It took a while for the magic of this to work on me. Initially I thought Banville’s prose had the quality of bracken on a forest floor – the light picks out some beautiful tones and textures but there was a pervading sense of brittle lifelessness. I felt he wrote like someone who never leaves his study - or perhaps never leaves his head. But, then, all of a sudden, just before world war two arrives, it jumped into life and I very much doubt if I’ll read a more beautifully written novel this year.

It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. The narrator is just about as world weary and cynical as any voice in literature I’ve come across. The mood is very much autumnal. Banville has created a fictitious Anthony Blunt, one of the Cambridge spies, and told his story in the form of a memoir – what used to be called a roman-a-clef but now seems to be known as biographical fiction. I guess the first question one asks is why bother giving Blunt a fictitious name? It gives Banville licence to make things up – which means you end up more curious about Blunt than feeling secure he’s been explained to you. This was a little about annoying, as if I now have to read another book about him! At the same time Banville’s character is one of the most memorable and thought provoking I’ve encountered for ages. He's given us a brilliantly complex portrait of a man who defines many characteristics and contradictions of the age in which he lived.

The most fascinating thing about Banville’s Blunt is that there’s nothing passionate about his politics. He doesn’t at any point come across as a man driven by ideology. It’s more like being a spy for the communists is a thrilling dangerous game for him. And that the subterfuge fulfils a deep need of his nature. Blunt was also homosexual and the two “occupations” have many parallels – the need of a bogus convincing façade, the necessity of whispering, of being vigilant to your surroundings, of gravitating towards dark secret places, of carrying around the tension of imminent catastrophic betrayal at every moment. At the heart of this novel is a painting Blunt buys and loves as a young man. It’s believed to be a Poussin but has never been authenticated. The authenticity or not of this painting becomes more and more related to the authenticity of Blunt himself as the novel progresses – is there any connection between his inner and outer life? Does he even have an inner life? At times it seems not. He takes no interest in his children (I don’t think Anthony Blunt had a wife or children in real life); he is driven by lust not love; he is a snob; he notices surfaces, especially weather, but seems to have little empathy for people. His only true passion is for art, and particularly Poussin, who he writes about and becomes an expert on. So you have the sense that the only thing holding Blunt together is the hope that his painting is authentic. It’s an exciting moment in the novel when we find out if it’s authentic or not.

I'm afraid I'm on a John Banville bender and I will not stop until I've come a little bit closer to understanding how his prose is so relentlessly good.

Banville's story about the life and career of Victor Maskell, an English academic who, out of boredom and misplaced idealism, becomes a Russian spy in the 30s. He operates successfully until late in life. Eventually exposed and charged with treason when old, sick and dying, he recounts his life in a series of flashbacks. Banville is brilliant in conveying Maskell's vulnerability, self-deceptions, and pretensions. We watch as his life falls apart, and his smug assumptions prove irretrievably false.
Espionage books are often needlessly opaque, and despite the fact that Banville writes beautifully, I found that to be the case here. I was also put off by the seemingly endless debauchery and drinking; maybe they really lived that way but they must have had strong constitutions. Banville does capture detail, though, and paints a convincing picture of the ordinary, sordid life of the insignificant spy at the bottom of the food chain.

Ever heard of the Cambridge Spy Ring? (I assume that one's better known inside the borders of the UK)

The Untouchable is the memoirs of an ex-double agent, part of British upper class, and during university part of a raucous group of students. The focus of the novel is around that group - some of them are recruited to hand secrets to the Soviets during university since they're all young Marxists, and many of them stay spies (including the narrator), even after they're disenchanted with the Soviet Union. They're all British upper class so they all automatically have good careers - the narrator winds up being knighted, his biggest "interest" Nick becomes a minister.

A bit of Stoner (melancholic academia), a bit of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (spying without the action), a bit of The Naked Civil Servant (homosexual life in London of the 30s-50s), and a bit of "guess who this is supposed to be" (may require knowledge of (post-)wartime UK politics - I only recognised the easy ones: Turing, Thatcher, and the obvious royalty).

This is my second try with John Banville. Once again, he impresses me with his ability to write nearly perfect prose and characters who are as flesh and blood and flawed as any who ever breathed, while completely boring me. That's strike two, Mr. Banville, and two is all most authors get from me.

