The Sea (review)

Irish writer John Banville's newest novel, The Sea, was recently awarded the 2005 Man Booker Prize, for which his fantastic novel The Book of Evidence was shortlisted in 1989. The Sea is narrated by Max Morden, recently widowed art historian, who has traveled back to a place he calls Ballyless, a seaside village where he spent summers as a youth. Banville's last six novels all use the first person, and his various narrators are haunted by their pasts, though Max does not have truly dark secrets, as did the narrator of Banville's last book, Shroud.

The Sea is a book that requires, but rewards, patient reading. The plot is in a very minor key. The present narration of Max's return to the Cedars, now a bed and breakfast, once home of the Grace family, along with the narration of his life with his late wife, is one part of the story, and the distant past, one particular summer with the Graces, is the other part—and the bulk—of the novel. That long past involves a dark coming-of-age/love triangle that Banville reveals slowly. Max becomes enraptured with the Grace family, who are able to rent an actual house for the summer, as opposed to the "chalet" (a rustic cabin) that his family takes. Max is ashamed of his social place and longs to be a part of the Graces' world, and so he befriends them. When the Graces see him with his parents, he thinks, "Had it been in my power I would have cancelled my shaming parents on the spot, would have popped them like bubbles of sea spray, my fat little bare-faced mother and my father whose body might have been made of lard." He is at first taken with Mrs. Connie Grace, but later his attentions shift to Chloe, the daughter his own age. She is always accompanied by her twin brother, the mute "malignant sprite" Myles, and they are minded by Rose.

Max feels singled out by the gods when the Graces finally take him in. They are like the Greek mythology that he devours for its erotic stories as well as for its order—Max is one for social order. The gods also represent a childlike fantasy world: his bliss with his first love and her family, which is repeated in the future when he is accepted into the society of his wife, Anna, and her father. This, and their tragic endings, are what link the two narratives. The tragedy from his youth, though not explicitly foretold, is seen coming from a long way off. The intentional effect of so few things actually happening in the novel is that what does happen is thrown into great relief. The slightest touch has enormous resonance, and the climax of the novel is all the more striking.

The way the story is told does create some slight problems, however. Since Max knows certain things—for instance, that the Miss Vavasour he rents a room from in the old Grace house is really Rose—there is no reason why he ought not to tell us that. There are hints, yes, but the actual disclosure at the end feels a little like a trick. It's a small miscue in an otherwise wonderfully executed book.

Banville has become one of English literature's master stylists. Baroque, to say the least, he is able to balance long, suspended sentences with clarity and beauty. For instance, Max says of Chloe, "As I walked meekly behind her swaggering figure, my fond and fondly anguished gaze fixed on the blond comma of hair at the nape of her neck or the hairline cracks in the porcelain backs of her knees, I felt as if I were carrying within me a phial of the most precious and delicately combustible material." The depth of character explored in this book, the intricacies of Max's romantic obsessions and his nasty foibles, make The Sea a worthy accomplishment, if not Banville's highest achievement.