It struck me that quite a number of novels are written from the point of view of a really repulsive man, one of those bombastic egomaniacs who you'd walk over broken glass to avoid, yet in a novel you're trapped with this guy in your ear, in your brain, on every page, every sentence. No let up. Why would any writer saddle themselves and why would readers want to get saddled with such inescapable loathsomeness? In case you're wondering, here are examples of what I mean :

The Room - Hubert Selby
Extinction - Thomas Bernhard
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Lolita - Nabokov
The Mad Man - Delany
The Fermata - Nicholson Baker
Gould's Book of Fish
Atomised - Houellebecq
The Killer Inside me - Thompson
Herzog - Bellow
Earthly Powers - Burgess
1982 Janine - Gray
Money - Amis
What I Lived For - Oates
Anything in the first person by Philip Roth
I the Supreme - Roa Bastos
and
The Book of Evidence - Banville

Certainly some bombastic egomaniacs are fun to be with (for instance Christopher Hitchins, a guy who could have been fictional, but wasn't), and a couple of the above might be said to be good company - the guy in The Fermata, he certainly does funny stuff whilst being a repulsive sexual predator, and John Self in Money sure has a way with words while he's sniffing and defiling ladies' underwear. Humbert Humbert is a real entertainer too, except that his wit and ebullience wear thin quite quickly. Probably he's our best example - Nabokov hopes, I think, to skewer the reader - we are entranced by that voice, that voice, not to mention the propulsion of the narrative, so much so that we can't wrench free of this hideous story even though we are perfectly aware of its ghastliness. That's certainly true in What I Lived For - we can't wait for this gross bastard to crash into the brick wall of his own life, and JCO let's us have it in stunning slowmotion. But some of these creeps have no redeeming features - the guy in Atomised, the loony in The Killer Inside Me, the full-time hater of everything in Extinction, and the windbag poseur in The Book of Evidence, and Henry Miller in all his glory - the agony of reading Tropic of cancer knowing that HM lived to be a ripe old age! You just want to nail their heads to the nearest escritoire. So I can't say i know what those novels think they're doing.

As a ps, and this might be my limited reading experience talking, I can't think of any novels from the point of view of an unbearable egomaniac female. Maybe someone could suggest a few.

Remorse implies the expectation of forgiveness.

There's a tradition of first person narrators talking about their murders, regretting, not regretting, not understanding, understanding. In this case, Meursault, the protagonist of Camus'  The Stranger (1942), comes to mind. Even though Meursault provides the events as they unfold, rather than as a confession, there is something of his absurdity and detachment, even the circumstantial, that guides Banville's Freddie Montgomery.

A more obvious parallel, in terms of technique, could be drawn with Ernesto Sabato's  The Tunnel (1948), in which we hear the confession of an artist apprehended for the murder of a woman.

What makes Banville's book remarkable, is not so much the plot—there is hardly much of it—but the linguistic dexterity and psychological depth of the protagonist.

Time was split in two: there was clock time, which moved with giant slowness, and then there was that fevered rush inside my head, as I finite mainspring had broken and and all the works were spinning madly out of control.

I felt as fragile as a crystal. Even my hair felt breakable, a shock of erect, minute filaments bristling with static. I could hear the blood rushing along my veins, quick and heavy as mercury. My face as swollen and hot, and strangely smooth to touch: a doll’s face.

Banville is able to capture everyday phenomena, like time, like thoughts, like bodily processes, with clarity and colour. The voice of Freddie is particular, peculiar, and human—when he speaks, you hear a full-bodied, realistic person speaking.

Had I written this review after I first read the book six months ago, I would have said the narratorial voice is supremely well-accomplished for a fictional character.

However, writing the review now, after having read the first two novels Banville published,  Birchwood and  Nightspawn, I have the following to say: Freddie's voice is essentially Banville's authorial voice. Both of the other books are written in a similar style, reflecting from the present about the past, and both contain strong first person narrators that capture the world in complex, yet more or less realistic ways. (Because of the literary tropes Banville uses, there are always specks of magic dust flying off the pages, so "realistic" is an elastic term.)

