رواية "كتاب الشهادة" للكاتب الأيرلندي "جون بانفيل"، تأتي في شكل سيرة ذاتية لشخصية مُتخيلة، يسرد تفاصيل حياته، التي أدت إلى إرتكابه جريمة قتل، أو دعنا نقول تورط فيها، أو قادته ظروفه إليها، فلندعنا من الأسباب فهو قد شرحها وزادها شرحاً، المهم هو ما وصلنا إليه، وهو أن السرد من أول لحظة إلى آخر لحظة هي بمثابة شهادة على لسان "فريدي مونتجومري" وهذا أجمل ما في الرواية، أنها رواية صوت واحد، طوال الأحداث، ولكن لا تزال جديرة بالاهتمام والثناء، وذلك السرد الرتيب أحياناً، والشيق أحياناً، كالحياة، كان لمُحبي الروايات الدرامية، التي نعلم فيها ترتيب الأحداث، وليس هناك نهاية مُدوية في آخر الصحفات، ولكننا نقرأ لنفهم دوافع الشخصيات، وفي حالتنا هنا شخصية واحدة، كيف يصف حياته من البداية، كُل أولئك الأشخاص الذين قابلهم، يستدعي كُل الأحداث المهمة بحياته، أحبائه وأقربائه وأصدقائه، زوجته وابنه، حتى أعدائه ومن يكرههم، إنه سرد دافئ متوالي، لا يكف عن تعرية نفسه أمامنا، لا يتورع في ذكر كل قبيح حوله، حتى لو كانت فكرة عابرة مرت على ذهنه، فما يضره على أي حال؟ أنه ينقاد إلى الموت، فلا بأس بقليل من الصدق، أو الكثير منه، وصدقوني الصدق يحتاج إلى الكثير من الجرأة، وستجده هنا بكل تأكيد.

رواية مؤلمة، وسودواية للغاية، الأحداث تكاد تقطر بؤساً، والسرد ورغم بساطته ستشعر أن صاحبه ينزف دماً، على حياته، وتلك السكتات التي كان يقف عندها، وذلك السؤال المؤرق الذي كان يسأله عديداً لنفسه، ما الذي جعلني أصل إلى هذا الحال؟ إنها رواية عن عبثية الحياة، وظلمها، عن النفس البشرية وخباياها، وما تحمله من شرور، ستجد فيها لمحة من "دوستويفسكي"، وعلى الأخص روايته "الجريمة والعقاب"، وعندما تقرأها ستعرف عن أي تشابه أتحدث. وبكل تأكيد لن تكون تجربتي الأخيرة مع الكاتب جون بانفيل.

Sometimes I wonder what strange motives we have for picking up a certain book at a certain time!

As I had just finished rereading Albert Camus' L'Étranger, I thought I would try something completely different to soothe my nerves, and I picked up Banville in a secondhand bookstore, knowing exactly nothing about the story, plot and character of The Book of Evidence. And what do I find? An Irish stranger, a man who walks around trying to make sense of his own senseless violence and indifference.

Why is he living like that? Why does he become a murderer? Why does he do what he does? He doesn't know himself, but unlike Camus' antihero, he is curious and interested in understanding himself. That is why he is telling his story, big events and small recollections mixed together to a semi-fictional account of a gospel of a confused mind according to itself.

"I am not human", he realises at some point. And at the same time, he wants to be understood, to be admired even. He has glorified the notion of a criminal mind to the point that he is disappointed with the reality of the prison from where he is telling his story.

Is there any truth in his story? All or nothing, he admits. The shame is true for sure.

4.75 Stars — JB, you’ve done it again.

The first 15 or so pages of book of evidence are perhaps the most elegant written in any first 15-20 pages in crime-fiction history. The prose that oozes from the mind of Banville is reminiscent of a divine interlude from the lord’s harpsichord. Just wonderful, poetic and dense with excellence.

It doesn’t dilute from then on either, it is just that once past this point you have raised your standards of prose so much that the remainder may initially seem ‘only’ marvellous in comparison.

The protagonist in book of evidence is about as mentally stimulating as those locked-up could ever be. The story adds a rawness to the mix and an air of something-ain’t-right fills the pages as you bury your head into this wonderful story by one of the true masters of contemporary literature.

