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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Benjamin Black - The Silver Swan, 31 Dec 2007
Incurably curious pathologist Quirke is back, in John Banville's second novel written as Benjamin Black. It's two years since the events of Christine Falls, and Quirke has given up the drink. He and his daughter aren't on good terms, his step-father's suffered a severe stroke, and his step-brother's lonely and mourning the death of his wife. A bleak picture in 50's Dublin, then. Things threaten to become even more interesting when Billy Hunt, an old school-friend Quirke barely remembers, calls him and asks a favour: his wife has been found drowned, a suspected suicide, and could Quirke please see that an autopsy is not performed. Billy can't bear the thought of his wife body under the pathologist's scalpel. Quirke, being Quirke, agrees but does one anyway after he notices a suspicious mark on the dead woman's skin. It seems he is right to be suspicious, but all that he finds only begs more questions, questions Quirke begins to worry away at, slowly picking his way through a puzzle of drugs, messy finances, and adultery, to reveal the answer.
It's possible that Banville is the best writer at work in the genre at the moment, in terms of artfulness at least. His prose is simply brilliant, gorgeous and evocative and poetic. The sentences he writes stun, the descriptions of the people and the city seem lovingly penned. However, there are moments when you get the sense he's working on autopilot with these books. Every now and then, a clunker, which would never happen in a book written under the real name. I read somewhere that he writes them very quickly, and if you were to compare the writing here to the writing in, for example, The Sea, I can certainly believe that. If his writing is this good when he's not even really trying, if he were to spend the time on a crime novel that he spends on a normal piece of fiction, imagine the result!
Quirke is a stunning character, too. Troubled, determined, dogged, melancholy, tee-total here, Banville furnishes him with dimension and makes him fascinating with absolute ease. The characterisation of Quirke alone is reason enough to read the series. As would be the atmosphere of the novel: vaguely sordid, repressed, a little desperate, dark, with everything seeming sinister.
Though only area where Banville is less than brilliant is the plotting. Christine Falls was a little too predictable in this department, though with a brilliant end. The plot of The Silver Swan is actually quite simple, but Banville moves it along at a perfect pace and this time ensures that there's enough the reader doesn't know to keep them interested in that department. There are no great shocks (there are, after all, only about three scenarios which could prove to be the truth), but it's all developed excellently. There's no punch at the end as there was with the last novel, but the whole thing is more satisfying over all. I can't wait for the next from the Benjamin Black pen... (Apparently called The Lemur, and to be serialised in The New York Times...)
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I Cannot Separate The Two, 22 April 2008
I have read all the novels published by Mr. Banville and have now read both that he has written under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black. Try as I have I cannot read these books under his pen name without comparing them to the work that carries the name of Mr. Banville. Just for the record I believe Mr. Banville to be one of the finest writers of fiction producing books at present.
"The Silver Swan" is the second in a series of books that center on the primary character of Quirke. This subsequent effort is inferior to the first. The scope of the book is very narrow, coincidence takes the place of great plotting, and even Quirke seems to have trouble deciding who he is and the difference between right and wrong. Except perhaps for the idea they are very flexible and for personal use as opposed to moral absolutes.
These books are not poor but I don't believe they would have gained notice if the author had remained unknown. I never came across these books until they were pointed out to me, and I would not have completed the second if I were not an admirer of Mr. Banville's work. As an author he is wonderful even when his skills are not as apparent as is the case with these books.
He has a third forthcoming work as Mr. Black and that will likely decide if I continue to read these books. For people who have never read a book under the name Banville these books may well work. It would probably be wise to read reviews by people who know only the work of "Mr. Black".
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I didn't know whodidit., 3 Nov 2007
As a big fan of John Banville I thought that I'd try out a book written under his crime-writing nom-de-plume Benjamin Black. I was half expecting a whodunnit written in John Banville's usual style. However, for those expecting Banvilles usual poetry will be disappointed. There are here turns of imagery but the delivery is more staccato than Banville's usually exquisitely atmospheric similes.
That said, it is a good mystery. Set in Dublin in, what seems like, the 1950's the dun miserable decay of the place and its lack of modernity is conveyed well enough; everyone smokes and there is not a moment of delight in the entire book; no rock 'n roll coffee bars of London, no scooters buzzing the fountains of Rome or the optimism of Ike's America.
And the characters represent the shambolic and stupified condition of a Dublin devoid of romance that is before the Irish Tourist Board got a helm on things. Quirke, Phoebe, Deidre and Billy Hunt all follow paths and have liason the reasons for which they can't quite voice. This bovine listlessness is indeed rammed home by the arrival of a rich American cousin.
I'll say nothing of the plot but the story is about suicide (or was it moider?), drugs and porn. Sordid stuff and some sordid characters.
Worth the read.
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