Crimes abound, confessions too. But Banville makes his tale stand out. The Book of Evidence is worth reading whatever your taste, if just to see how a character is fleshed out—masterfully.

Side note for aspiring authors:

I am reminded of William Zinsser's advice in Chapter 20, The Sound of Your Voice, of his book  On Writing Well.

Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page, a voice that's enjoyable not only in its musical line but in its avoidance of sounds that would cheapen its tone: breeziness and condescension and clichés.

Banville has that distinct voice, no matter his protagonists, and its worth starting from his first books and working your way through to hear it develop, gain polish, but essentially remain unchanged.

„Ето един въпрос: ако човекът е изродено животно, безумно животно, в което имам основание да вярвам, то как да обясним тези малки, непотърсени жестове на доброта и загриженост?”


„Когато погледна назад, колкото и да се опитвам, не мога да видя ясен преход между една фаза и друга. Виждам строен поток – макар че поток е твърде силна дума. По-скоро забързана статичност, нещо като тичане на едно място. Дори това обаче ми беше твърде бързо, аз винаги изоставах малко, тупурках подир собствения си живот. В Дъблин все още бях момчето, което растеше в Кулгрейндж; в Америка бях невръстният младеж от дъблинските дни; на островите станах един вид американец. И нищо не ми стигаше. Всичко все предстоеше, на път беше, тепърва щеше да се случи. Заседнал в миналото, аз все се взирах покрай настоящето в безграничното бъдеще. Сега, предполагам, може да се каже, че бъдещето ми дойде.
Всичко това не означава нищо. Нищо значително, имам предвид. Само се забавлявам, размишлявам, губя се в блъсканицата на думите. Защото тук думите са форма на нещо като лукс, на сладострастие, само тях ни позволиха да запазим от изобилния, преситен свят, от който ни отделиха.
О, Боже, Исусе, изведи ме от това място.
О, който и да е.
Трябва да спра, започва да ме боли главата. Често ми се случва, все по-често. Не се тревожете, ваша светлост, не е нужно да викате разсилния или церемониал-майстора, или както там се нарича – това е само главоболие, най-обикновено главоболие. Няма да полудея внезапно, да притискам слепоочия и да рева за моята… Но ето, за вълка говорим, а той в кошарата, ето я вълчицата, самата мама Джарет. Ела, застани в свидетелската ложа, майко.”

Ето това е книгата – за един „кривоч по рождение”:
„Разпознах го като представител на моята порода, едрите, гневливи, задъхани човеци на тази земя.”
И
„Винаги съм бил раздвоен, разклонен.”

Защо е възможно да ми харесват подобни книги, не знам. Може би човек има нужда и от неща, които са му далечни. Светът не е пълен само с добрички уравновесени хора („като нас”?! :)); има и неизброими други разновидности и комбинации (пияници, грубияни, използвачи, безпътници, тъпаци, „убийци”). Не го казвам нито с презрение и надменност, нито с твърдението „ние сме други”, а просто като констатация за „случая” Фредерик Монтгомъри.

А езикът винаги е силен съблазнител. И преводачите са „съблазнители”. След идеалната работа (и награда) на Иглика Василева за любимия ми роман „Морето” на Банвил, по-скоро се зарадвах, че тази негова книга е с различен преводач. Пак идеален:

„Тя млъкна, все едно очакваше отговор. Аз отстъпих назад. Бях забравил каква е като се развихри. После се окопитих и пак ѝ се нахвърлих. Тя ме посрещна с могъщ отпор. Също като в доброто старо време. Огън и жупел, ах, огън и жупел! Толкова вълнуващо беше, че дори кучето се включи, лаеше и виеше, и танцуваше напред-назад на предните си лапи, докато накрая майка ми не го срита и не му изрева да ляга долу. Аз я нарекох кучка, а тя мен – копеле. Ако съм копеле, попитах, тя каква е тогава, а тя бързо като мълния отвърна, а аз ако съм кучка, ти какъв си бе, помияр! О, разкошен двубой беше това, разкошен. Бяхме като побеснели деца – не, не деца, а големи, полудели, първобитни създания – мастодонти или нещо такова – препускахме и вършеехме из джунглата насред вихър от шибащи лиани и изкоренени растения. Въздухът пулсираше между нас, накървен и гъст. Усещахме присъствието на някакви твари около себе си, дребни създания, сгушени в треволяците, наблюдаващи ни в транса на ужаса и благоговението. Най-сетне, преситени, разкачихме бивни и си обърнахме гръб. Зарових тупкащата си глава в шепи. Тя застана до мивката, вкопчена в единия кран, гледаше през прозореца към градината, гърдите ѝ се надигаха и отпускаха. Чувахме взаимно дъха си.”

