John Banville's heroes seem to be in search of a centre or subject for their ruminations. Ghosts pester them; voices ring in their ears. Something vital has gone wrong and they must take account of it. 'I have the feeling,' Alex Cleave declared in Banville's last book, Eclipse, 'the conviction, I can't rid myself of it, that something has happened, something dreadful, and I haven't taken sufficient notice, haven't paid due regard, because I don't know what it is.' This is a typical Banville gesture - his heroes are unhappy in spite of the plot; and the plot turns into their search for the source of their unhappiness. In Alex's case the cause is his daughter Cass: half mad and haunted by voices, she has drowned herself in Italy when three months' pregnant.

LRB 2 January 2003 | PDF Download