Word: book
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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John Banville is a calculating craftsman. The Irish novelist’s 1998 “The Book of Evidence” was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and his 2005 novel “The Sea” won it. Critics have compared his dreamy, playful writing to that of Vladimir Nabokov and Virginia Woolf; Don DeLillo praised his work as “dangerous and clear-running...
...Infinities,” his twentieth novel, is somewhat disappointing, it should come as no surprise that Banville still chose the perfect title to describe his work. In this book, Banville smoothly brings together unbounded ideas and weaves them in mind-bending ways, much like a mathematician might with grand mathematical concepts. He opens new worlds and twists truths (if infinity encompasses everything, there can’t be more than one), but painted with such a broad brush, Banville’s novel comes across more theoretical than credible—an illusory exploration of reality and family...
...unfolding plot becomes more and more complex. Godley’s mathematical work deals with parallel universes—and it turns out that the entire book takes place in one. Sweden, we learn, is always on the warpath; Godley’s own fame comes from his success in cold fusion, a process which only works in his world. One begins to wonder at the potential truth of the grandiose statements that Adam turns over while lying in a coma. “My equations spanned a multitude of universes yet they posited a single world of unity...
This choice especially hinders the female characters of the book. Where Adam Godley’s thoughts, even in his coma, develop with nuance, the women of the book come across one-sided. Petra, Adam’s melancholy daughter, spends much of the book defined by her stone-like name; her mother rarely acts unless to pour herself a drink. This may be a reflection of the confined place of women within the Godley household. Women, it seems, didn’t have much place in Adam’s math-filled mind. “One I drove...
Such unconvincing renderings of human life permeate the book, and they ultimately thwart Banville’s loftier ideas. Where Banville’s concept of parallel universes is enticing, his portrayal of more-grounded daily actions are unsubstantial to the point where one wonders if one should trust him at all. Banville paints the heavenly realm with ease, but he describes sex as “a repeated toing and froing on the edge of a precipice beyond which can be glimpsed a dark-green distance in a reeking mist and something shining out at them, a pulsing point...