Eclipse: A Novel

Definitely this is an extraordinary work by an outstanding author. I have one reservation though: you can appreciate the work only if you are tenacious enough to read the whole book. The skill of the author becomes evident from the first few pages. However, up to the last part of the book I asked myself why an author of such a skill would waste his time on dwelling on the primitive problem of boredom. Nevertheless, the writing was so remarkable that I made myself read the book to the end, hoping that the ending will be worth it. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.The following features seem most prominent to me:- Banville knows when and how to peak the interest of the reader to make it possible for you to last through a purposefully uneventful story. I have no doubts that he would be able to keep reader's interest throughout the whole narration if he wanted to. However, the aura of slight boredom seems to be pre-calculated and necessary for the culmination.- The exact issues, emotions and personalities brought to life in the book, may have nothing to do with your particular experiences. But the book touches you on a very deep personal level, stirring thoughts and emotions and leaving you with a sensation of a bliss (half hysterical of course).In my mind it is humiliating for Banville to be compared to any other author: he is quite a master by himself. So the following string of names is just to bring up associations. If you liked reading any of the following authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Heinrich Boell, Marcel Proust, Aldous Huxley, John Dos Passos, and of course Banville's famed predecessor, James Joyce, you have a high chance to enjoy the "Eclipse".

Great read. Consumed with Shroud and Ancient Light.Wonderful, lyrical style - hard to put down.Would recommend entire series to a book club.

Eclipse is a captivatingly lush novel. Telling a poignant story, the language and writing is rich and regal. Banville’s mastery of the craft and his lush style makes one savor every passage he invents. It is very fine literary wine.

Well, one always learns new words with Banville's books and his writing style, his choice of words is very good. The book like the main character is in a mind fog, leaving readers to make sense of the story, which is not easy. Then at the end a horrible event which is not explained. Much of the content is non-connective, there are too few dots to connect. Naming a character Quirke in this book was odd. I recommend Banville's book The Sea which was also made into a film starring Ciarán Hinds.

John Banville has an almost scary insight into the psychology of the lie. Word by painstaking word, he creates a subtle and nuanced portrait of characters who, despite all evidence to the contrary, cannot or will not see the immense flaws in their souls which wreak havoc to all those close to them. In this novel, Eclipse, Banville undertakes on of these subtle portraits to create a story of haunting insight, literally and figuratively.Alex Cleave is a moderately successful stage actor. In his mind he is terribly successful, but there are many hints throughout the book that all is not the way he paints it, either in his life or his career. Midperformance, Cleave suffers a nervous breakdown and retreats to his haunted boyhood home to recover, much to the dismay of his estranged wife. There, Cleave struggles with ghosts, real and imagined, which bring him to terms with the realities of his ruined life, the shambles of his marriage, and his tense relationship with his emotionally disturbed daughter Cass. Banville uses this rather thin plot, with it's reminiscences of the Victorian ghost story to shape a narrative that is poetic and ultimately tragic.This novel is short on action or even plot. Rather it is a subtly drawn character study, rendered in some of the most exquisite prose since Henry James. Banville has an uncanny sense of the inner workings of his character. Cleave is an actor, and as such has the touch of the liar about him. As his mind drifts from present events to the remembered past you watch as Cleave's mind skirts around the real problems of his life. He engages in self-aggrandizement, rationalizations and most especially avoidance when faced with anything unpleasant. He admits to lesser failings readily to avoid confrontation with his greater failings. His observations of the other characters in the novel are well drawn, but slanted. Banville's brilliance is shown particularly in the life of these peripheral characters. Lydia, Cleave's wife, seems on the surface to be a shrew...and yet, you leave the novel with the sense that her complaints against her husband are more than justified. Lilly, the daughter of Cleave's rather odious caretaker, is a mysterious cypher, by turns superficial and yet possessing glimpses of a very complicated inner life that Cleave only barely understands.The central haunting figure in the novel, Cleave's daughter Cass, is not even physically present throughout, and yet she haunts the book more fully than the ghosts in Cleave's house. Cass is brilliant but mentally troubled. She hears voices and has a tendency to self-destruction. Her specter comes between Cleave and his wife and even haunts Cleave's strange and unsettling relationship with Lilly. She troubles Cleave's conscience and yet we never know quite why. Much is left unstated in the novel about the relationship. At heart you feel there is a secret underlying it all, a secret that Banville will never fully reveal. At every moment when you think something is going to finally break in this tenuous story, the characters look away....and don't say what they are actually feeling. Even the final climax of the book is ultimately an enigma...like the eclipse of the title, most of the important events in Cleave's life are obscured by clouds, and even when they aren't he looks away.This is not a book for "light reading" or for those who's interest is most heavily in plot or dialogue. In fact, the passages of dialogue in the work could probably be fit on ten pages. It is rather a long, internal monologue rendered in breathtaking turns of phrase. If you love haunting, slow and powerfully tragic novels though, Banville is for you. His is a world that I will be entering again soon.

Classic Bannville - great powers of description and deep pathos.

Wieder einmal habe ich einen Autor von hinten nach vorne gelesen, diesmal sogar eine Trilogie: Erst "Ancient Light", dann "Shroud", und jetzt "Eclipse". So viel ist klar: Andersrum wäre sicher sinnvoller gewesen.Alex Cleave, bekannter Theaterschauspieler und mit Anfang 50 auf der Höhe seines Könnens, hat sich nach einem Nervenzusammenbruch ins Haus seiner Kindheit zurückgezogen. Hier hatte die Krankheit, die ihn nach Jahrzehnten auf offener Bühne aus der Bahn geworfen hat, ihren Ausgang genommen, in dem Haus, das schon damals von Bewohnern bevölkert war, die nur er sehen konnte, und die jetzt wieder von ihm Besitz ergriffen haben. Er ist sich sicher, nur dort herausfinden zu können, was mit ihm los ist.Ort der Handlung ist Alex Cleaves Kopf. Wie gestört der ist, ahnt man nur. Er kann ja Realität und Erscheinungen meist ganz gut auseinander halten, und wer so souverän und sprachgewaltig über den Unterschied reflektiert, kann so krank eigentlich nicht sein. Und ganz besonders ist John Banville ein Meister darin, Erinnerungen zu verstehen und zu erklären. Was sie auslöst, wie sie sich verändern und neu zusammenfügen, kurz, wie sich im Rückblick die eigene Geschichte neu darstellt, die uns zu dem gemacht hat, der wir sind, in all den Rollen, die sie uns zugedacht hat. Ein großartiges Buch über ein aus den Fugen geratenes Leben und, wie gesagt, best before "Shroud" und "Ancient Light".

Libro excelente e imprescindible junto a "imposturas" para enmarcar, entender y disfrutar del último éxito de John Banville "antigua luz".

Oh Cleave your arrogance theatrical shape disintegrates and the depth of colour emerges twisting tormenting and turning us around another glimpse of the mystery we know is coming out of the corner of our eye. Banville grabs you again

In einem Interview sagt Banville: It is a great privilege to make one’s living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn’t ask for anything better. It’s as near to godliness as I can get. Der Leser steht auf der anderen Seite, für ihn ist es a great privilege to read these sentences, er hat das Gefühl, er könnte diesen Sätzen, diesen Wortketten endlos nachgehen, als müßten sie nicht einmal einen Inhalt haben. He couldn’t ask for anything better.