Противен ми беше тоя тип. А „Чужденецът” на Камю не ми беше противен. Фердинан от романа на Селин също не чак толкова. Дори доколкото си спомням главният герои от „Роман с кокаин” също не ми беше така непоносим (ако мога да сравнявам тези романи).

В крайна сметка въпросът е: каквито и дълготрайни и присъщи качества и прояви да има човек, „убиец” може ли да бъде трайно определение, качество (освен като доказано престъпление). Точно в дните покрай убийството във Враца чета „Думата на обвиняемия”. И нищо не мога да кажа. Н�� зная „тлъстото чудовище” кога и как започва да расте. Оставям пак Фреди Монтгомъри да говори.

„Онова тлъсто чудовище вътре в мен просто усети мига и изскочи навън с пяна на уста, с размахани юмруци. Той имаше да разчиства сметки със света, а тя в онзи миг достатъчно добре въплъщаваше света. Не можех да го спра. Или пък можех? Ние с него сме едно, все пак.”

„Всичко се бе променило, всичко. Бях се отделили от себе си и от всичко, което съм си мислел, че съм. Животът ми до момента бе станал безтегловен и ефирен като сън. Като се сетех за миналото си, все едно мислех за друг човек от миналото, човек, когото изобщо не познавам, но чиято история знам наизуст.”

„Мисля, че този кратък пристъп на треска отбеляза края на отчетливата първоначална фаза в живота ми като убиец. До сутринта на втория ден треската намаля. Лежах в мокри, степкани чаршафи с разперени ръце и едва си поемах дъх. Чувствах се все едно съм газил като луд във вода до кръста и сега най-сетне съм изпълзял на брега, изтощен, и всичките ми крайници треперят, но в същото време съм получил нещо кaто покой.”

„Мисля, че дълбоко в себе си копнеех да ме изправят принудително пред съда и там да извадя наяве всичките си мръсни малки тайни. Да, да ме разкрият, внезапно да се нахвърлят върху мен, да ме бият, да ме съблекат, да ме изложат пред ревящата тълпа, това беше моето най-дълбоко, най-пламенно желание.”

„В предното стъкло искреше начупена светлина, за секунда реших, че е строшено, после прокарах ръка по лицето си и установих, че плача. Това ме окуражи. Сълзите ми като че ли бяха не само предвестник на съвестта, но и знак за някакъв по-обичаен, по-простичък изблик, емоция, която няма име, но която може би беше последната ми връзка със света на обикновените неща. Защото всичко се бе променило, намирах се на място, където не бях стъпвал преди. Треперех и всичко около мен трепереше, и в предметите имаше нещо инертно и лепкаво, сякаш и аз, и всичко останало – колата, пътят, дърветата, онези далечни поляни – току-що се бяхме измъкнали неми и втрещени от утробата.”

John Banville never spares his personages. And he doesn’t spare his readers too.

Statistics, probability theory, that was my field. Esoteric stuff, I won't go into it here.

What mind is capable to commit an ugly, senseless crime? The Book of Evidence is a story of a deviated mind and John Banville tells his tale masterfully. Art and crime get interconnected and the book is full of despondency.

That fat monster inside me just saw his chance and leaped out, frothing and flailing. He had scores to settle with the world, and she, at that moment, was world enough for him.

There is no repentance or chagrin – this kind of mind can’t have a pity for anything in the world, it can only have a pity for itself.

Time was split in two: there was clock time, which moved with giant slowness, and then there was that fevered rush inside my head, as if the mainspring had broken and all the works were spinning madly out of control.