Bearing in mind, that the second novel — The sea — is every bit as engrossing and will on an altogether different Dias, thrill and inspire you with its whimsy, wisdom and elements of hidden altruism.

This book was put out as upgrade of two of the stories by the wonderful writer John Banville. It is described as a cloth cover which mine does not have or I do not know the definition of cloth. Mine seems to be a regular paper cover but maybe I missed something. It does have a wonderful book mark made of a ribbon built in. The print in it is small. At 62, it was too small for my eyes to read comfortably. I really strained to read it. I guess I am spoiled by my Kindle.

The first story, The Book of Evidence, is the story of a man explaining himself to a magistrate. Everything is told from the protagonist's point of view and he is a piece of work. Although the story is beautifully written, I couldn't spend more that 62 pages with him. He was just creepy beyond words. The second story, The Sea, is about a man who returns to the place of fond childhood memories and a memorable family, the Graces. It is quite lovely.

This would not be something I would buy mainly because of its print size.

Korektno, ali nedovoljno za očaranost.
Načelno, ovo je "Lolita" bez Lolite, a sa značajno neubedljivijim Hambertom, pa vuče na sindrom "od drveća ne vidim šumu" ili neki srodni oblik zabunjenosti.
Banvilov lepi stil je prepoznatljiv, no ovde ušećeren na neki njorav način (ali ne, daleko bilo, albaharijevski njorav, pre darelovski... njoruckast), kao da je pisano po porudžbini sa nadom u novi angažman. Ovo je njegov četvrti roman koji sam čitala i - sasvim zanimljivo, iako najverovatnije slučajno - dva koja su prevodili muškarci ("More" i "Kepler") su mi se dopala mnogo više od onih koje su prevodile žene ("Pokrov" i "Knjiga dokaza"). To, međutim, ne znači da je Arijana Božović loš prevodilac, upravo suprotno.
Ko pročita, neće se pokajati. Ko ne pročita, preživeće.
Trojka je, ali ne kvarim prosek nikome, naročito ne Ircima.

Freddie Montgomery tells us the story of his life and his crime. We can't be sure if this is post-conviction or pre-trial "confession." As such, he meanders through his adult life with brief flashbacks to sensual moments from his youth. Describing gin: "[it:] always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter." Discussing his theory that humans are not fit to live in this kind of world: "How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was made to contain us?" And my favorite bit when he "meets" the "woman" who will lead to his "downfall" (oh! how i love winkwink-nudgenudge quotes):

Things seemed not to recede as they should, but to be arrayed before me--the furniture, the open window, the lawn and river and far-off mountains--as if they were not being looked at but were themselves looking, intent upon a vanishing-point here, inside the room. I turned then, and saw myself turning as I turned, as I seem to myself to be turning still, as I sometimes imagine I shall be turning always, as if this might be my punishment, my damnation, just this breathless, blurred, eternal turning towards her.

(Occurred to me just now: that's reminiscent of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman!)

More often than not, i enjoy Freddie's perceptiveness and descriptiveness, but occasionally the artifice of Banville's Narrative Device feels forced or Freddie's voice irks me. For example on page 51 (of my edition), the interruption of the fictive illusion seems meaningful:

I put my arm around him, laid a hand on his forehead. He said to me: don't mind her. He said to me --

Stop this, stop it. I was not there. I have not been present at anyone's death.

Both statements cannot be true; we see that Freddie's yet another late-20th century unreliable narrator. But then there will be one of these:

Of the various kinds of darkness I shall not speak.
My cell. My cell is. Why go on with this.

I am just grateful there aren't more of these burstings of the bubble.

Reviewing my marginalia and highlighted words, sentences, paragraphs, "Children should be seen and not heard" comes to mind. Banville seems to be examining what it's like to see and be seen but the act of writing is really about being heard ... in order to be seen? There is a lot of playing with the idea of children, childishness, parents, parenting, responsibility, dependence, and how seeing and being seen/heard relate to them.

