More on Max

[Shannon]

My favorite piece of this prose occurred early in the story when
Claire challenges her father by telling him that he lives in the
past:
..."She was right, after all. Life, authentic life, is supposed to be
all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its
blunt head against the world's wall, suchlike, but when I look back I
see the greater part of my energies was given over to the simple
search for shelter, for comfort, ...and for cosiness. Before, I saw
myself as something of a buccaneer, facing all-comers with a cutlass
in my teeth., but now I am compelled to acknowledge that this was a
delusion. To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever
truly wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower
there, hidden from the sky's indifferent gaze and the harsh air's
damagings. That is why the past is just a retreat for me. I go there
eagerly, rubbing my hands and shaking off the cold present and the
colder future. And yet what existence, really , does it have, the
past? After all, it is only what the present was, once, the present
that is gone, no more than that. And yet."
There is a vulnerability that occurs after the death of a loved
one.One feels open and wounded. I believe that the experience of loss/
death compells one to examine the past since you have been robbed of
the future at that point in your life. By such cautious examination,
we may come to know better who we really are, as human beings.

[Kerry]

What a fabulous last line in your excerpt, referring to the past:

"After all, it is only what the present was, once, the present
that is gone, no more than that. And yet."

That "and yet" is like a door opening, its a literary nod to all the
senseless emotionality of life. It's funny, I find Banville garrulous
and esoteric, his prose can be so so hard to swallow. 'And yet' he has
these moments that breathe fresh air into his otherwise stuffy
writing.

Anyone else having a hard time with Banville's voice?

[mslib]

"And yet" is a place where one can hide out in all sorts of
possibilities, regrets, wonderments, what ifs, simple escape, and even
tricky trappings. We can all identify. I marked that passage as being
outstanding, too!

While some of Banville’s vocabulary is beyond my intellectual
understanding and parts are colloquial in nature (you'd think I'd have
an advantage being married to an Englishman), I am savoring his
descriptions into the keen intimacies of Max Morden.

Some of my favorite descriptions are:

Page 27 The description of his parents swimming in soupy waters.
Mother wore a "mouse-pink crimplene swimsuit". Her face as "bare and
defenseless pinched in the tight rubber seal of her bathing cap".
Mother swam by "stretching out full length and walking along the sea-
floor on her hands". His father, "mechanical strokes, panting and
spitting, hair plastered, His hands were manacles of cold, pliant
iron. I feel even yet their violent grip. He was a violent man,
violent gestures, jokes, but timid, too…. No wonder he left us, had to
leave us…. "

I can feel how totally embarrassed Max is being caught here swimming
with his folks while Chloe and her brother watch from the water’s edge
– outside.

Here is a prediction as I am only halfway through the novel. Perhaps
Max’s father had to leave because of some terrible (deadly?)
involvement with the Graces. Perhaps Max, but more likely his father
or mother succumbs to an illicit affair with one of the seductive
Graces and mean old dad goes ballistic, but then runs away unable to
face the consequences of his actions?

Page 30 Max is an art expert. I truly enjoyed reading the description
of what Max does. He "doesn’t work". He "does more than dabble
though". He is "nothing if not a professional". He is "frenetically
energetic, in spasms", but also "free". "For real workers" (artists
and poets) "there is no finishing a work, only the abandoning of it.
The true workers all die in a fidget of frustration. So much to do,
and so much left undone"! How true.