I am running a bookring for this book which is on the list being considered for the Booker prize. This is an interesting and moving novel which vividly evokes the atmosphere of an Irish seaside village about 30 or 40 years ago - it isn't clear. The hero, Max, returns to the seaside village where he once spent a holiday and became fascinated by the Grace twins, especially the forthright Chloe.

This is a beautifully written novel with some wonderful sentences and it tells the story of a boy's coming of age very well.

A few things about it annoyed me, however. The hotel to which the main character returns has a few stock characters such as the Colonel and Miss Vessavour. Characters such as the Colonel no doubt do exist in Britain and Ireland but they've just been in too many movies and books I feel.

There was a lot of what I can only call philosophical speculation which I don't usually mind but sometimes I felt that it distracted me from the story here.

The major defect in the novel from my point of view is that I didn't find the climax convincing.

Having said all that, it is very well-written and certainly worth reading.

Bookring:

xoddam,
Fleebo,
goodthinkingmax,
woosang,
puppymummy,
Alectoness
Star-light


I've finished and posted this to xoddam so here are the rules:

1) Each person on the list has a month to read the book. If you think that it will take longer please PM me.

2) After this please send it to the next person on the Booker Prize list.

3) It was quite expensive so I'd like it to be kept in good condition please.

Caught in mail delivery last night -- normally I get a little card telling me to collect a parcel from the post office, but the old catflap next to the front door broke a few weeks ago and *this* parcel was delivered through the hole. Some cockroaches are also delivered that way, so I'll have to fix it this weekend.

Thanks Viola7. I'm going to finish Oryx and Crake before I start, but that won't take long.

I loved this book, but it took a while to grow on me.

I found it a bit of a chore to read, not just initially -- kept picking out choice bits of waffle for the review I was going to put here -- but in the end I couldn't put it down, so I'll try not to put other readers off. I can't say if it's because of or in spite of the existential verbiage that I liked the story. There's not one but a half-dozen twists in the last fifty pages, and a book which was wholly contemplative and lamenting suddenly becomes a glorious (if sad) coming-of-age adventure.

The characterisation was convincing enough; I think part of the point was that you can never quite know a person. The protagonist seemed particularly galled by this.

I am ready to pass this on and have PMed Fleebo.

RELEASE NOTES:

Giving to Fleebo at lunch

Received from xoddam. Thanks very much!

Well, well. This book is the winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2005. Congratulations, Mr. Banville - but halfway through reading it I believe that the judges are badly, badly mistaken. I'm really not enjoying it. Perhaps when the oft-foreshadowed past tragedy actually happens it will pick up.

No, I just didn't like this book. It's prettily written, with lots of obscure words which suit the lost-in-self art historian narrator well. (Some of those words are made up, I'm sure.) But he was wallowing in his grief, and although he had been through very rough times I just couldn't care. His callous dismissal of his daughter's feelings, and his refusal to acknowledge his photographer wife as an artist, in particular, made me dislike him greatly. Although there were some revelations at the very end of the book, they didn't seem important enough to make me feel differently about any of the characters.
And the blurb on the back of the book is a distressingly fawning piece of writing. You know the type; when you're told that something is that good, you immediately get suspicious.
One line which I did like a lot:
"Given the world that he created, it would be an impiety against God to believe in him."

Thanks for the opportunity to read this, anyway.
PMing goodthinkingmax to pass the book on.

This book arrived yesterday and I've read a few chapters. So far 8/10 for some of the amazing descriptive prose and 2/10 for any paragraph containing any human character because I am finding the characters introduced so far, extremely irritating and Max's reflections equally as irritating! Hoping I will begin enjoying this more after a few more chapters.

I found this to be very tedious despite a brilliant writing style. The plot and characters held little interest for me. I was far more interested in Banville's lovely language, unexpected descriptions and unusual words....but unfortunately these were not enough to satisfy. So many sentences were such a pleasure to read but their meaning in the plot became irrelevant and I just enjoyed the language devoid of meaning!