I made several notes in the margins when i was reminded of other fictional works--Rilke, Kafka, Burgess, Goethe, Shakespeare, Proust--all of which (except Proust & Kafka?) alluded to evildoers or killers.

For people interested in comparing/contrasting other contemporary Irish books about murder/murderers (this ain't really a spoiler of any kind), i recommend Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (one of my new all-time favorites) and Edna O'Brien's In the Forest. All 3 murders/murderers are different. All 3 styles of writing are different. Seems the only sameness is the seeming centrality of murder and the setting being 20th century Ireland. Banville's ranks a distant 3rd (but that's like an Olympic bronze medal). Edna O'Brien's prose is the prettiest and her descriptions/evocations of Place the best; her ability to change gears and write from different personal and distanced, objective perspectives is virtuosic. Flann O'Brien's book just happens to deal with issues that are of the most interest to me and his brand of writing felt most like what i'd aspire to if i ever wrote a novel. When i read The Third Policeman, it was as if i were reading my own thoughts: i wished i'd been able to write that book before he did; i loved O'Brien for writing it the way he did; i thrilled at the feeling of union. I think Banville's work falls short of greatness; maybe i'm just biased against first person narration or the obvious unreliable narrator biznaz. Y'know, maybe people who liked Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers might like Book of Evidence. I never finished reading that one; maybe someday. [it was the last book i read in 2011!]

I really enjoyed this book because I really enjoy despair and self-pity. Especially if it’s couched in a good story by an Irish writer with a fabulous vocabulary.

Banville is the saint of sumptuous sentences. Although the book is riddled with them, there’s a real knock-out on page 32:

“I drank my drink. There is something about gin, the tang in it of the deep wildwood, perhaps, that always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter.”

Okay, that’s three sentences. It’s mostly the center one I mean, but also the sequencing of these three with 1) the simple set-up, 2) the sensual ravishing, and 3) the kill-off, is masterful.

He also hits the bullseye when evoking the senses.
"...I caught a whiff of something, a faint, sharp, metallic smell, like the smell of worn pennies.”
“I had not thought paper would make so much noise, such scuffling and rattling and ripping, it must have sounded as if some large animal were being flayed alive in here.”

As above, he’s fabulous with “as if.”
“His left eyelid began to flutter as if a moth had suddenly come to life under it.”
“She drove very fast, working the controls probingly, as if she were trying to locate a pattern, a secret formula, hidden in this mesh of small deft actions.”
“Her pale colouring and vivid hair and long, slender neck gave her a startled look, as if some time in the past she had been told a shocking secret and had never quite absorbed it.”
“When I spoke to her the poor girl turned crimson, and wincingly extended a calloused little paw as if she were afraid I might be going to keep it.”

His words savor color and light:
“I have always loved that hour of the day, when that soft, muslin light seeps upward, as if out of the earth itself, and everything seems to grow thoughtful and turn away.”

Lying in bed, the main character describes watching lights scan across the room:
“Now and then a car or lorry passed by, and a box of lighted geometry slid rapidly over the ceiling and down the walls and poured away into a corner.”

There’s so much more! Just read the book if you like good writing. I warn you that the murder is horrible and sad. Also, the characters are horrible and/or sad. I recommend this to anyone who thinks the “general awfulness of everything” can be redeemed by art.

I was rather surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, particularly since the main character and narrator, Freddie Montgomery, is an arrogant and self-absorbed man who feels no remorse or guilt for his crimes and is more concerned about saving his own skin than protecting his friends or admitting fault. Montgomery takes us through the events that led to his crimes and ultimate arrest, including various flashbacks to his youth, with a strange detachment that doesn’t tell whether he is narrating his story before or after his trial (this does become clearer in the final pages…depending on your interpretation). The prose is beautifully descriptive and Banville has a definite talent for capturing the colourful lilting speech of the Irish which can often be lost in the written word. Banville has also managed to create a character in Montgomery that the reader (and the writer it would seem) can detest but who manages to awaken some strange sense of pity as the reality of his crimes sinks in.

