The Infinities

by John Banville and John O'Neill

Book Overview

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea comes a novel that is at once a gloriously earthy romp and a wise look at the terrible, wonderful plight of being human.

"One of the great living masters of English-language prose. The Infinities is a dazzling example of that mastery." --Los Angeles Times

On a languid midsummer's day in the countryside, the Godley family gathers at the bedside of Adam, a renowned...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307474399
• ISBN13: 9780307474391
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A Singular Voice

John Banville has an extraordinary gift. Evidently there are many who appreciate it and I am pleased to join the chorus of ayes. That said, instead of summarizing the cast (done in many of the other, generally excellent reviews) and noting that the timeline is compressed (one day, in which quite a lot happens, actually) even as a bit of extra time gets inserted into the day, I would like to describe my brief (too brief) conversation with Mr. Banville at a book signing. A couple of years ago, at a book signing, I met Mr. Banville and thanked him for his language and its liveliness. He said that I had made his day. I still think that is true. Even in describing death, Banville's language is alive with intelligence, with music, with possibility. This is a lovely, lively book that is actually more optimistic than any of his other fictions. After all, the gods haven't abandoned us quite yet and that is better than leaving us here alone.

Mesmerizing Prose and Fascinating Story

The inclusion of Greek Mythology and certain of the Gods in particular makes this a wonderfully ambitious novel. Banville's prose, his use of words and metaphors, is nothing short of art work. While I very much enjoyed the plot and character interplay, I found myself frequently re-reading paragraphs out of pure admiration (not for lack of clarity, as some reviews of Banville have suggested). This is definitely for readers who love beautiful writing. Some reviewers have suggested that a slow pace and density make this a difficult read...afterall, this book does take place during one day. However, I found the plot enormously entertaining and ribald. Banville's prose, however, is pure artistry of the highest level.

Well Worth the Read, a Modern-Versed Shakespeare

This novel is a chariot that brings the gods, the avatar of the infinities. Being human is a curse, bedeviled by having to choose between right and wrong --- "philosophical idealism" --- choices not necessary for immortals. In John Banville's first book since the Booker Award-winning THE SEA (and THE LEMUR, written as Benjamin Black), the titular infinities are immortals, Zeus and son Hermes, messenger of the gods who often led men astray. With this intriguing work, readers certainly are not led astray. This complex novel has page-length paragraphs and run-on sentences that prodigiously describe with all senses events leading to an enlightening conclusion well worth the read, a modern-versed Shakespeare. "You will have noticed my way with words, supposedly rare in a man of my calling. Words are so friendly, so accommodating, so loosely adaptable, not like numbers, with their tiresome insistence on meaning only what they mean and nothing more." Temporal "Old Adam" Godley has a stroke. He "felt, actually felt, a blood vessel bursting in his brain, and toppled forward on the floor, his face to the tiles and his scrawny bare bum in the air." Adam "fears premature burial" and considers death "the age-old inquisition." His daughter Petra, the "loony sister" of young Adam, manages the care of their father at Arden House, a magnificently described estate rivaling Wuthering Heights. Adam-the-elder has regrets: "I treated my children as adults and my wife as a child...and now it is too late to make amends. Spilt milk, spilt milk --- the dairy floor is awash and the dairyman and his missus are weeping buckets." The narrator assumes earthly forms and sometimes doesn't like the experience: "The milk was barely cool and noticeably soured; one of the incidental interests of taking on temporary mortal form is the opportunity it affords of sampling new sensations. I had never tasted sour milk before; I shall not taste it again." Even immortals acknowledge shortcomings, when they inhabit mortal coils, "one of those shameful social compromises that happen in dreams." With epic poetic prose, the over-wordiness isn't haughty. But then, immortals and infinities have æons to accumulate a voluminous vocabulary that kept this mortal coil springing to the dictionary every other page. Acutely detailed descriptions seem more like a movie than a novel. Not unlike the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Bowman becomes an ever-devolving chrysalis, Old Adam counts clicks of a clock and steps taken to school, and relives his past in sort of a drowning flash-before-your-eyes: "[T]he impossibility of accuracy torments him." Observations question what is reality: "For what is spirit in this world may be flesh in another. In an infinity of worlds all possibilities are fulfilled." At the end, a touching scene has Old Adam Godley temporarily alert, facing the world through open windows in the Sky Room. He imparts knowledge to each in the household, giving precious gifts to all,

The Father.

The novel is set in an old mansion in the country side. Mr. Adam, the old man, compared with Zeus the primordial lover, is dying and wishes to spend his last days in the mansion instead of the hospital. His family is also present. But not only the family, some of the ancient gods - like Zeus the Father and Lover, and Hermes the Guide to the World of the Dead - are there also . The gods watch the humans and comment on what they say and do. This blend of modern and ancient personages gives the novel its universal and timeless meaning: the battle between young and old and Love as a substitute for immortality. During their stay at the mansion they are questioning themselves and the others. They experience their surroundings in different ways, depending on their vantage point. Past and present become intertwined. 'The Infinities' by John Banville is a rich and complex novel.

MERCURIAL

Somewhere, someone will read this book and comprehend the various implications pulling and pushing between the stories of the mortals and the immortals, between the conventional narrative and the insertion of the author as the sort of god that cannot fully grasp his own creation. On my own somewhat reduced level of comprehension I can only offer that Banville has again managed to create a text that without warning illuminates some of the more profound details of existence, some of the most disjunctive associations, all within a playful fluidity of seemingly casual observation. These periodic shocks and flares of insight -- gleefully departing from the conventions of story-telling -- strike me as what the book is actually about, sorting through the tangle that shapes constructs of personal identity, belief, experience and knowledge to gain some momentarily objective glimpses of the truer contours of the human condition. Banville has a distinct ability to transcribe a sense of time and place to the page and with "The Infinities" he gives articulate voice to those more elusive impressions of being. Scattered, infrequent, unexpected and always profound shifts in perception draw us closer to an at least momentary comprehension of our selves and the world of which we are a sometimes conscious part. One to read, let rest for a year or so, and then read again.