Off to Woosang next.

I approached this book with some trepidation. After the previous reviews and all the media attention this book got when it WON the booker prize for 2005.

ANYWAY I was too tired to start the book, so I asked David to read it to me, and as he has a terrific 'book on tape' voice, I am enjoying the first part immensely

Well I think tis book has been done before. Well the lay out of thought has. I kept thinking of "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner, which I really did love, but was hard going. This is not as good and was at time a real trial. When Dave stopped reading it out loud, the enjoyment meter went right down.

I have a great new word - cat·a·falque ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kt-flk, -fôlk)
n.
A decorated platform or framework on which a coffin rests in state during a funeral.
Roman Catholic Church. A coffin-shaped structure draped with a pall, used to represent the corpse at a requiem Mass celebrated after the burial.

I never had it far from me and I did have the compulsion to read it but maybe it became a 'I have to finish' book. Someone said the book got better in the second part, but for me it was pretty constant.

A final verdict in short, Midly interesting, other have done better.


Not a winner for me and I am still scratching my head as to why it is the Booker prize winner for 2005.... off to the next lucky? person.

New York times Article

So now it's my turn - and I'm worried! With those reviews - well, I'll see what I think. For now it goes on the pile, there are a couple ahead but I should get to it soon.

About halfway through I considered giving up on this book. I persevered because it was the winner and because I remembered a couple of reviews had said that something happened at the end - but in retrospect I shouldn't have bothered because I simply didn't enjoy it. To me, I care a lot more about the storyline than the writing, and this sort of literature with the odd unfamiliar word thrown in just strikes me as pretentious - I'm sure that others appreciate it, but I hate it. At least now I know to avoid every other thing that he's ever written!
However, at least now I can say I have read the winner. Thanks for the opportunity, this will be in the mail to Alectoness either today or tomorrow.

Arrived safe in Wellington, New Zealand - will be interesting to read this winning book, and compare it to the ones I've already read.

It seemed to me that quite a bit happened at the end of this book, but it took a bit too long to get there. While, for the most part, I was able to drift along, enjoying the language, there were times when I was wondering "what's the point of reading this?"

I thought that some of the scenes which dealt with the death of Max's wife were very powerful, but I wasn't so convinced by the memories, by his coming of age and what it had to do with the present.

All in all, a good book. Well written. Some lovely scenes. Some interesting thoughts. But definitely not my favourite out of the Booker longlisted titles I've read so far. I'm just going to check that star-light is still at the same address, and then I'll get this book back in the mail.

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed this to star-light this morning. Might not arrive till mid-January owing to the number of public holidays around this time of year.

Received today. I'm relieved to see I'm the last person on the list since I have a heap of other Booker books at the moment and am getting through them as fast as I can. I'm not a fast reader so it will probably take me more than a month to get to this one. Feel free to give me a hurry up if you feel I am taking too long.

The language was wonderful but the lack of a plot made this a tedious read for me. I think I would have enjoyed this book if I had read it while in a more introspective frame of mind. There were some interesting observations about human nature along the way, but I was not in the mood to dwell on them. The ramblings of Max as he reflected on growing up and growing old were just not enough to hold my attention. I wonder if I would appreciate this more if I re-read it later in life after acquiring more life experience?

I can understand why a judging panel of literary experts would choose this as the one to win the Booker prize, but it definitely would not have been my choice.

Posted to Viola7 earlier today. Thanks for sharing this book. Is this the first book in the Booker Longlist Challenge to make it all the way around?

This has made it home! It arrived a while ago but I was away last week and I forgot to write a journal entry (I have just been ticked off for talking about 'journaling' a book) when it arrived. These new words - authoring, authored, gifted, tasked, etc - really annoy me as well.

Anyway I'm being pedantic. A big thank you to everyone who participated in the bookring and wrote such enjoyable reviews!