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Books like The Book of Evidence

The Book of Evidence

2001John Banville

2.1/5

Irish novelist John Banville—known to readers of mystery fiction as Benjamin Black—had been writing novels for twenty years when, in 1989, The Book of Evidence was short-listed for the Booker. Every page of this elegant psychopathic monologue—a thief and murderer's intelligent and restrained account of his inane and violent crime—reveals Banville to be a master of his craft.Protagonist Freddie Montgomery is—like Humbert Humbert—an unreliable narrator. He and Humbert are unreliable, however, not because they lie to us, but because their amorality and lack of feeling rob them of the capacity to connect their own actions with consequences, and therefore they are deprived of the ability to create a coherent emotional identity. Freddie, in fact, may commit his crimes—and write his "book of evidence" too—in a vain attempt to feel something—anything—and, through such feelings, to comprehend his ever elusive self. But—just like the monkey-artist in Nabokov's preface to Lolita—the first, the only, portrait he can fashion is a picture of the bars of his cage.In addition to the unreliability of his narrator, Banville resembles Nabokov in the beauty of his prose. Though his style is less resplendent and concentrated, it is also more melodious and precise. The jeweled splendor of Nabokov is perhaps inimitable, but one could do worse than imitate Banville's flowing, pellucid style.

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