I've got to really think before I do a review on this one and so will come back to it at a later time.

The first fifteen pages were awful--all first person narrative with a seemingly infinite supply of sentence fragments (get it? Because, like, people who aren't novelists can't write in full sentences?) Then it got really, really good for 50 pages. Then I realized that this book, ostensibly an interesting spy story, is in fact sub-standard Henry James narrated by a cynical aesthete who doesn't really believe that art can do anything for anyone. At that point I stopped caring, and read on only because every time I was going to stop something interesting would happen. Then there'd be a death in the family, or a divorce, or some mindless (sorry, I mean 'transcendent') fucking, and I'd be bored for another 80 pages.

In short, I should have started reading Le Carre instead, as many of my friends keep telling me to. Banville has his strengths, but, charming prose aside, they're not the strengths I'm particularly interested in: minute observation of concrete objects, interesting descriptive similes. But considering his theme, you'd think there'd be something gripping in here about politics or art (i.e., things in which I am particularly interested). There is not. The first person narration falls into the same trap that all first person narration falls into (it's virtually impossible to read ironically); and Banville seems to believe that his readers will automatically assume that spies must be horrific human beings who don't deserve anything other than a public execution. True, Victor Maskell is a horrific human being who deserves only a public execution, but that's because--if his narrative is to be believed--he can't think about anything other than his penis and the olfactory effects of gin, not because he was a luke-warm socialist.

DNF at 28%.

One does not wade into Banville territory expecting nonstop fistfights and explosions; his particular genius is in rendering times and places past. Maybe, in less pressed circumstances, I would have continued this one, but when I'd been reading it for days and discovered that I wasn't even a third of the way through, I decided to put this on hold. It wasn't really grabbing me.

banville’s prose is really beautiful and artistic, but my overall opinion on the book is biased because i took wayyyy too long to finish it which is probably mostly my bad… but it definitely dragged on and felt too pretentiously slow in many parts.

Banville tiene un gran talento con la palabra escrita: es estricto y meticuloso con cada frase. Este libro es un ejercicio juicioso al detalle del contexto inglés en el turbulento comienzo y mitad del siglo XX. A pesar de su talento, no conecté mucho con la historia: ya sea porque empecé el libro a finales de año; o por su minucioso detalle al momento, a veces sin mucha relevancia, solo contándolo porque sí. Debo resaltar el excelente trabajo del traductor para la edición de Alfaguara, quién detalla y explica en cada pie de página las referencias culturales ocultas en la narración y que, de no ser así, un lector como yo, completamente ajeno al contexto, dejaría pasar por alto.

Well, I have finally read a Banville novel, and it did not disappoint. The complexity of the language was exquisite, his philosophical musing on love, relationships, friendship, social structure and the need for Stoicism in our lives was interesting, to say the least.
He spent the whole novel referencing his beloved "Death of Seneca" by Poussin, I wasn't sure if this was simply a literary device to keep referencing stoicism, since Seneca was one of the great stoic philosophers, but Banville skillfully managed to turn a simple tale of espionage into a literary masterpiece.
I did find some of the descriptive language tiresome, simply because, at times there was just too much of it (for my liking anyway), I am sure many people would enjoy languishing these parts, but I found that they distracted me from the narrative. Still a very beautiful piece of writing.

4* The Book of Evidence
4* O mar
2* Ancient Light (The Cleave Trilogy #3)
2*Bowen and Betjeman
4* Kepler (The Revolutions Trilogy #2)
4* The Untouchable
TR Shroud (The Cleave Trilogy #2)
TR Mrs Osmond
TR Athena (The Freddie Montgomery Trilogy #3)
TR The Blue Guitar
TR Imagens de Praga
TR Doctor Copernicus (The Revolutions Trilogy #1)
TR The Newton Letter (The Revolutions Trilogy #3)

John Banville has such a refined mind and writes with such elegance that I just love reading such exquisite prose, and often pause to re-read whole sections of his work as there are such wonderful phases and so many subtle nuances. A wonderful writer.

And, by the way, this is not simply another novel about the appeasers and the post-war world where gradually the 'Cambridge Spies' were uncovered, one by one. The narrator is surely based on Anthony Blunt and so one thread running through the work is concealment, and how we never really know the people with whom we are even closely acquainted.

