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.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was