This is a good book. I’m glad I bought it and it is worth consuming. That being said this book is pretentious. It’s like a “HEYLOOKHOWMANYBIGWORDS I CANCRAMINTO A 200 PAGEBOOK” statement. The prose is overbearing and has a tendency to ramble. It’s a book worth reading, but I found myself rolling my eyes a few times.

Following the death of his wife, the widowed narrator of The Sea spends a lengthy recuperative and reflective stay at the same beach town where he vacationed as a child. The story goes back and forth between his present grief and his coming-of-age memories.

Banville has a graceful way of turning a phrase and more than a few clever lines (“If there was such a thing a ‘long shrift,’ I was in need of some” and “He was half way to a half wit” for example). The present-day story of the wife’s death is particularly touching. The childhood story is charming, although the end did not work as well, in retrospect, as it seemed to. All in all, an entertaining read.

When I started this book, it felt like a typical “award book” – something written for critics. There was no story to speak of, and no development of the characters. The phrases were flowery and inventive, but rarely did they fill me with joy like the ones in Lullabies for Little Criminals; they more felt like attempt to write clever phrases, rather than phrases that happened to be clever. When I complained about the book to my wife, she asked why I was continuing to read it. “Because it’s short,” I replied – if this had been a 500 page book, I’d’ve been out by 75.

Oh, and the “big reveals” at the end? Not surprises.

Very boring and I couldn’t finish it. The only reason I got it is because our bookclub is reading it.

Well. It’s a book that certainly deserves a re-read as I do think it may be a richer experience after reading the end. At first I the diction on the first page had me worried this would be the stuff of the overly resplendent and elaborate; impenetrable pretentious crap. Then it smoothed out on the second page, or I became used to it, I’m not sure which.