When art historian Max returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. This is a story of grief, memory, childhood, love and loss.
Comments:
- This is well written, with plenty of description, though perhaps too much for me.
- The author’s descriptive prose, whether of people or places, is something to savour.
- I enjoyed the book and liked the author’s writing style.
- Another Irish depressive novel . . .
- I had to Google a lot of words (or skip them) as they were new to me.
- This isn’t a book I’d re-read or recommend to a friend.
- I didn’t like the central character; he’s self-centred and has a difficult relationship with his daughter.
- I’ve only got halfway through; I’m really ploughing my way . . .
- I was disappointed by the ending, and when I did reach the end, I thought “What was that all about?” What was the narrator trying to achieve by going back?
- As to the novel, somehow, I didn't fully engage until towards the end.
Very well written. - I found the book quite slow to read, partly because it meanders through the narrative, and often doesn’t seem to go anywhere. The lack of chapters and natural breaks meant I had to create my own pauses frequently to have the energy to get to the end. I didn’t like to skip anything in case it was important to the ‘story’.
- One of the problems I have with the book is that I found the characterisations very superficial and decided fairly early on that I didn’t like the narrator, Max, (which it turns out wasn’t his real name). A lot of the characters were hiding their true identities, or seemed to be, which made it difficult to identify with them.
- The author evoked the atmosphere of the seaside very well and the rather faded boarding house where he goes to grieve? to relive his lost youth? to make sense of his life?
- Eventually I found the introspection irritating and decided that it’s not a book I would recommend. It certainly didn’t evoke grieving to me. (Except for the hours lost reading it).
- I thought John Banville's writing was beautiful and created a strong sense of disturbing and slightly sinister darkness.
- Myles’ webbed toes gave a sense of evil.
- The way he switched seamlessly between memories of the distant and more recent past emphasised an impression of the unreliability of memory.
- There is a film version which I thought created the atmosphere well, although there are large chunks of the story missing.
- I enjoyed The Sea and would read another of his books.
- I have been unable to finish reading it. It is most unusual for me to give up on a book, but this one has defeated me.
Marks out of ten: 5.5, 6, 8, 7, 7.