Banville is a serious Literary Dude, and this is a serious Literary Dude's novel. The Untouchable is written as a memoir by one Victor Maskell, who is based on real-life Cambridge spy Anthony Blunt; although this is a novel, it's only loosely fictionalized history. Maskell, as he tells his story, was, like Blunt, formerly the keeper of the British royal family's art collection, and has recently been exposed as a Soviet spy since before World War II. Maskell is also a homosexual, which plays a large part of his narrative - he describes his sexual encounters with the same precise elegant prose as he talks about watersheds in history and his role as a Soviet double-agent.

Everybody nowadays disparages the 1950s, saying what a dreary decade it was. And they are right, if you think of McCarthyism and Korea, the Hungarian rebellion, all that serious historical stuff. I expect, however, that it is not public but private affairs that people are complaining of. Quite simply, I think they did not get enough of sex. All that fumbling with corsetry and woolen undergarments and all those grim couplings in the back seats of motorcars. The complaints and tears and resentful silences, while the wireless crooned callously of everlasting love. Feh! What dinginess! What soul-sapping desperation! The best that could be hoped for was a shabby deal marked by the exchange of a cheap ring followed by a life of furtive relievings on one side and of ill-paid prostitution on the other.

Whereas, oh my friends, to be queer was the very bliss! The Fifties were the last grace age of queerdom. All the talk now is of freedom and pride. Pride! But these young hotheads in their pink bellbottoms, clamoring for the right to do it in the street if they feel like it, do not seem to appreciate, or at least seem to wish to deny, the aphrodisiac properties of secrecy and fear.

Maskell is wry, cynical, sometimes humorous, and a bit depressive, looking back on a career that's been generally distinguished while always overshadowed by these twin secrets: he has lived his entire life in two closets, as a homosexual and a double-agent. He has few regrets, and he seems as much amused as he is upset by his public disgrace, the shock of his friends, the shame of his family.

As brilliantly narrated as Maskell's story is, the problem is that it isn't much of a story. It's an old man reminiscing about being a young Marxist and a gay blade back when either one could get you hard prison time. There are no dramatic "spy" moments — even during World War II, he's just passing on not-very-important information to the Russians, until eventually he gets tired of the whole thing and rather anticlimactically (as much as a book that's had no suspense to begin with can have an anticlimax) drops out of the spy game. Then, years later, he's thrown under the bus by some of his former associates. (Figuratively, not literally; if anyone were actually thrown under a bus in this book, it would have been more exciting.)

Most excellently written? Yes. Banville wins literary prizes — go John Banville. Did I care about Victor Maskell and his whiny, cynical, misogynistic moping after decades of being a Soviet spy? Noooo. If you have a real interest in this era, particularly with a realistically (if not particularly sympathetically) depicted gay character, then you probably won't regret reading this, but don't make the mistake of thinking that because it's about spies it's thrilling.

A book I’d like to erase from my mind to be able to experience it all over again.

As an espionage thriller it has the mood and tawdry realism of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. But (with the greatest love and admiration for early John le Carré) this is much more than a genre novel.

I’ve seen Banville compared to Vladimir Nabokov and on the evidence of The Untouchable the comparison is not overblown. In fact I’d go as far as to submit that this as good as Lolita in the way it uses a heinous crime (treason) as the vehicle for exploring societal hypocrisy and male vanity, insecurity, regret and frustrated ambition whilst simultaneously rendering the crime itself morally ambiguous and almost incidental. Like Nabokov’s Humbert, Banville’s Victor Maskell is a vain, cynical, self-pitying, predatory old failure who you cannot help but sympathise with and ultimately root for.

There are also worthy comparisons to be made with Brideshead Revisited, particularly in the way Banville balances a deeply sad human story of infatuation and lost innocence with an epic social history of England in the first half of the twentieth century.

Banville is an Irish literary writer and I suppose it is therefore obligatory that the book includes a few forays into Ireland and what it means to be Irish. The answer in the context of this novel is “not a lot” and the only parts that feel contrived and slightly half-arsed are those in which Maskell speculates that his Irish origins are somehow linked to his confused feelings towards England. You reckon?

The scenes in which Maskell visits his family are among the most moving in the book but they would have worked equally well set on the South coast of England (where Anthony Blunt, on whom Maskell is based, was actually from) as in Ireland. The Irish angle is the one part of Maskell that departs substantially from the real life of Anthony Blunt and it appears to be for no good reason other than that Banville is Irish.

