [they are not listed in the Checklist below]. Edging toward the fantastic, the novels assembled in the Revolutions sequence, comprising Doctor Copernicus (1976), Kepler (1981) and The Newton Letter: An Interlude (1982 chap), interrogate their protagonists through experiments in unreliable narration and stabs at analysis-interminable speculations about science. Mefisto (1986) explores metaphorically the Faust myth through a protagonist's search for the meaning of the world as expressed through a mathematical quest. Questionings of the nature of Identity inherent in these early novels are intensified in several later tales, where topoi out of Fantastika in general are put tentatively through their paces with a reticence typical of the Mainstream Writer of SF, particularly in the loose Cleave sequence including Eclipse (2000), where ghosts leave messages from the future and Shroud (2002), where (not for the first time in Banville's career) impostures and Doppelgangers feature, as they do by implication in a third volume, Ancient Light (2012). A second loose series, the Freddie Montgomery sequence beginning with The Book of Evidence (1989), whose main character is based on the real-life murderer Malcolm Macarthur (1945- ), also edges into the fantastic (see again Doppelgangers).
Of more direct sf interest is The Infinities (2009), whose mathematician protagonist Adam Godley unlocks routes to Parallel Worlds in what is described as an infinite Multiverse; on one of these worlds, we eventually learn, the novel is actually set. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that gods are real in this world, and the Greek story of Amphitryon, whose wife Alcmene is seduced by Zeus in the likeness of her husband, unfolds on lines that may or may not double the original lost play of Sophocles; but certainly reflects Amphitryon (1807) by Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) which, by focusing on Alcmene's inability to distinguish between god and man in her bed, reinvokes Banville's reiterative obsession with problems of identity. Though Godley himself is now dead, his "Brahma theory" permeates – and shapes the multiple realities of – The Singularities (2022), where themes and figures from The Infinities and other earlier novels, including an iteration of the murderer in the Freddie Montgomery books, occupy variously married realities, from Prison to Multiverse-generated Near Future worlds marked by Technological transformations; this complex mosaic, interspersed by references to and echoes of William Shakespeare's The Tempest (performed 1611; 1623), can be understood as a summa and as an assertion of the power – given Godley's theory's creative interaction with the worlds it describes – of Story. A singleton with no reference to Quirke, The Secret Guests (2020) as by B W Black, is set in an Alternate History version of World War Two in which, against a fear of imminent Invasion, the princesses of the British royal family are sent to Ireland for safety. [JC]
William John Banville
born Wexford, Ireland: 8 December 1945
works (selected)
series
Revolutions
- Doctor Copernicus (London: Secker and Warburg, 1976) [Revolutions: hb/]
- Kepler (London: Secker and Warburg, 1981) [Revolutions: hb/]
- The Newton Letter: An Interlude (London: Secker and Warburg, 1982) [chap: Revolutions: hb/]
Freddie Montgomerie
- The Book of Evidence (London: Secker and Warburg, 1989) [Freddie Montgomerie: hb/Stephen Conroy]
- Ghosts (London: Secker and Warburg, 1993) [Freddie Montgomerie: hb/Stephen Conroy]
- Athena (London: Secker and Warburg, 1995) [Freddie Montgomerie: hb/Stephen Conroy]
Cleave
- Eclipse (London: Bridgewater Press, 2000) [Cleave: hb/nonpictorial]
- Shroud (London: Pan Macmillan/Picador, 2002) [Cleave: hb/Photonica]
- Ancient Light (London: Pan Macmillan/Picador, 2012) [Cleave: hb/David Creedon]
individual titles
- Mefisto (London: Secker and Warburg, 1986) [hb/]
- The Infinities (London: Pan Macmillan/Picador, 2009) [hb/from Pablo Picasso]
- The Secret Guests (London: Viking, 2020) as B W Black [hb/]
- The Singularities (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2022) [hb/Harry Brioche]
links
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