No mind can stay outside morals, completely unpunished; retribution is always around the corner, even if it is merely an inner retribution.

A Modern Master

There are not a lot of living writers featured in the Everyman's Library series, and even fewer who are still going at full steam. But Banville has always written as though with the expectation that he would be enthroned in the pantheon one day. The photograph that appears on the cover of this beautifully designed volume—a patrician in suit and tie, red silk handkerchief in pocket, hands clasped, sitting back in satisfaction and looking indulgently at the reader—is clearly the pose of the Master. But it is essentially the same as the photos that have been appearing on his book jackets since the beginning. Banville appears to have been apprenticing himself to mastery from the moment he was old enough to pick up a pen.

Why make a point of this? Because there has always been a tension in Banville's work between the subjects of his stories and the exquisite polish of the style in which he tells them. I reviewed The Sea back in 2006 when it won the Man Booker Prize. I had no trouble giving it five stars, for reasons that I shall explain below. But I also noted a certain self-consciousness in the writing. The first-person narrator, a middle-aged art historian named Max Morden, seems occasionally to be searching for a word, in phrases like "sitting up in my ornate bed as on a catafalque, if that is the word I want" and "I pictured her in bombazine, whatever that is." But this is a man who uses words like revenant, mephitic, flocculent, pharaonic, and prelapsarian without a qualm, so what is the point of the hesitation other than to call attention to his vocabulary? I went on to read several other Banville works, including a couple of the mysteries he published as Benjamin Black, and found this quality annoying me more and more.

But to my surprise, it did not bother me here. His 1989 novel, The Book of Evidence, already shows his lush preening style, but it carries on a fascinating dialogue of contrast with the subject matter. For the first-person narrator, Freddie Montgomery, is in prison awaiting trial for murder. He confesses his guilt; we only await the details. And these he gives in a written deposition to the court as though he were on the witness stand, speaking uninterrupted for several hours. Giving his full name, Frederick Charles St John Vanderveld Montgomery, he tells of a distinguished early career, equally adept in the arts and sciences, culminating in a period at Berkeley, when he suddenly gives it all up for a life of leisure on various Mediterranean islands with his new wife. But then he tries a spot of extortion which comes back to bite him, sending him fleeing back to Ireland for the terrible twelve days that constitute the major part of the book.

I would guess that Banville modeled his short novel on Camus' L'étranger. Both books have a similar structure at a similar length, pivoting around a senseless and brutal murder at the halfway point. But what is even more chilling than the murder itself is the language in which Freddie describes it, and his apparent assumption throughout that he is a person of higher culture, superior to the little people around him. Until we get to the final paragraph, and are brought up short.

The Sea is every bit as good as I remember, though painted in watercolor tones as opposed to the oozing impastos of the earlier work. Banville has described the novel as a direct return to the seaside holidays of his childhood. Reading it this time, I am struck by the honesty and directness with which he captures this—memories that have a special appeal to me since I grew up in another such seaside town in Ireland, only rather further north. The novel occupies three time periods. In one, Max is eleven or twelve, making friends with a family, the Graces—father, mother, au pair, and two children of Max's age—who rent a house known as The Cedars. Another period runs from his wife's diagnosis of cancer, through her suffering and death. And in the third, he returns to The Cedars as a paying guest to recuperate and to remember.

At first, the three periods are easily separated, but as the book goes on, they intertwine more and more, sometimes at the level of the paragraph or even the sentence. And here the perfumed language actually helps, because even the childhood memories are now filtered through the sensibility of this aging connoisseur. So the preadolescent erotic overtones which characterize the earlier period—his prurient curiosity and desire first for the mother and then her pubescent daughter—now waft through the entire book. Nothing much happens, but the memories hold you in thrall, almost like a chapter in Proust or a post-impressionist painting. But then come the final twenty pages, which surely rank as one of the finest passages of fiction writing in the new century. Judging by these two books, John Banville amply deserves his laurels as Master.

A Hangover with a Vengeance

Is it possible to explain a crime without rationalising and therefore justifying it; that is, understanding it as reasonable while recognising it as immoral? This is the issue posed in The Book of Evidence. And it is an important issue in criminal law not just in moral theory. There is probably no living writer in the English language who could better find the words to explore this question. Banville's particular skill in two domains, alcohol poisoning and the subtleties of Irish snobbery, provides the framework for exploration.