But this really is nitpicking. This is a brilliant book by, for my money, an exceptionally good writer and you can't make straight-faced comparisons with the likes of Nabokov and Waugh and award anything less than five stars.

Erg moeilijk boek om te beoordelen, want John Banville is zonder twijfel een Grote schrijver, en Grote schrijvers beoordeel je niet met 2 sterren. Daarvoor zijn de boeken nu eenmaal te goed geschreven.

Maar toch.
Het lijkt niet te klikken tussen John Banville en mij. Ook The Sea kon me zoveel jaren terug niet echt bekoren. Ik stak het daarna op mijn jeugdige onwetendheid op dat moment, want ik blijk geen probleem te hebben met boeken met weinig plot, integendeel. Ik was dus blij om John Banville nog eens een herkansing te mogen geven. Helaas was dit opnieuw een boek waar ik me doorheen heb moeten sleuren.

Er zijn uiteraard twee verzachtende omstandigheden waar Banville niets aan kan doen.

Enerzijds is er het coronagedoe waardoor ik veel minder tijd heb om te lezen. Dit is geen boek om te combineren met voltijds thuiswerk, thuisopvang met 2 kinderen en af en toe een pagina lezen op een gestolen moment. Maar toch merkte ik al vrij snel dat de zin om te lezen totaal niet opgewekt werd door dit boek, en dat is niet de schuld van het coronagedoe.

Anderzijds is er het feit dat ik niets ken van de Cambridge Spies. Ik heb de moeite gedaan om de Wikipedia-pagina te lezen, maar uiteindelijk schiet een mens daar niet veel mee op.
Ik vermoed dat dit boek maar écht interessant is als je wat afweet over de Cambridge Spies. Als je de sleutelroman kan doorgronden, kan meedoen met het intellectuele spel van deze roman, en volop kan genieten van de prachtige taal.
Als dat niet het geval is, dan moet je deze roman beoordelen op wat er overschiet. Er gebeurt bijna niets (enkel het einde heeft me nog doen twijfelen toch naar drie sterren te gaan), het hoofdpersonage is niet sympathiek (of uitgesproken antipathiek) genoeg om dat te verantwoorden, en ik heb geen idee wat John Banville nu eigenlijk wou vertellen met dit verhaal.

Maar hey, er staan nog 3 boeken van Banville op de 1001 boekenlijst, hij krijgt nog een aantal herkansingen van mij. Hopelijk in betere tijden dan deze.

Read because Yanagihara praised it in a recent Guardian interview; a fictionalized account from the 1st person of one of the Cambridge spies — in this case a Protestant Irish immigrant who became a comfortable member of the upper class in London, a curator of the royal art collection and a major art historian, specialist in Poussin (one of whose pictures, The Death of Seneca, he keeps at home, though it seems to be fake). This a long story of his movement in various circles, the glimpses of the Spanish war, their sudden evacuation from France when the Germans invade, his one and only bizarre trip to Russia; his homosexuality ('queerness', he would have said) and so on. I wouldn't say that it reads compulsively, but it's not bad at all.

As readers we have all experienced or come across books that either make a siren call to us, which we can’t ignore, or speak to us in a way that makes us drown within its pages, or even sing to us, a beautiful melody that soothes our spirit and enthralls us in a way nothing else does. This book had a combination of all those whilst also painting vivid pictures that would definitely give artists around the world a run for their money. Honestly, I am not exaggerating when I say this, as it was my own personal experience.

The Untouchable by John Banville is a Roman à clef that is written from the point of view of Victor Maskell, an exemplary art historian, a Queen’s man, a double agent and a homosexual, whose character is loosely based on Anthony Blunt, a Cambridge spy. Narrated by Maskell, this book is part memoir and part confession, taking us to that period in England where the educated often amused themselves with espionage and the erudite were often vociferous supporters of Marxism, where to drink and debate passionately on all topics was considered the fashion, where homosexuality was considered a crime and worse a thing of shame. Those were the days when the youth rebelled at everything and experienced a certain amusement from it, for all their rebellions were not really because they believed in the cause but was more because it amused them. Everything of that period amused them, at least that’s what one gets from reading this book. Be it political affiliation, sexual orientation, criminal dealings, cheating, betrayal, love, friendship, just about everything was a matter of amusement and thrown about to suit their present needs, changed to fit their goals and ambitions, never giving thought to the other. We can call it a callous world, cynical and selfish times, we can even go further and look at those times with the disdain that is prevalent today but what we can’t do is to ignore it. Oh no, it is a world and time that we can never ignore, it is a time and world that is exciting even to those who disdain it, it is a time that may have perhaps been the originator of the rebel movement, an exciting time when the world was fraught with war and history that one has to acknowledge it and maybe salute those who lived in those perilous times and survived.