Did not finish, unfortunately (so, no rating). Banville presented in this fairly early work, 1989, a (very) long monologue by criminal Freddy Montgomery to the chairman and jury of the court in which he is on trial. It is an ‘oratio pro domo’, of course, in which the cunning Freddy analyzes how things could have gone so wrong in his life. And he is clearly not just anyone, he openly philosophizes about evil and free will, and that occasionally produces great passages, such as this one: “By the way, leafing through my dictionary I am struck by the poverty of the language when it comes to naming or describing badness. Evil, wickedness, mischief, these words imply an agency, the conscious or at least active doing of wrong. They do not signify the bad in its inert, neutral, self-sustaining state. Then there are the adjectives: dreadful, heinous, execrable, vile, and so on. They are not so much descriptive as judgmental. They carry a weight of censorship mingled with fear. Isn't this a queer state of affairs? It makes me wonder. I ask myself if perhaps the thing itself—badness—does not exist at all, if these strangely vague and imprecise words are only a kind of ruse, a kind of elaborate cover for the fact that nothing is there. Or perhaps the words are an attempt to make it be there? Or, again, perhaps there is something, but the words invented it.”

It is clear that Banville with Freddy Montgomery has presented yet another variation of an unreliable narrator. Or maybe a variation on the theme of L'Étranger (Camus), since Freddy is accused of a murder without motif. But, to be honest, I was only mildly interested. Freddy's excessive flow of words was sometimes too much, and the many descriptive passages did not conform to the monologue form. In the words of Freddy himself: “None of this means anything. Anything of significance, that is. I am just amusing myself, musing, losing myself in a welter of words. For words in here are a form of luxury, of sensuousness, they are all we have been allowed to keep of the rich, wasteful world from which we are shut away.”

Para los que disfrutan con estas historias que se adentran en la psicología del asesino, al punto de hacer sentir un horroroso e indignado rechazo o una culpable empatía con el fulano en cuestión. Creo que cumple con eso. Primer libro que leo de este autor irlandés. Espero repetir.

Το Βιβλίο της Αλήθειας, όπως είχε μεταφραστεί στην ασημένια σειρά της Ωκεανίδας που αποδέχτηκα ότι δεν θα βρω ποτέ, είναι η ομολογία ενός εγκλήματος απ'τον Freddie Montgomery ενώ βρίσκεται σε ένα κελί περιμένοντας τη δίκη του. Ο πρωταγωνιστής, ένας μέχρι πρότινος επιτυχημένος επιστήμονας, ζει πια για αδιευκρίνιστους λόγους σαν παρίας. Περιφέρεται στο κόσμο μαζί με τη γυναίκα του κ το παιδί του χωρίς να κάνει τίποτα ιδιαίτερο, αράζοντας κυρίως στα περιθωριακά καφενεία που κανείς δεν θέλει να πλησιάσει.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have seen us, we were part of the local colour on your package holiday, you passed us with wistful glances, and we ignored you"

Με έναν εντελώς τυχαίο τρόπο θα μπλέξει με τη ντόπια μαφία κ θα αναγκαστεί να επιστρέψει στον τόπο που μεγάλωσε για να βρει τα χρήματα που χρωστάει ώστε να κρατήσει ασφαλή την οικογένεια του. Τα πράγματα φυσικά δεν κυλούν ομαλά κ σύντομα θα διαπράξει ένα έγκλημα χωρίς να το πολυσκεφτεί. Ο Μπάνβιλ αδιαφορεί σχεδόν για την πλοκή, το οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου ουσιαστικά αναφέρει όλα τα σημαντικά σημεία. Εκεί που εστιάζει είναι στο θέμα της ηθικής, στο κατά πόσο θεωρούμε δεδομένο ότι όλοι οι άνθρωποι καταλαβαίνουν πως είναι λάθος να σκοτώσεις κάποιον. Είναι φυσιολογικό, καθώς διαβάζεις το βιβλίο να φέρνεις συνέχεια στο μυαλό σου τον Μερσώ, τον Ρασκόλνικοφ κ πάνω απ'όλα τον Νίτσε αλλά όπως συμβαίνει με όλα τα βιβλία αυτού του σπουδαίου λογοτέχνη, στα κείμενα του βουτάς πάνω απ'όλα για την υπέροχη πρόζα του.

