Starred review from January 1, 2018
In this subtle, elegant memoir, Irish novelist and screenwriter Banville (Mrs. Osmond) explores three overlapping Dublins: the contemporary city, the city of history, and the city he remembers. Despite spending centuries as a provincial backwater in the British Empire, Dublin produced a pantheon of great artists, among them Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Jonathan Swift, Orson Welles (who made his stage debut in Dublin’s Gate Theatre), Oscar Wilde, and W.B. Yeats. As a bookish youth in Wexford, Banville viewed Dublin as the locus of all sophistication, excitement, and meaning. In 1964 at age 18, he moved there and found his place in the bohemian milieu he’d admired from afar. In Banville’s survey of 21st-century Dublin, every shift in perspective triggers meditations on the myriad ways the city has shaped his long life. The real unity of the narrative rests in the remarkable interplay between text and image (preceding a two-page photo of the Shelbourne Hotel’s Horseshoe Bar, Banville describes it “as dimly lit and pleasingly louche today as it was then”). For much of the journey, a mysterious friend named Cicero accompanies Banville, a conceit adding yet another layer to a quietly remarkable work. Yet despite this intricate structure, Banville’s wit and humor make this book pass far too quickly. Dublin could not have asked for a more perceptive observer, or a more enchanting portrait.
January 1, 2018
The author, under the name Benjamin Black, of much-lauded crime fiction and a Man Booker Prize-winning literary novelist (Mrs. Osmond, 2017), Banville now presents a quasi-memoir in which he explores the cultural history of Dublin. He writes about its architectural secrets, the remarkable array of literary figures who have called it home, and his personal experiences of the city. Using an easy, conversational tone that seems to belie the accuracy of his accountsnames and memories often apparently return to him as he writes, though the bibliography shows the huge amount of research he has donehe describes wandering with his Virgil-like friend and guide, Cicero. Dublin's rich history is brought to life through a patchwork of quotes, memories, historical tangents, and a series of Banville's characteristic soaring flourishes (including a few too many ellipses). Featuring excellent photographs by Paul Joyce, the short tome resembles a whimsical, funnier version of W. G. Sebald's meditative style. A richly rewarding and personal work of Irish history and culture.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
February 15, 2018
Award-winning Irish novelist Banville (Mrs. Osmond; The Blue Guitar; as crime writer Benjamin Black, Prague Nights) blends history with personal reminiscence as he shares his impressions of Dublin while pondering when "the past" actually begins. He starts by describing his boyhood perceptions during birthday visits to the capital while living in the town of Wexford, when he saw the city as "a place of magical promise." After moving to Dublin as an adult, his views changed as he toured areas off the beaten path. Banville offers anecdotes about writers and other prominent figures as well as commentary on historical events, the city's architecture and landscaping, and the Catholic Church's domination of Irish life. In paying tribute to libraries, which he fell in love with as a child, he takes issue with censorship imposed on literature and films by the Irish government, especially under former president Eamon de Valera. Banville acknowledges an admiration for Dylan Thomas, and his gentle humor and tone are occasionally reminiscent of that writer's A Child's Christmas in Wales. VERDICT Recommended for Banville devotees as well as anyone who shares his fascination with Ireland's capital city. [See Prepub Alert, 8/14/17.]--Denise J. Stankovics, Vernon, CT
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
September 1, 2017
Man Booker Prize winner Banville grew up near Dublin, both lure and treat when he was younger and sometimes a source of contention once he moved there as an adult. Here he recounts his relationship to the city as he walks us through its social and political history and distinctive beauties. With a 30,000-copy first printing and 48 four-color photos by Paul Joyce.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from December 1, 2017
The celebrated author turns inward with this enchanting memoir about his beloved hometown.Franz Kafka Prize and Booker Award recipient Banville (Mrs. Osmond, 2017, etc.) turns nostalgic in this quietly reflective, personal meditation on Dublin. Like the author's pathologist detective Quirke of his pseudonymous Benjamin Black novels, Banville's 1950s Dublin is where he begins his walking tour, with the "laboratory of the past...shaped and burnished to a finished radiance." He lovingly recounts December birthday trips by train with his mother from their Wexford home to visit his spinster Aunt Nan at her Percy Place flat. Dublin, writes the author "was for me what Moscow was for Irina in Chekhov's Three Sisters, a place of magical promise towards which my starved young soul endlessly yearned." Literary city signposts abound: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, Patrick Kavanagh, and more. Banville then joins up with his friend Cicero, who "knows a Dublin that few others are aware of or have forgotten ever existed." As a young man, the author shared the "shabby splendours" of an Upper Mount Street flat with his aunt in the "dazzlingly bright lights of Dublin." Yeats' daughter Anne lived below. "What a prissy and purblind young man I was," writes Banville, "a snob with nothing to be snobbish about." Forays into Dublin's streets and pubs and Ireland's history mix with memories and images flickering about like film running in a darkened room, all brought to life with picturesque-perfect details. He visits Iveagh Gardens with his daughter to show her "a place precious to me, where I was once sweetly and unhappily in love." He and Cicero visit one of his "favourite buildings in all the world"--the Great Palm House of the Botanic Gardens. The text is beautifully complemented with Joyce's well-chosen photographs.Told in a conversational style both luscious and luxuriant, this is exquisite work by a master craftsman.
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