The book begins with Maskell, a former British spy, being uncovered as a double agent working for Russia during WWII. Facing disgrace for his double role as well as for his sexual orientation, Maskell is going through intense criticism from the community, which is both angry and disgusted with the lies, and which has resulted in the taking away of his Knighthood and also his removal from the position of Director. Under these circumstances, it is obvious that Maskell is beseeched by the press for an illumination on his exact role. While he mostly remains silent, he does get intrigued by a young woman who comes across to him as not belonging to this sect. Being so intrigued, he does accept her request for a private meeting, where he learns that she wants to write a book on him. What then began as an amusing game of cat and mouse between the young lady and Maskell, where Maskell believes that he is simply stringing her along, turns into a confession of sorts, written by him as a memoir, deeply affected by his own mortality.

Maskell, perhaps feeling a need to cleanse his soul, or maybe with a need to shock the young lady, or even for reasons that could be as simple as being bored of all the secrecy and limitations, gives forth an account that is as thrilling as any book on espionage written by the masters of that genre. Banville brings alive those times in Cambridge, where there was no thought or concern about right or wrong but life was all about living on the edge and indulging in the pleasures as if there was no tomorrow.

While the book is based on the story of the real life Cambridge Spies, it is a fictional account, where Banville takes the advantage of bringing in various tropes to suit the mood and create a flavor that is bursting with uniqueness whilst also being familiar. With Maskell’s Irish roots, Rothstein and Nick’s Jewish ones, Boy’s boisterous nature and open admission of homosexuality, Banville covers a wide range of subjects, prejudices, ideologies and a whole lot of history in a manner that is exciting, thrilling and vivid.

The beauty of this book lies not in the subject or the tale, although it does play an important role; but in its language. Banville brings to life the characters, their individual and collective nature; the often grimy and often sordid nature of the times; the beauty of the surroundings, even when it is bleak and grim; the duplicity of espionage, the threats, the fears and the excitement; and finally the subject of sexual orientation, where disease and coming out were only fears that lurked below the surface. Banville brings to life the debauchery, the heartless and often cruel relationships that were maintained, and the ennui that most inhabitants felt, which led to dangerous pastimes. Using dark humour as a tool, Banville creates a story of espionage that throws light on everything from moral complexities in society to individual cynicism, attitudes and vanity, giving the reader a few laugh out loud moments whilst also making them experience a whole host of other emotions. What makes this even more special is the fact that nowhere does the pace flag or the story less suspenseful, although I have to say that I did guess correctly in the beginning but was kept on my proverbial toes by giving way to constant doubts, making it in short, a wonderful suspense thriller.

Characters are the main crux of this story, where you can actually say that this narration is character driven as opposed to being plot driven. When a lot depends on the characters, it is often difficult to maintain consistent growth or deterioration of the various characters that play a part in the story. Here Banville shows his mastery by ensuring that every character, even the smallest of them, is developed beautifully. While all the characters are seen through the eyes of the narrator, Maskell, they are so vivid in their description and portrayal that they actually come alive. I can safely say that I lived this book instead of merely reading it. Boy, Nick, Leo, Maskell, Vivienne, Querrel, Serena, Danny and the myriad others weren’t just names that I read but people I came to know and either liked or disliked, depending on their actions or words. You laugh with them, you feel their pain, you get angry and you feel proud; these characters weren’t mere characters to me but my friends and my enemies, such was their portrayal. The best part of the characters was that most of them were depictions of real life people, given that this fictional tale had a founding in reality. Trying to match the fictional with the real was a fun game that I had going while reading this book, making it a fun read.

As with the broad outline of the story, the author has also stayed true to the various historical references that are given, which again added a special flavor. A book which doesn’t limit its scope to itself but actually makes you want to read more and learn more is a good book in my mind, which this did, making it a real pleasure to read. Given that this book has adventure, suspense, history and covers a wide range of topics, I don’t think I need to say anything more but to say that give this one a try and you might be surprised at what you find.