“ There was a beat of silence and the atmosphere thickened briefly. I glanced from one of them to the other, seeming to detect an invisible something passing between them, not so much a signal as a sort of silent token, like one of those almost impalpable acknowledgements that adulterers exchange when they are in company. The phenomenon was strange to me still but would become increasingly familiar the deep I penetrated into the secret world. ”

Trusted by Royalty and the Secret Service, and firmly embedded in the Establishment, our narrator's faith in the tenets of Marxism is never shaken despite the worst revelations of Stalinist purges and 'show trials'. Banville's alter ego, Miss Vandeleur, asks the question why Victor Maskell, who seems so passive and accepting, would risk everything and everyone to serve the Marxist cause,

" I knew what was going on; I knew I was being recruited. It was exciting and alarming and slightly ludicrous .... and it was amusing. The word no longer carries the weight that did for us. Amusement was not amusement, (per se) but a test of the authenticity of a thing, a verification of its worth. The most serious matters amused us.”

So, gradually, we learn from Victor Maskell why he chose the path of betrayal,

" Miss Vandeleur asked me why I became a spy and I answered, before I have given myself time to think, that it was essentially a frivolous impulse: a flight from ennui and the search for diversion. The life of action, heedless, mind numbing action, that is what I had always hankered after. "


And Banville's 'Boy' Bannister, the promiscuous homosexual, and thrill seeking flamboyant drinker, certainly modelled on Guy Burgess, is another character with privileged position but an appalling sense of entitlement and no fear of public disclosure. Both felt 'untouchable'.

“ Boy adored the trappings of the secret world, the code names and letter-drops and the rest. Brought up on Buchan and Henty, he saw his life in the lurid terms of an old- fashioned thriller and himself dashing through the preposterous plot, heedless of all perils. In this fantasy he was always the hero, of course, never the villain in the pay of a foreign power. ”

Love the honesty of the writing and the way Banville goes about the task of revealing Victor Maskell and quite unashamedly the author reveals his true nature and showing him acquiring self knowledge if not self loathing. Maskell realises that he has always been heartless and so feels no remorse about the things he has done. Betrayal is a concept he does not know as he has never grown sufficiently close to anyone or anything. He is a passive voyeur of life. Leaving his brother Freddie at the sanatorium was a poignant episode that is indelibly drawn.

"What is it I ask myself, what is it that everyone knows, that I do not know"

Meh, started this cuz I wanted to read something that didn't remind me of my current life situation at ALL. And then ironically the book turns out to be about a Russia scandal.... LOL

Wouldn't recommend. Couldn't tell the characters apart, couldn't really follow the plot, the writing was "good" but not really my style and I got really tired of it halfway through. Laughably bad sex scenes.

Há muito eu tinha curiosidade sobre o duplo espião britânico, Anthony Blunt. Conheci-o como historiador da arte especializado na pintura européia do século XVIII; diretor de um dos mais sérios centros de pesquisa da arte, Courtauld Institute of Art. Mas antes mesmo de eu me formar em história da arte, o escândalo no qual ele foi figura central -- agente duplo do serviço secreto britânico MI5 para a Inglaterra e agente para a União Soviética dos anos 30 ao início dos anos 50, membro do chamado Cinco de Cambridge [Cambridge Five] ainda era debatido e questionado. Nada poderia ter surpreendido mais o mundo dos museus e da pesquisa acadêmica do que a descoberta de que o pacato mundo das bibliotecas e dos porões de museus poderiam ter servido de disfarce para tal profissão. A partir de 1979 Anthony Blunt passou a ter uma nuvem de mistério a sua volta. Como? Porque? Não que a vida particular de qualquer historiador de arte seja de interesse público mas espionagem era algo completamente fora da norma. E vez por outra, na atividade comum de perda de tempo à volta de uma mesa de bar, nós, estudantes de pós-graduação tentávamos imaginar como uma pessoa de tamanho porte acadêmico, tão chegada à Rainha da Inglaterra, poderia ter se imiscuído na espionagem e contra-espionagem?

John Banville responde a todas essas questões e a muitas outras nesse romance biográfico baseado na vida de Anthony Blunt, retratado sob o pseudônimo de Victor Maskell. Fazem parte do enredo também Guy Burgess e Donald Maclean, (todos com pseudônimos) do grupo 'Espiões de Cambridge'. Banville preenche lacunas e satisfaz nossas dúvidas. Este é o estudo profundo de uma personalidade. Talvez um dos personagens mais tridimensionais da literatura atual. É vívido. Parece real. A história é sedutora e Banville nunca deixa de entreter e acima de tudo de mostrar a pessoa complexa e coerente do homem e do espião, dentro dos parâmetros sociais e de época.

