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the complete review - fiction

The Infinities

by
John Banville

[an overview of the reviews and critical reactions]

general information | review summaries | links | about the author

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Why we haven't reviewed it yet:
Don't have a copy yet (not available in US until 2/2010)


Chances that we will review it:
Practically certain -- sounds like something we'd like

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  Review Consensus:

  Mixed -- though practically everyone thinks Banville had a good time with it

  From the Reviews:

• "Banville is once more circling around grief and mortality, but this time in a suspended manner that better matches his tendency to forego action for reflection (.....) This will not be to the taste of those who read novels for the drama and drive of relationships; the dialogue in The Infinities, stretched out over the knobbles of observed detail, can lose tension. But the somewhat chilly, lacquered quality to Banville’s recent fiction -- mainly due to the choice of narrator -- is here dissolved by the playfulness of Hermes, unable to understand human love but utterly entranced by it; as he is by death, for these gods desire mortality." - Adam Thorpe, Financial Times
  
  
• "(S)erves as a kind of catalogue of his favourite themes and props. (...) This elaborate intellectual structure rests on skimpy dramatic foundations, however, and the book only really sparks into life when old Adam is recounting his memories. (...) Banville has shown before that a heavy gloss of style doesn't have to rule out artistic restraint and some resemblance to a speaking voice, but, sad to say, he doesn't do so here." - Christopher Tayler, The Guardian
  
  
• "The Infinities is played out as a kind of celestial-cum-earthly comedy, with unsettling undertones. (...) The interwoven texture of the novel, and its unimpeachable poise, are what gives point to its randomness of incident." - Patricia Craig, The Independent
  
  
• "While at the heart of the book lies death, shrouded in some exquisitely cast sentences and myriad cultural references, this novel also has a levity, even comedy." - Joy Lo Dico, Independent on Sunday
  
  
• "Yet it is no accident that his central character is a man who has devoted his life to scrutinising the meaninglessness of such divisions: loss, we understand, is with us whether or not it has actually happened. The success of this novel -- at an emotional level, at least -- is to make us curiously optimistic to have got to the bottom of that one." - Alex Clark, New Statesman
  
  
• "By rights The Infinities should be rather a hermetic exercise (though that word derives from a different god), but this is where the uncertain boundaries of John Banville's book pay such dividends, giving the sense of a fringed curtain blowing lazily back and forward between this world and ours, a movement like the book's breathing." - Adam Mars-Jones, The Observer
  
  
• "John Banville’s intriguing new novel aims to resemble a classical drama. (...) The reader can, however, feel forced into acknowledging portentous -- significance that doesn’t seem to have been fully earned. (...) But there is, nevertheless, some superb writing scattered throughout the book." - Tom Deveson, Sunday Times
  
  
• "The Infinities is a Beethoven string quartet of a novel. It deals with huge ideas -- plenty of them -- and in doing so, breaks new ground in its own medium. It obeys the laws of classical elegance, with its movement from dawn into darkness, with its three parts and its nods to the poetic guidance of Aristotle; and its language as harmonious, with a balancing of all the senses." - Tom Payne, The Telegraph
  
  
• "(S)o deliciously dotty that, if it had been a first novel, it would never have found a publisher. (...) (S)uch is the exuberance of the writing that the novel does not feel like a hotch-potch. As Banville develops his barmy mix’n’match tale, a good deal of his pleasure in creation communicates itself to the reader." - David Robson, The Telegraph
  
  
• "The Infinities is not, for the most part, either a kindly or a happy novel. With insouciant omnipotence, it bestows upon each of its characters an approximation of a happy ending. It is, however, often a funny book -- and one written in such saturatedly beautiful, luminous prose that every page delights, startles and uplifts." - Matthew Dennison, The Times
  
  
• "John Banville's latest novel is good fun, to say the least, although it can sometimes feel as if he's the one having most of it. (...) Banville has already played this game with considerably better luck elsewhere. (...) The Infinities is certainly something new. Whether it's a direction worth following remains unclear." - Giles Harvey, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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Links:

• Random House publicity page
• Profile in The Australian
• Q & A at the Financial Times

• Bloomberg
• The Bookbag.co.uk
• A Common Reader...
• Daily Mail
• Edinburgh Evening News
• Financial Times
• The Guardian
• The Independent
• Independent on Sunday
• Irish Times
• Life on my Planet
• Marie Claire
• Metro
• New Statesman
• The Observer
• Sunday Times
• The Telegraph
• The Telegraph
• The Times
• Wading Through Treacle

• John Banville at Contemporary Writers
• The Lost Ones by Roger Boylan in the Boston Review
• Interview at The Elegant Variation
• Brief biography at Irish Writers Online
• John Banville at The Scriptorium (The Modern Word)

• Eclipse
• The Sea
• Shroud

• See Index of Irish literature at the complete review
• See Index of contemporary British fiction

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About the Author:

       Irish author John Banville was born in 1945. He has written a number of highly acclaimed novels.

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© 2009 the complete review

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