Print

Mail

wiki links

Melancholy novel wins UK book prize in literary surprise

The veteran Irish stylist John Banville brought off one of the biggest literary coups on Monday night when he took the £50,000 (US$88,000) 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.

Banville triumphed when Sutherland cast his chairman's vote in his favor. Until then, the judges were tied, with two backing Banville and two, it is understood, supporting the runner-up, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

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 Sea when it was published. Peter Conradi, writing in the London-based Independent, praised 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 although 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 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."

The limelight cast on last night's verdict should, as in previous years, trigger a rush on bookshops which by Christmas will have added at least £600,000 and up to £1.8 million to the revenue of the six shortlisted titles.

To some booksellers this year's class has provided the most golden year. Roy Menear, Newcastle manager of Waterstone's bookshops said: "There isn't a book on the whole list that doesn't excite or interest me."

Also on the shortlist this year were: Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes; A Long Long Way, by Sebastian Barry; The Accidental, by Ali Smith; and On Beauty, by Zadie Smith.
This story has been viewed 1678 times.