Mas, parafraseando Tom Jobim, “A Inglaterra não é para principiantes”. Para uma compreensão mais apurada do texto, um bom conhecimento das nuances da sociedade inglesa certamente ajudará na leitura; uma boa dose da história do enlace das classes altas inglesas com a política nazista, também. Por fim, um conhecimento superficial, mas coerente do estoicismo e da posição ética de Sêneca podem ajudar a entender a percepção que Banville tem de Blunt. Será interessante lembrar também os preconceitos da sociedade, numa época anterior à Segunda Guerra Mundial – homossexualismo, conflito de classes, a questão irlandesa -- tudo isso adicionará uma pitada de interesse. E o mundo da década de 30 estava enamorado do socialismo, ato que justificou ditaduras de direita e de esquerda do período: Itália (Mussolini), Espanha (Franco),Portugal ( Salazar), Nicarágua (Somoza), Brasil (Vargas), Grécia (Metaxas), Cuba (Batista), Rússia (Stalin), sem mencionar a Alemanha de Hitler. Fica evidente através do texto que Anthony Blunt não se sentia parte nem da sociedade inglesa, nem de nenhuma outra. Era um verdadeiro estranho no ninho: irlandês, pobre mas com nome de família – primo distante da rainha -- homossexual, com acesso ilimitado à corte – não é de surpreender, portanto, seu solipsismo, sua visão única do mundo como uma projeção de suas próprias fantasias. A tendência seria desgostar dessa personalidade dúbia, inconseqüente, com uma atitude tão blasé em relação à vida, como Anthony Blunt é retratado. Mas, pelo contrário, talvez porque a narrativa seja na primeira pessoa, talvez porque estamos rodeados dos detalhes que fazem o personagem crível, ficamos com a justa dimensão de um homem de grande conhecimento. John Banville não o retrata menor do que era.

No entanto, há sempre, e aí está parte do charme deste romance de suspense, a dúvida: será que Victor Maskell está nos dizendo tudo o que sabe? Há algum motivo para acreditarmos na realidade que ele nos descreve? Espião, agente duplamente inconfiável, Victor Maskell [será que o nome vem de Mask, máscara?] é o anti-herói por excelência, figura trágica, cuja vida é passada em pequenos compartimentos e se equilibra, desde os primeiros dias da juventude entre mostrar e viver o que não é: da vida de espionagem à vida sexual.

Como um mestre John Banville também brinca com o leitor ao desenvolver como tema o amor que Maskell tem por um quadro de Poussin: A Morte de Sêneca [fictício]. E dúvidas quanto à sua autenticação só intensificam o eco das perguntas que fazemos sobre a narrativa, é verdadeira ou falsa? O pintor francês do século XVII Nicolas Poussin foi de fato objeto de estudo de Anthony Blunt como historiador da arte. Mas, a presença de um quadro inexistente, cuja autenticação depende de Maskell é um paralelo magistral ao jogo de espelhos que a vida do espião reflete. Victor Maskell assim como Anthony Blunt, têm o fim que merecem: são traídos. Um pouco de justiça poética arrematando uma vida de fantasias.

I am more than halfway through and have pretty much lost interest as the narrator becomes more unlikeable, the prose less interesting, and the plot more plot-like. Do I plod through to the end?

.......


I've given up. I liked the first 3rd of it very much. I liked it much less by midpoint and beyond...

This is the fourth Banville novel I've read this month. It shows the attentiveness to history evident in COPERNICUS and KEPLER, and its narrator Victor Mask ell shares characteristics with that of THE SEA. THE UNTOUCHABLE fictionalizes the British spy ring in which Anthony Blunt, the art historian and Royal appointee was the "fourth man," unmasked for years after the defection of Donald McLean ("the dour Scot") and Guy Burgess ('Boy") with the aid of Kim Philby (Nick, the MP; Querell, the Le Carre-like novelist?).

Narrated by Maskell, the style is an effective combination of aesthetic observation and British slang, fitting the movement between the public lavatories and the art institute in which he resided. The doubling of selves in Maskell, Irish Protestant risen in English society, Russian spy and British intelligence officer, rough trading homosexual and emissary for HRH, actor and agent, develops one of Banville's main obsessions: can we know anyone else, or even ourselves. The most aware of his intimates, his wife Vivienne ("Baby"), observes sharply and, one way or another, has gathered all the details. In a slight twist from Joyce's Daedelus, it is Maskell finally, who does not know that his children are his own.

Literary in a number of ways (in a book populated with homosexuals, the hetero Querell takes his name from a Genet novel), we are given flashes of Fitzgerald, James, interestingly enough both expats, and so on.

I am beginning to think Banville a rather saucy chap, sticking his ink-stained thumb in the eyes of just about everyone in his trade and in those of the status-obsessed or effete.