Closing Thoughts on Banville's The Sea

[Kate Tomkie]

Hey Everyone!

We just wrapped up another enlightening meeting of the Dublin Book Club. We devoted two hours to considering "The Sea" by John Banville. Here's what we discussed:

-Everyone had a moment in the text that stuck with them. A description, a character, a line. John loved the well-placed line "Honestly, this world..."

-We were endeared to the Colonel. We found him relatable and human, and Marta made the point that when his daughter missed dinner, it was one of the first times you could feel genuine empathy with one of the characters. Max's pain was real, but self-involved, and his selfish form of grief infected the rest of the story with an unlikable quality (perhaps an intentional part of the narrative).

-The Grace's story was colored by Max's memory of the twins' death and also by his grief for his wife Anna. He is an unreliable narrator, confusing memories as the past grows more distant. It makes us question the way the Grace family was in reality vs. the portrait Max paints by memory. 

-The three threads of Max's story: His distant past (Grace family), recent past (Anna) and present are each well developed. We debated how well Banville weaves these three stories together. He often shifts between the three in the same page, paragraph and even sentence.  His grief seems to trap him in a completive state between the three. 

-Banville's vocabulary is esoteric. He seems to be working hard to prove he's a smart, capable writer. He symbolises the gods (Zeus, Venus...) in the aptly named "Graces", but we question how well this works. Yes, they're the object of Max's idolatry, but is this really central to the plot? We think Banville's former life as a literary critic has left him with an over-calculated prose voice.

-We were left dissatisfied by the ending, though we liked that Max was saved from death in a way Anna and the twins were not. We were happy that this is the turn the novel took. However, we all agreed that the story lacked closure.

-We are all happy to have read Banville but are keen to pick up a happier book for September!

Share your thoughts and closing opinions below!