Απ'την συγκλονιστική πρώτη παράγραφο μέχρι κ το τέλος του πρώτου μέρους όπου το βιβλίο κάνει μια κοιλιά καθώς παρατηρούμε τον ήρωα να πηγαίνει απ'το hangover σε hangover, ο συγγραφέας φτιάχνει έναν υπέροχο χαρακτήρα που ενώ τον αντιμετωπίζεις ως ψυχοπαθή είναι ταυτόχρονα εύκολο να καταλάβεις πόσο απλά μπορεί κάποιος να χάσει τη γη κάτω απ'τα πόδια του. Ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας το περιγράφει πολύ καλύτερα στο έξτρα υλικό που υπάρχει σε αυτή την έξοχη επετειακή έκδοση:

"The most important bit in the book is the question why did Freddie give up being a scientist, what happened?[...] He saw that all the things that he lived by were just things that he'd invented himself [...] We get up in the morning and put on our suits and drive to work and we need all this in order to live, but inside we know that all this is nonsense, that we've just invented it"

Η παραπάνω σκέψη είναι στο κέντρο του δεύτερου μέρους όπου το βιβλίο βρίσκει κ πάλι τη δύναμη του καθώς ο Freddie (κ μαζί του ο αναγνώστης) περιμένει να τον πιάσουν.

"At any moment they might catch me, they might be watching me even now, murmuring into their handsets and signalling to the marksmen on the roof. First there would be panic, then pain. And when everything was gone, every shred of dignity and pretence, what freedom there would be, what lightness! No, what am i saying, not lightness, but its opposite: weight, gravity, the sense at last of being firmly grounded. Then finally i would be me, no longer the poor impersonation of myself i had been doing all my life. I would be real. I would be, of all things, human".

Το Book of Evidence είναι ένα τελείως διαφορετικό βιβλίο απ'την αριστουργηματική Θάλασσα που του έδωσε το Booker το 2005. Αν δεν είχε απέναντι του τα Απομειναρια μιας Μερας θα το είχε πάρει κ γι'αυτο εδώ το κείμενο. Όπως κ να'χει, συστήνεται ανεπιφύλακτα.

کتاب شواهد انگار از جهنم سرفه شده. قاتل با یک تک‌گویی پیوسته و غیرخطی در حالی که پشت میله‌های زندان در انتظار محاکمه نشسته، نشخوار فکری خود را در قالب اعترافنامه اظهار و خوانندگانش را به عنوان قاضی و هیئت منصفه تصور می‌کند. با این حال به زودی مشخص می‌شود که این جنایت از طمع، انتقام یا هر انگیزه قابل تشخیص دیگری الهام نگرفته. قاتل مرتکب جنایت شده، فقط به خاطر اینکه می‌توانسته مرتکب قتل شود. همین و بس. شبیه مورسو احساس می‌کند در این سیاره بیگانه است و پاسخی برای رنج‌های بی‌پایان بشری پیدا نکرده و خودش را قهرمان فراموش‌شده‌ی یک رمان روسی می‌داند. جان بنویل مفهوم متعارف انگیزه در جنایات را به چالش کشیده. بنویل حتی واقعیت اعترافات قاتل را زیر و رو کرده و صحتشان را مورد تردید قرار می‌دهد. در طول کتاب بارها از خودم پرسیدم آیا راوی غیرقابل‌اعتماد واقعاً تحت تاثیر جاذبه‌ی آنی تابلوی نقاشی مرتکب جنایت شده یا صرفاً در حال خواندن خیالات یک دیوانه هستم که قرار است در پایان کتاب برملا شود! قاتل در توضیح (یا شاید توجیه) قتل دختر خدمتکار، جرم واقعی‌اش را نه قتل که شکست قوه‌ی تخیلش می‌داند. یعنی چون نتوانسته مقتول را به شکل واضح به عنوان یک شخص تصور کند، او را کشته. اما به نظرم جنایتکار اصلی جان بنویل است که توانسته قاتلی غیرکلیشه‌ای خلق کند. بنویل با نثر نرم و باحوصله‌اش قمار کرده و یک هیولا خلق کرده و اتفاقاً در این قمار برنده شده