"Недосегаемият" е от онези книги, които те поглъщат, не искаш да свършват и за които благородно завиждаш на онези, които са в началото на удоволствието. Книга, след която се страхуваш да започнеш друга, за да не налетиш на подобие на литература.
Трябва да се чете бавно, за да бъде по-дълга насладата от интересните, пълнокръвни образи, от езика и стила на писане, хумора и иронията, които Банвил ни поднася. Омесва банални, преексплоатирани теми като война, двойни агенти, английска аристокрация, нестандартни любови, алкохол и бохемски оргии в наръчник по майсторско писане.
Иглика Василева е очаквано перфектна в превода.

This Roman à clef was published in 1997. 'The Untouchable' is based on the life of Anthony Blunt the knighted curator of the Queen's collection, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art who admitted in 1979 that he had been a soviet spy for decades. The story revolves around the infamous Cambridge ring of spies.

Anthony Blunt becomes Victor Maskell. Guy Burgess becomes Boy Bannister a promiscuous homosexual and flamboyant drinker. Another interesting addition is Querrell , the Roman Catholic novelist who Banville describes as having a "fishy look" who spends his time at parties "leaning with his back against the wall, diabolical trickles of smoke issuing from the corners of his mouth, watching and listening": "He was genuinely curious about people - the sure mark of the second-rate novelist."
It has been suggested that Querrell is modeled on Graham Greene. Indeed Banville had a bone to pick with Graham Greene as he tried to stop Banville from being awarded the Guiness Peat Aviation 1989 literary prize for his seminal work 'The Book of Evidence'. The majority of judges had chosen Banville for the prize but Graham Greene indicated that he wanted another author to win so a compromise was made that was known to Banville. Greene died in 1991 so I'm not sure what is to be gained by this portrayal but it was obviously on his mind for quite some time. Maskell's best friend is the beautiful Nick Brevoort who transforms into a fat Tory Cabinet minister. Victor chooses Nick's sister Baby as a wife and second choice to her brother and she proves to be arch, sophisticated and vulnerable.

When we start the book he is an old man who has just been exposed and judged. Serena Vandeleur seeks him out to write his biography and this is the device that spurs Victor to tell his story. She asks 'Why did you do it?" This is really the singular concern of the book. The book is marked by duplicity. Victor Maskell the married homosexual, the royalist who is a soviet spy, the Anglo Irish gentleman, art reflecting life as a copy. In his novels Banville likes to explore identity and the man in the mirror. His books have the common themes of the unreliable narrator, the purveyor of art, the secret life or family shame exposed. There are so many masks and divided selves in this work. “I shall strip away layer after layer of grime -- the toffee-colored varnish and caked soot left by a lifetime of dissembling -- until I come to the very thing itself and know it for what it is. My soul. My self.”

As a portrait of a life albeit a duplicate of an inauthentic life I found it delved deep but the many selves jarred a little. If you like John Le Carre this may be an interesting departure for you. As always the characterisation and plot take a back seat. The stunning sentences, the verbose style and the underwater currents of meaning and metaphor flow at once.

Where to start...I love Banville's writing. I don't know much about spies or WWII but understanding that part of it didn't seem terribly important to me. It's his prose. Yes. Lots of words to look up if you need to but context worked fine for me. I dog-eared many pages and underlined favorite descriptions throughout...especially those of people. A favorite:
"Without warning the door flew open and Mrs. Brevoort stood there in her Sarah Bernhardt pose, a hand on the knob and her head thrown back, her bared embonpoint pallidy aheave....She was wearing a tasseled shawl affair and a voluminous velvet dress the color of old blood, and both arms were busy almost to the elbows with fine gold bangles, like a set of springs which suggested the circus ring more than the seraglio...She advanced, moving as always as if mounted on a hidden trolley, and grasped me by the shoulders and kissed me dramatically on both cheeks then thrust me from her and held me at arm's length and gazed at me for a long moment with an expression of tragic weight, slowly nodding her great head."
and on p 343 about art (his obsession with Poussin a key factor)
referring to critics "...who spent their energies searching for the meaning of his work..The fact, of course, is that there is no meaning. Significance, yes; affects; authority, mystery - magic, if you wish - but no meaning. The figures...are not pointing to some fatuous parable about mortality and the soul and salvation; they simple are. Their meaning is that they are there. This is the fundamental fact of artistic creation, the putting in place of something where otherwise there would be nothing. "
So much to think about in his writing.