The darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer, shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize.
The Book of Evidence
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Review
" Here is an astonishing, disturbing little novel that might have been coughed up from hell." - "The New York Times Book Review
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" Ireland' s finest contemporary novelist." - "The Economist
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" The Book of Evidence is a major new work of fiction in which every suave moment calmly detonates to show the murderous gleam within." - Don DeLillo
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" Ireland' s finest contemporary novelist." - "The Economist
"
" The Book of Evidence is a major new work of fiction in which every suave moment calmly detonates to show the murderous gleam within." - Don DeLillo
Book Description
Freddie Montgomery has committed two crimes. He stole a small Dutch master from a wealthy family friend, and he murdered a chambermaid who caught him in the act. He has little to say about the dead girl. He killed her, he says, because he was physically capable of doing so. It made perfect sense to smash her head in with a hammer. What he cannot understand, and would desperately like to know, is why he was so moved by an unattributed portrait of a middle-aged woman that he felt compelled to steal it . . . ‘Banville has excelled himself in a flawlessly flowing prose whose lyricism, patrician irony and aching sense of loss are reminiscent of Lolita’ Observer ‘The Book of Evidence is a major work of fiction in which every suave moment calmly detonates to show the murderous gleam within. Banville writes a dangerous and clear-running prose and has a grim gift of seeing people’s souls’ Don DeLillo ‘One of the most important writers now at work in English – a key thinker, in fact, in fiction’ London Review of Books ‘Remarkable. . . If all crime novels were like this one, there would no longer be the need for a genre’ Ruth Rendell
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Banville writes exquisitely. The sentences are invariably arresting and his use of language and imagery is magnificent. It's a very dark novel; so dark that I had to put it down for a few days at a time in order for the enormity and the relentless misery of the protagonist's situation to sink in. But if you allow yourself time for his prose to sink in, you will return to Banville's work again and again. Once finished, it's worth reading all over again. A very compelling novel indeed.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Bob mcdonagh
Format:Paperback
You must read this book Mr Banville out shines himself each time a read a book written by him i hated finising this book. I wanted it to go on and on. I cannot rate this book high enough at last we have writer equal to Yeats Synge and many more!!
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Though I'm loath to use words such as masterpiece about anything at all, it seems reasonable to resort to hyperbole here if only to get peoples attention and earn Mr. Banville some money. If you've read anything by this author then you'll have a pretty good idea where this novel is going but the themes and use of language are here employed with a proximity to objective, Schillerian perfection never matched before or since. This is one of the very few books I continually foist upon all my friends in the hope that they will recognise its wonderful malignancy and sour humour and palpable, impressionist nuance. No-one gets it. Maybe it's an Irish thing. Guardian reviews constantly cite Banville's extrordinary use of language but this (and all the others, although Ghosts is probably taking advantage of the publisher's flushed benevolence) is more than an excercise or dank adventure in prose. It is seeped in the traditions of Joyce, Beckett, Nabakov, your own life. Start here and then trace the lives of the characters through the oblique variations in subsequent novels. The lives of the Enlightenment physicists are gorgeous too, Kepler in particular.
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4.3 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
fantastic?
Yet another great read from Banville. Beautiful prose which allows the language to carry the story being told by a murderer sitting in his prison cell. Read more
Published 21 days ago by Case69
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Book of Evidence - John Banville
I found this too self-consciously arch to enjoy, I'm afraid. This type of narrator I've met hundreds of times before. Read more
Published 1 month ago by RachelWalker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing but beautifully written
Banville's prose is strangely compelling and takes you on a journey into the mind of someone who could be described as a psychopath. Or is he?
Published 4 months ago by Linda
5.0 out of 5 stars
The book of Evidence
Unputdownable. Although I am totally biased as I love John Banville's work (along with his alias of Benjamin Black), I would strongly recommend this book. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Isobel N
4.0 out of 5 stars
Early work
This is an early Banville yet it shows the Banville elements which were to emerge in later works. Told, as usual, from the main characters thoughts it pulls the reader in to his... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Headintheclouds
5.0 out of 5 stars
Banville is a Literary God!
I agree with another reviewer: I didn't want this book to end - the same way I feel about every Banville book I read. Read more
Published 9 months ago by CaSundara
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hung jury.
This book has excited great enthusiasm from reviewers but for me the parts - or at least some of them - seem greater than the whole. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Bluecashmere.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant
This is shockingly good writing. I had to slow myself down reading it to savour every page.
Published on 4 Feb 2008 by Flossy Flong
5.0 out of 5 stars
A dark, gritty and compelling read.
This is my second Banville, after `The Untouchable', and third if I include `Christine Falls' written under his nom de plume - Benjamin Black. Read more
Published on 15 Mar 2007 by MrChance
1.0 out of 5 stars
A different opinion...
I'm going to get burned for this review, but...
I hated it. The characters were an inexplicable mix of misfits and pariahs and Banville's contempt for ordinary folk is... Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2006 by MrShev
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