Drink and drunkenness play a big role in Banville's Quirke mysteries, but in Evidence he really does turn alcoholism into a literary event. I stopped drinking 40 years ago, but could feel the pull of the beast forcefully in his acute descriptions of the man desperate for relief from his life through more or less continuous self-medication. The fact that this man doesn't really know what he wants release from is captured just as concisely in his 'Castle Catholic' disdain for most people everywhere and for all people rural and Catholic in post WW II Ireland. "This is a wonderful country," the protagonist says, "A man with a decent accent can do almost anything."

Colm Toibin's introduction in my edition, however, seems somewhat off the mark. Toibin thinks that the key to the story is a sort of dual identity in the protagonist, in the manner of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. I can't see it. Yes, Frederick Montgomery's actions are inexplicable to himself after the fact; he even compares himself to Dr. Jekyll while waiting for his arrest. And he is certainly a different person after his crime, both psychologically and existentially. But this difference in in the manner of Kafka or Dostoevsky not Stevenson. The 'selves' involved appear to be the quite normal acting self and reflecting self, not two separate personalities.

When Frederick attempts to analyse himself, he sounds much more like St. Paul than Dr. Jekyll: "It's hard to describe. I felt that I was utterly unlike myself. That is to say... it was as if I - the real, thinking, sentient I - had somehow got myself trapped inside a body not my own, ...the person that was inside me was also strange to me." Given his Catholic/Calvinist bloodline, his confusion is more likely to be down to his religious background rather than anything more demonic.

By his own admission Frederick has 'drifted' into his situation. He does not believe he is insane. Nor does he perceive himself or the human species as inherently evil given the acts of gratuitous kindness he has given as well as received. But the accumulated effects of otherwise insignificant choices have been a fatal if 'slow subsidence'.

Whatever remnant of his Christian upbringing there is, it is also not sufficient to provide an explanation. Original sin just isn't a satisfying theory: "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 there is nothing there?" His crime has provoked a crisis in the self that would not occurred without it: an existential emptiness that is even more frightening than religious evil.

When we, we as civilised persons as well as we of civilisation, can't find the words for a thing, this emptiness has terrifying substance. Could this be the punishment that obviates the need for explanation? The very lack of explanation is excruciating for Frederick. The peace that passeth all understanding eludes him. It is "...hangover time with a vengeance." And he gets to share it with precisely the class of folk he has despised all of his life. Could this be hell?

المثير دائما وابدا في عالم الكتب والقراءة انها دائما بقدر تقدم لك المفاجآت السعيدة، والدهشة من الابداع الانساني مهما تخيلت ان أوان الدهشة والمفاجأة فاتوا.

الرواية دي معجزة سردية، علشان دي تُقرأ بمزاج وصفاء، رواية تُرشح اكثر مرة، تُرشح للقاريء الباحث عن عظمة أدبية، وتُرشح لأي حد مهتم بالكتابة المحترفة حد الدهشة، وتُرشح لكل كاتب عايز يتعلم جديد، وحزين جدا اني مكنتش اعرف الكاتب، والترجمة جيدة جدا.

I had no expectations (I didn’t even know what it was about) and went from pleasantly surprised to engrossed to enthralled.

The main character is despicable, amoral and a criminal - and yet, he’s so beguilingly funny and cognisant of his flaws (or, some of them) that I found myself liking him. Not empathising or even sympathising with him - I wanted him to get his comeuppance - but genuinely liking him. He sits somewhere between Oscar Wilde’s Lord Henry and Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose: sardonic wit, unremitting vices and boundless privilege.

The unreliability of the narrative is made crystal clear by the end, as many passages with mistakes and corrections read as a transcript rather than written word. But if someone is feigning mistakes when actually writing in prose, then those aren’t mistakes at all:

“There is something about gin ... that always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens.”
“I did say dead maidens, didn’t I. Dear me.”

Or

“In school I was a terror - but no, no, I’ll spare you the schooldays.”

