The Sea

Nederlands (English below)

The Sea van John Banville (1945) bleek een geschikt vakantieboek. Hoofdpersoon Max Morden keert na de dood van zijn vrouw Anna terug naar The Cedars, het vakantiehuis aan de Ierse kust waar hij als kind de familie Grace opzocht, zijn ‘Gods’. Banville schetst een fraai beeld van een wat norse, somberende man die eigenlijk niet weet wat hij met zichzelf aan moet en met zijn vrouw noch dochter om weet te gaan. Kijkend naar zijn spiegelbeeld:

I have been elbowed aside by a parody of myself, a sadly dishevelled figure in a Hallowe’en mask made of sagging, pinkish-grey rubber that bears no more than a passing resemblance to the image of what I look like that I stubbornly retain in my head.

De kracht van het boek is de opbouw: het plot ontvouwt zich langzaam in een roes van nazomerse loomheid. Van meet af aan is duidelijk dat zich in The Cedars iets heeft afgespeeld dat de hoofdpersoon met zich draagt, maar Banville haast zich niet om dat te onthullen. Helaas vond ik het einde – de tweeling Chloe en Myles verdrinkt in zee – wat teleurstellend.

English

The Sea was my first Banville, and I appreciated it. The story is about a somewhat gruff and gloomy middle-aged man who returns to the summer house where he spent part of his youth after the death of his wife. By focusing on the narrator’s thoughts, Banville creates a daze in which he slowly unfolds the plot. I found the ending less rewarding, but I suspect this is one where opinions will differ.

Every book doesn't impress on the same place although we take it for granted that they impress upon our feelings. The impression of a book on me is often physical. Some books make my brain fuzzy, some are like deep wounds in my groin, and some are like empty little pockets in my chest. The Sea took my body and broke every bone of it, pulled every muscle.

Since it is a novel, the first question you may ask is, "What is the story?" Well, it doesn't matter. Stories happen all the time and every story is as old as time. Who, and most importantly, how the story is being told is what modern literature is concerned about. When Max, the story-teller here, a self-made man, often vain, mostly sensitive, an intellectual born and brought up in the lower segments of the society tells his story candidly, yet always trying to justify his actions, losses and laughs re-interpreted with the hindsight of a well-aged man, but not entirely coherent— that is not a story anymore. That is life. And life in its most raw form cannot be judged but only be accepted. This acceptance comes with a deep complex sensation, not love, not pity, not hope definitely, but like you're drowning, in the sea.

Banville's captivating writing style leads the way into a personal history of loving and grieving, two stories at opposite ends of a life. Banville's main character, Max Morden, ponders how well he's known anyone and what has been relevant in his relationships--he is struggling, during this hard time, to describe the eternal substance of his past relationships, what feelings he's taken away, which memories he will cherish forever.

Banville gives Morden's perceptions and vulnerabilities a well-developed history as the narrative recalls the circumstances of Morden's dismal childhood. There was his strange early friendship with a girl from a different class and then the sudden loss of that one joy, the disappearance of his father and subsequent economic and emotional turmoil of his teenaged years with his mother, then his relationship with Anna, his wife, and then her death. And at last, there is his relationship with his daugher, Claire, who is trying very hard to be a relevant character in her father's life.

Morden does not magically recover at the end of the book, but rather enters another phase of his life, as he continues to cope with the way things are now and begins to sort out the "what now" question. Banville has taken on a very difficult subject and made it appealingly readable.