“Oh.” John Banville is the greatest living novelist writing in the English language. But his books sell few, even here in his native Dublin. He is our national treasure; and yet, he remains buried to most. That he writes under a pseudonym is no literary scoop: his pseudonymous crime novels each boast a great big black sticker with his name on it. Published just over a month ago, The Silver Swan follows Black’s popularly and critically acclaimed debut, Christine Falls.
Both efforts star the same protagonist: the enormous, cantankerous, mononymous Quirke. Just as Simenom had Maigret, Arthur Conon Doyle had Sherlock Holmes. And just as Richard Stark has Parker, Benjamin Black has Quirke. Because it’s crime fiction, Quirke naturally isn’t a detective by profession; and because behind Black sits Banville, Quirke’s actual profession is yet closer to death: he’s a pathologist; what else. “I suppose,” ventures his colleague Sinclair, “I must have preferred the dead over the living. ‘No trouble there,’ as someone once said to me.”
No trouble at all, normally.
Quirke is introduced to the reading world walking in to his mortuary and in on his brother-in-law and colleague Mal Griffin who is relieved to notice Quirke’s inebriation, for he is not supposed to be there. He is editing Christine Falls’ death certificate. The hand that signed the paper put a king to death. Though witnessed through the opacity of intoxication and remembered through the haze of a gin hangover, an incurably curious Quirke returns to the incident in the months that follow. Christine Falls died with child, but child did not die with Christine Falls. Mal’s pen puts a living child into the official world of dead. But why?
There is a distinction to be made between John Banville, the artist, and Benjamin Black, the craftsman, but before going down that tempting pathway, it’s important to underline just how much fun Banville is having as he plays with this new structure, this new style and these new characters. He embraces the far-fetched with some gusto. In The Silver Swan, for instance, Quirke and his daughter, to take just one incredible turn, unknowingly engage in sexual relationships with either end of a recently divorced couple. Though an existentialism seeps from these pages, these novels are not serious. No matter Benjamin Black’s popular success, no John Banville novel will ever be allowed to bear a sticker with Black’s name on it, no matter its size or colour.
Two years on comes The Silver Swan, and though he has tried sobriety, Quirke is still a great drinker and Black still a great writer. His protagonist has gone about the business of pathology without investigatory excursion since his incriminating revelations from the Falls case about the pillars of Irish society fell on deaf ears - ah, the seeping existential injustice I mentioned. But an old acquaintance calls him up out-of-the-blue and asks him not to perform a post-mortem on his wife who, found sprawled naked on the Sandycove shore, has recently put herself into-the-blue, as it were. Quirke takes a quick look at the body, in any case, only to discover that, oh dear, there’s an injection puncture on her arm and, oh my, no sign of drowning. Woop!, woop!; and so turn to the next page, one and all.
I’m reluctant to move further into either of the plots of these two books. To navigate Black’s plots from point to point in this humble, hidden space would require a great deal more economy than I am capable of. For someone whose novels are notoriously, insistently starved of narrative - linear or otherwise - this Black of his can spin a prodigiously tangled, glistening web. And yet, Black persistently betrays the linguistic restraint of Banville, a restraint of almost 40-years learning. Not only has this author to one name the best novels I’ve ever read, to another name he has the best sex, too: “‘Oh,’ she cried, and rolled her head on the pillow to one side and then to the other, biting her nether lip. Quirke loomed above her in starlight, hugely moving. ‘Oh, God.’”
Though Benjamin Black is evidently a writer with more popular appeal than John Banville, his prose is by no means vulgar. He picks up the subtleties of the quotidian - with which we identify but which we rarely, if ever, consider - with the retained, adept writer’s eye of his master: “they climbed the narrow, winding stair to the upper deck, Kate going first and Quirke the gentleman trying not to look at her behind.”
Yes, two years on, Quirke remains a great drinker and Black a great writer, too. But two years on, Quirke is a shrewder detective and Black, by far, a more astute composer. “Oh, God.”
Both efforts star the same protagonist: the enormous, cantankerous, mononymous Quirke. Just as Simenom had Maigret, Arthur Conon Doyle had Sherlock Holmes. And just as Richard Stark has Parker, Benjamin Black has Quirke. Because it’s crime fiction, Quirke naturally isn’t a detective by profession; and because behind Black sits Banville, Quirke’s actual profession is yet closer to death: he’s a pathologist; what else. “I suppose,” ventures his colleague Sinclair, “I must have preferred the dead over the living. ‘No trouble there,’ as someone once said to me.”
No trouble at all, normally.
Quirke is introduced to the reading world walking in to his mortuary and in on his brother-in-law and colleague Mal Griffin who is relieved to notice Quirke’s inebriation, for he is not supposed to be there. He is editing Christine Falls’ death certificate. The hand that signed the paper put a king to death. Though witnessed through the opacity of intoxication and remembered through the haze of a gin hangover, an incurably curious Quirke returns to the incident in the months that follow. Christine Falls died with child, but child did not die with Christine Falls. Mal’s pen puts a living child into the official world of dead. But why?
There is a distinction to be made between John Banville, the artist, and Benjamin Black, the craftsman, but before going down that tempting pathway, it’s important to underline just how much fun Banville is having as he plays with this new structure, this new style and these new characters. He embraces the far-fetched with some gusto. In The Silver Swan, for instance, Quirke and his daughter, to take just one incredible turn, unknowingly engage in sexual relationships with either end of a recently divorced couple. Though an existentialism seeps from these pages, these novels are not serious. No matter Benjamin Black’s popular success, no John Banville novel will ever be allowed to bear a sticker with Black’s name on it, no matter its size or colour.
Two years on comes The Silver Swan, and though he has tried sobriety, Quirke is still a great drinker and Black still a great writer. His protagonist has gone about the business of pathology without investigatory excursion since his incriminating revelations from the Falls case about the pillars of Irish society fell on deaf ears - ah, the seeping existential injustice I mentioned. But an old acquaintance calls him up out-of-the-blue and asks him not to perform a post-mortem on his wife who, found sprawled naked on the Sandycove shore, has recently put herself into-the-blue, as it were. Quirke takes a quick look at the body, in any case, only to discover that, oh dear, there’s an injection puncture on her arm and, oh my, no sign of drowning. Woop!, woop!; and so turn to the next page, one and all.
I’m reluctant to move further into either of the plots of these two books. To navigate Black’s plots from point to point in this humble, hidden space would require a great deal more economy than I am capable of. For someone whose novels are notoriously, insistently starved of narrative - linear or otherwise - this Black of his can spin a prodigiously tangled, glistening web. And yet, Black persistently betrays the linguistic restraint of Banville, a restraint of almost 40-years learning. Not only has this author to one name the best novels I’ve ever read, to another name he has the best sex, too: “‘Oh,’ she cried, and rolled her head on the pillow to one side and then to the other, biting her nether lip. Quirke loomed above her in starlight, hugely moving. ‘Oh, God.’”
Though Benjamin Black is evidently a writer with more popular appeal than John Banville, his prose is by no means vulgar. He picks up the subtleties of the quotidian - with which we identify but which we rarely, if ever, consider - with the retained, adept writer’s eye of his master: “they climbed the narrow, winding stair to the upper deck, Kate going first and Quirke the gentleman trying not to look at her behind.”
Yes, two years on, Quirke remains a great drinker and Black a great writer, too. But two years on, Quirke is a shrewder detective and Black, by far, a more astute composer. “Oh, God.”
Labels: benjamin black, christine falls, john banville, silver swan
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