Style vs. Substance in The Sea
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document in english
literature
book review
date published 21/04/2008
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SummaryThe Sea is no doubt, a difficult novel to read. John Banville’s language can be quite strenuous, and at some times, enigmatic. No major events or plot points seem to occur in The Sea, that is, externally. There is not much of a linear plot, if any. Almost everything that happens in the main character’s tale has already happened to him. The narrator of The Sea is an old man named Max Morden, whose entire life consists of his memories; even his present life in which we are introduced to him is infused with nostalgic pining. The Sea is a piece of literary fiction, which can often be described as putting prose before plot, or style before substance. Literary fiction mainly focuses on style, but that is not to say that The Sea lacks substance. The themes of past and present, and loss run rampant throughout the novel. Two memories prevail in Max’s mind, intermittent fragments of his lost love Anna, and reliving his childhood summers in Ballyless with the Grace family.
Table of Contents- The novel is beautifully wrought and, as always with Banville, patched with dark humour.
- It is difficult to call The Sea a 'pageturner,?.
- The things that Max observes, and chooses to remember, give the reader a definite sense of him as a character.
- That is not to say that the acute detail is superfluous, rather, it gives Max's tale importance.
- Banville also explores loss through the slippery notion of reality and truth.
- The Sea begins when Max goes back to Ballyless after his wife Anna dies.
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