I found a strange and very unexpected parallel between this novel and another I read recently: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The whole idea of gonzo journalism pioneered by Hunter S Thompson builds on William Faulkner’s idea that “fiction is often the best fact”.
While The Book of Evidence evidently isn’t journalism and doesn’t claim to be, it is based on the real story of Malcolm MacArthur. The detachment and alienation felt by the protagonist does appear to be a symptom of his unbridled privilege and brings to mind modern phenomena like the Ethan Couch case in America, where the defence argued that he was too rich to know right from wrong. They termed it Affluenza.

“True, Inspector? All of it. None of it. Only the shame.”

The Book of Evidence, a novel by John Banville, is a good example of how much a good writer can do with a questionable premise. Freddie Montgomery is a trust-fund drifter who runs out of money and has to leave his wife and child on an island in the Med so he can return to Ireland and scrounge up what he needs to pay off one large, dangerous debt. He ends up focusing on stealing a valuable painting as step one in accumulating capital, but he is caught in the act and commits an unnecessary and brutal murder during his getaway. The text of the novel is a reflection on his time in jail, awaiting trial, his life, and the sordid happenings that led to his outburst of violence. He accepts blame, wants to plead guilty, and can't quite explain his brief descent into nihilism. He did it because he was annoyed, he was irritated, he just wanted a clean getaway, things weren't going right as the witness he unwillingly kidnapped fussed at him from the backseat. So he hammered her, literally, and left her for dead when he crashed the car...and she did die.

Banville's writing is punchy, well-paced, and consistent in rendering Freddie's voice. He doesn't do a great job in providing a convincing backstory for most of the main characters, and there is the absence of a rationale for Freddie's irrationality. We aren't talking about Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment), nor are we talking about Meursault (The Stranger). We're talking about a guy who resembles readers like you and me, well-educated, well-read, summoning up a number of frustrations and grievances and packing them into a rancid act that spawns an artful narrative with something less than a clear point.

These are both essential books in the "John Banville" galaxy. They make for slightly strange bedfellows, given that "The Book of Evidence" already has two play-mates ("Ghosts" and "Athena", available with "TBOE" as the "Frames" trilogy). Nonetheless, if you don't have these two books, they are both first tier Banville. Not quite up to the perfection of "The Infinities" (I would more likely have bundled "The Sea" and "The Infinities" as neither is "linked" to another book through narrator, etc., and their point in Banville's oeuvre (and sense of style, mode of voice) were published one directly after the other; and yet, if this brings new readers to "TBOE" via "The Sea," I have no objections. Banville's essential works are:

The Book of Evidence*
Athena*
Ghosts*
The Untouchable
Eclipse**
Shroud**
Ancient Light**
The Sea
The Infinities

* and ** mark linked titles, best to be read in order of publication

with Mefisto being nearly essential. He is almost surely the finest writer working in the English language today. Reading his work is like climbing into an intricate brain, settling in and spending hours being mesmerized by the language, thoughts and emotions that dwell there. This is art, not something to be consumed...

A witty and satirical narrative by a murderer, very reminiscent of Nabokov's Lolita. Like that novel, the protagonist's moral degeneracy is intermingled with superbly ironic and satirical observations. In Lolita Humbert Humbert remarks, "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style" and Banville's narrator, Freddie, like Humbert, also has a delightful prose style, with metaphors to die for.

The story is, however, more poignant because Freddie struggles with his guilt far more seriously than Humbert.

This is the first book of a trilogy, called variously the art or the frame trilogy, which contines with Ghosts and Athena. There is not, however, much of a continuous plot, and it's not necessary to read the other two. They are very different in character.

Freddie Montgomery is on trial for a murder he committed just because he could.Finding himself without sufficient funds to repay a debt, and leaving his wife and child behind on a Mediterranean Island as collateral (isn't that incredible?), he returns to Ireland after years of self-imposed exile to raise the money. But all sources appeared to have dried up. Even the few pictures his family owned have been sold off. In a blind desperate attempt to get back one of those paintings, he bludgeons a young girl to death and hides from the police implicating an old family friend before he is caught.
A very good read.
Short listed for the Booker Prize.