International   

Irish stylist springs Booker surprise

John Ezard

John Banville's novel "The Sea" takes the £50,000-prize in close race

LONDON: Veteran Irish stylist John Banville has brought off one of the biggest literary coups when he took the £50,000 Booker Prize from under the noses of the bookies and the literary insiders.

A 7-1 outsider in the betting odds and untipped by virtually any critic, his novel "The Sea" was declared victorious in a contest which the judges' chairman, John Sutherland, said had been ``painful'' in its closeness.

Mr. Banville triumphed when Professor Sutherland cast his chairman's vote in his favour. Until then, the judges were tied, with two backing Mr. Banville and two, it is understood, supporting the runner-up, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Mr. Banville's vindication at the age of 59 with his 14th novel is a victory of style over a melancholy content which makes his book one of the least commercial on the six-strong shortlist.

His protagonist, a querulous, hypersensitive, elderly art historian, loses his wife to cancer and feels compelled to revisit the seaside villa where he spent childhood holidays being alternately cosseted and bullied by a wealthier boy and girl.

His ambiguous relations with the children lead to sexual awakening but also to dire tragedy. The Guardian said of the author: ``Banville writes novels of complex patterning, with grace, precision and timing, and there are wonderful digressive meditations.'' Many critics hailed the book when it was published. Peter J Conradi, writing in the London-based Independent, praised Mr. Banville as ``a writer's writer, a new Henry Green, who can conjure with the poetry of people and places. He relishes language and wants it to work for him anew.''

Finn Fordham, reviewing the book for the Guardian, decided that though Mr. Banville was often described as a stylist, ``he is really more of a ventriloquist. A stylist produces a variety of voices and forms. Banville works within a narrower spectrum, bringing to life a series of monologues for inter-related and cadaverously fleshed-out dummies.''

While several others queued up to proclaim Mr. Banville the natural heir to Nabokov, the novelist Tibor Fischer stood aloof: ``You can sense the volumes of Joyce, Beckett and Nabokov on Banville's shelves,'' he wrote in the London Sunday Telegraph. ``There's a lot of lovely language but not much novel.'' —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Kadirgamar, "a true cosmopolitan in spirit"
E.U. backs plans for more aid, debt relief to Africa
Uphold SLFP principles, Chandrika tells Rajapakse
Irish stylist springs Booker surprise
China for socialist rural approach
Hobbit-like ancestors were cooks
Qatar donates stadium to Israel
Nepal King for elections in 2007
Danish Premier faces Iraqi suit
India obsessed with permanent seat in U.N. Security Council: N. Ram
Indians in PoK get helping hand
Musharraf thanks Manmohan

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu