Life
1945- ; b. 8 Dec., Wexford, son of office worker in garage-supply business;
ed. Christian Brothers, and St. Peter’s College, Summerhill, Wexford, where
he was taught by Fr. Larkin; bought copy of Ulysses in Liverpool at 17; intended for architect by parents; working
as Aer Lingus clerk, 1968; m. an American, 1968; joined Irish Press,
1980; literary editor of The Irish Times, 1988-98 [var. 1999]; wins Allied
Irish Banks and Irish-America Found. Lit. Awards, 1967; Macaulay Fellowship
of Irish Arts Council, 1973; short stories, Long Lankin (1970),
centred on but not directly dealing with the violent killing of a child
in the Scottish ballad of that name; Nightspawn (1971), a psychological
thriller and anti-novel set in Greece on the eve of a military coup and
narrated by Irish writer Ben White, who becomes involved; Birchwood
(1973), set in an Irish ‘big house’ combining features of different
historical periods, and centred on the narrator Gabriel Godkin’s
discovery that his ‘cousin’ Michael is actually his brother
from an incestuous relationship between his father and his aunt - with
jealousies, violence and deceits arising from these circumstances;
Doctor Copernicus (1976), based on the life of the astronomer Copernicus
[Koppernigk], and winner of James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction;
issued Kepler (1981), in the same vein and likewise grounded in
Koestler’s study of scientific paradigms in The Sleepwalkers
(1959); completed ‘scientific’ trilogy with The Newton Letter
(1982), set in Ferns, where the scientist’s biographer takes accommodation
with the Lawlesses and becomes involved with the daughter of the house;
reputed to be Banville’s favorite and filmed for Channel 4; Mefisto
(1986), a Faustian tale narrated by Gabriel Swan in two parts, before
and after his own part-immolation in a burning ‘big house’ and
ultimately concerned with matematical models of reality - a theme and
treatment oddly in the manner of Flann O’Briens “De De Selby”
character in The Third Policeman; issued The Book of Evidence (1989), dealing with
Freddie Montgomery’s killing of Josie Bell in circumstances not unlike
those in the 1982 MacArthur murder case (‘all just drift, like everything
else’), with an obsession with a Dutch painting lost to the character’s
Anglo-Irish family as the immediate cause of the criminal events; shortlisted
for Booker Prize and winner of 1989 Guinness Peat Aviation Award; issued Ghosts (1993), a novel about film-crew arriving
on an island, with Montgomery under alias; wrote The Broken Jug (Peacock,
1 June, 1994; dir. by Ben Barnes), a stage-farce in verse adapted from
Heinrich von Kleist’s Der Zebrochene Krug [1807], and dealing
obliquely with the Famine; wrote Seachange (Autumn 1994), his first
TV drama, appeared in RTÉ “Two Lives” series; issued
Athena (1995), the third in a trilogy centred on Freddie Montgomery,
now alias Morrow; issued The Untouchable (1997), a novel centred
in career of Victor Maskell and based on story of the aesthete-spy Anthony
Blunt (d.1983); it incls. the character Querell, widely held to be based
on Graham Greene; winner
Lannan Literary Award, 1997; mbr. of Irish Arts Council under
Colm Ó Briain’s directorship in the 1980s; succeeded by Caroline
Walshe in literary-editorship of Irish Times and becomes Chief
Critic in succession to Brian Fallon, 1999; issued new novel Eclipse
(2000), about an actor who retreats into himself after a humiliation
on the stage but has to come to terms with his family and especially his
troubled dg. Cass; God’s Gift, based on von Kleist’s
version of the tale of Amphitryon’s wife (Barabbas, Dec. 2000); contrib.
essay to first issue of the new-series Dublin Review; resigned
from Aosdána following non-election of his candidate Mary Morrissey,
2001; isued Shroud (2002), a sequel to Eclipse; issued Prague Pictures (2003). DIW FDA
AOS DIL OCIL
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Works
Fiction: Long Lankin (London: Martin Secker & Warburg 1970),
189pp., and Do. [1st rev. edn.] (Dublin: Gallery Press 1984);
Nightspawn (London: Martin Secker & Warburg; NY: Norton 1971;
Oldcastle: Gallery 1993); Birchwood (London: Martin Secker &
Warburg 1973; London: Panther 1984; London Minerva 1992; NY: Norton 1994;
London: Picador 1998; 1999); Doctor Copernicus (London: Martin
Secker & Warburg/NY: Norton 1976; London: Panther 1980; London: Granada
1983; Paladin 1987;London: Minerva/Mandarin 1990; NY: Vintage 1993; London:
Picador 1999); Kepler (London: Martin Secker & Warburg 1981;
London: Panther/Boston: Godine 1983); The Newton Letter: An Interlude
(London: Martin Secker & Warburg 1982; London: Panther 1984; Boston:
Godine 1987); Mefisto (London: Martin Secker & Warburg 1986;
Boston: Godine 1989; Minerva 1993); The Book of Evidence (London:
Martin Secker & Warburg 1989; NY: Scribner 1990; Minerva 1990; Mandarin
1990; London: Picador 1998; NY: Vintage 2001) [220pp.]; Ghosts (London:
Martin Secker & Warburg/NY: Knopf 1993; London: Picador 1998); Athena
(London: Martin Secker & Warburg 1995; London: Picador 1998);
The Untouchable (London: Picador 1997; 1998); Eclipse (London:
Picador 2000), 214pp. [ded. ‘in mem. Laurence Roche’]; Shroud (London: Picador 2002), 408pp.
Miscellaneous: Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City (London: Bloomsbury 2003), 256pp.
Articles incl. ‘Act of Faith’, in Hibernia, September 2 (1977), p.8; ‘A Talk’, in Irish University Review [John Banville Special Issue] (Spring 1981), p.16; ‘Physics and Fiction: Order from Chaos’, in The New York Book Review (21 April 1985), p.41; ‘Bloomsday, Bloody Bloomsday', in New York Books Review (16 June 2004) [“Essay”], p.31 [infra].
Contribs., Extensive literary journalism and reviews including his lecture essay on ‘Joyce and Neitszche’, in Augustine Martin, James Joyce, The Artist and the Labyrinth (Dublin: Ryan Publishing 1990), and very many Irish Times reviews. ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’, review of Derek Mahon, Selected Poems, and Paul Muldoon, Madoc: A Mystery, in NY Review of Books (30 May 1991), pp.37-39; his first television drama, Seachange, appeared in RTÉ “Two Lives” series (Autumn 1994); The Broken Jug (Dublin: Gallery 1994); ‘Introduction’ to George Steiner, The Deeps of the Sea (London: Faber 1995) [q.pp.]; ‘Birchwood: Extracts from the Screenplay’, John Banville and Thaddeus O’Sullivan with Andrew Patmann, Irish Review, No. 1 (1986), pp.65-73; ‘The Writing Life’, Washington Post [Book World section] (9 Sept 1999), p.8; ‘Fate of the Fourth Man’, review of Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives (Macmillan 2001), in The Irish Times ( 24 Nov. 2001); ‘Lucia Joyce: [review of] To Dance in the Wake by Carol Loeb Shloss’, in ABEI Journal: The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies, 6 (June 2004), pp.11-18.
Valuations: Long Lankin (London: Martin Secker & Warburg 1970), 189pp., first novel; Peter Ellis (London) @ £450; Hemingway's Books (Sumas, WA, U.S.A.) @ US$800; Simon Finch Rare Books (London, UK) @ US$1562.62 [all in 2004].
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- Thomas Kilroy, ‘Teller of Tales’, in Times Literary Supplement (17 March 1972), pp.301-02.
- Brian Donnelly, ‘The Big House in the Recent Novel’, in Studies 64 (1975), pp.133-42.
- Seamus Deane, ‘“Be Assured I am Inventing”: The Fiction of John Banville’, in Patrick Rafroidi & Maurice Harmon eds., The Irish Novel in Our Time: Cahiers Irlandaises 4-5 (l’Université de Lille 1976), pp.329-38 [infra].
- Ronan Sheehan, ‘Novelists on the Novel: Ronan Sheehan Talks to John Banville and Francis Stuart’, The Crane Bag 3, No. 1 (1979), pp.76-84.
- ‘John Banville Special Issue’, Irish University Review 11, No. 1 (Spring 1981) [incl. Rüdiger Imhof, ‘“My Readers, That Small Band, Deserve a Rest”: An Interview with John Banville’, pp.5-12; Banville, ‘A Talk’, pp.13-17; Francis C. Molloy, ‘The Search for Truth’, pp.29-51].
- Imhof, ‘John Banville’s Supreme Fiction’, pp.52-86; also Imhof, ‘John Banville, A Checklist’, pp.87-95].
- Rüdiger Imhof, John Banville: A Critical Introduction (Dublin: Wolfhound 1989; rev. edn. 1997) [incl. bibl. of minor writings and novel-extracts].
- Rüdiger Imhof, ‘The Newton Letter by John Banville: An Exercise in Literary Derivation’, Irish University Review 13, No. 2 (1983), pp.162-67.
- Seamus Deane, Short History of Irish Literature (London: Hutchinson 1986) [infra].
- Ciaran Carty, ‘Out of Chaos Comes Order’, in The Sunday Tribune (1 Sept. 1986), p.18.
- Geert Lernout, ‘Looking for Pure Visions’, in Graph 1 (Oct. 1986), pp.12-16.
- Joseph McMinn, ‘Reality Refuses to Fall into Place’, in Fortnight (Oct. 1986), p.24.
- David McCormick, ‘John Banville, Literature as Criticism, in Irish Review 2 (1987), pp.95-99.
- Rüdiger Imhof, ‘German Influences on John Banville and Aidan Higgins’, in Wolfgang Zach & Heinz Kosok eds., Literary Interrelations: Ireland, England and the World, II: Comparison and Impact (Tubingen: Gunter Narr, 1987), pp.335-47.
- Rüdiger Imhof, ‘Swan’s Way, or Goethe, Einstein, Banville: The Eternal Recurrence’, Études Irlandaises 12, 2 (Dec. 1987), pp.113-29.
- Rüdiger Imhof, ‘Q & A with John Banville’, in Irish Literary Supplement (Spring 1987), p.13.
- Richard Kearney, ‘John Banville’, Transitions (Dublin: Wolfhound 1987), pp.91-100.
- Joseph McMinn, ‘An Exalted Naming: The Poetical Fictions of John Banville’, in Canadian Journal of Irish Literature 14, 1 (July 1988), pp.17-27.
- Geert Lernout, ‘Banville and Being: The Newton Letter and History’, in Joris Duytschaever and Lernout, eds., History and Violence in Anglo-Irish Literature (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1988), pp.67-77.
- James M. Cahalan, The Irish Novel: A Critical History (Boston: Twayne 1988), pp.277-78.
- Dorinda Outram, ‘Heavenly Bodies and Logical Minds’, in Graph [4] (Spring 1988), pp.9-11.
- Joseph McMinn, ‘Stereotypical Images of Ireland in John Banville’s Fiction’, in Eire-Ireland 23, 3 (Fall 1988), pp.94-102.
- Rüdiger Imhof, John Banville: A Critical Introduction (Dublin: Wolfhound Press 1989).
- Fintan O’Toole, ‘Stepping into the Limelight - and the Chaos’, Irish Times (21 Oct. 1989) [q.p.].
- Anthony McGonagle, ‘The Big House in John Banville’s Fiction’ (M.A. thesis, UUC Jordanstown 1989).
- Neil Cornwell, The Literary Fantastic: From Gothic to Postmodernism (New York: Harvester/London: Wheatsheaf 1990), pp.172-84.
- Terence Brown, ‘Redeeming the Time, the Novels of John McGahern and John Banville’, in James Acheson ed., The British and Irish Novel Since 1960, (London: Macmillan 1991), pp.159-73.
- Gearóid Cronin, ‘John Banville and the Subversion of the Big House Novel’, in J. Genet, ed., The Big House in Ireland (Dingle: Brandon 1991), pp.251-60.
- Joseph McMinn, John Banville: A Critical Study (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1991) [infra].
- Sean Lysaght, ‘Banville’s Tetralogy: The Limits of Mimesis’, in Irish University Review 21 (Spring/Summer 1991), pp. 82-100.
- Joseph McMinn, ‘“Naming the World: Language and Experience in John Banville’s Fiction’, in Irish University Review 23 (Autumn/Winter 1993), pp. 183-96.
- Joseph Swann: “Banville’s Faust”, in onald .E. Morse, Csilla Bertha & I. Palffy, eds., A Small Nation’s Contribution to the World: Essays on Anglo-Irish Literature and Language, (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe; Debrecen: Lajos University 1993), pp.148-60.
- John Devitt, ‘Early Banville’, review of Nightspawn, The Book of Evidence and Ghosts, in Irish Literary Supplement 13, 1 (Spring 1994), p.36.
- John Dunne, ‘Fiction’s Own Laws,’ review of Nightspawn (1971), in Books Ireland, (Sept. 1994), pp.201-02.
- Seachange, Focus [Th.] production with Michael Harding, Kiss (Irish Times, 19 Nov. 1994).
- Mark Wormald, review of Athena, Times Literary Supplement (10 Feb 1995).
- Amanda Craig review of Athena, Times (16 Feb 1995).
- Patricia Craig, ‘This is Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On’, review of Athena, in Spectator (18 Feb. 1995) [infra].
- John Dunne, ‘Weird or What?’, review of Athena [with novels by John McKenna and Gaye Shortland], in Books Ireland (April 1995), pp.81-83 [infra].
- Robert Tracy, ‘The Broken Lights of Irish Myth’, review of The Broken Jug, in Irish Literary Studies (Fall 1995), p.18 [infra].
- Hedwig Schall, ‘An Interview with John Banville’ [Shelbourne Hotel, Sat. 18th Dec. 1996], in The European English Messenger [ESSE], VI, No.1 (Spring 1997), pp.13-19.
- William Trevor, ‘Surfaces Beneath Surfaces’, review of The Untouchable, in Irish Times (26 April 1997) [infra].
- Frederick Raphael, ‘The Sensitive Plant’, review of The Untouchable, in Independent [UK], (26 April 1997).
- Maggie Gee, review of The Untouchable, in Times Literary Supplement (9 May 1997), p.20 [infra].
- Chris Petit, ‘Autopsy of Englishness’, review of The Untouchable, Guardian Weekly (18 May 1997) [infra].
- John Bayley, ‘The Double Life’, review of The Untouchable, in NY Review of Books (29 May 1997), pp.17-18.
- Frank Kermode, ‘Gossip’, review of The Untouchables [sic], in London Review of Books (5 June 1997), p.23 [infra].
- Liam Fay, ‘The Touchable’ [interview with Banville], Hot Press, 21, 13 (9 July 1997), pp.44-46.
- Joseph McMinn, The Supreme Fictions of John Banville (Manchester UP 1999), 220pp., [reviewed by Kevin Keily in Books Ireland (Feb. 2000), p.19].
- Ruth Frehner, The Colonizers' Daughters: Gender in The Anglo-Irish Big House Novel (Tubingen: Franacke 1999), x, 256pp.
- Carlo Gébler, review of The Untouchable, in Fortnight [q.d.], p.31 [infra]. James Wood, reviewing Eclipse, in The Irish Times [Weekend] (16 Sept. 2000) [infra].
- Christopher Taylor, reviewing John Banville, Eclipse, in Times Literary Supplement, 29 Sept. 2000) [infra].
- John Kenny, ‘The Ideal Elegies’, review of The Revolutions Trilogy: Doctor Copernicus, Kepler, The Newton Letter [rep. edns.], in The Irish Times, 6 Jan. 2001 [infra].
- Hedwig Schwall, ‘An Interview with John Banville’, in The European English Messenger, VI, 1 (Spring 1997), pp.13-19.
- Laura P. Zuntini di Izarra, Mirrors and Holographic Labyrinths: The Process of a New Synthesis in the Novels of John Banville (SF: Internat. Scholars Publ. 1999), 181pp.
- Conor McCarthy, ‘Irish Metahistories: John Banville and the Revisionist Debate’ [Chap. 2], in Modernisation: Crisis and Culture in Ireland 1969-1992 (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2000), pp.80-134.
- Derek Hand, John Banville: Exploring Fictions (Dublin: Liffey Press 2002), 188pp.
- Robin Wilkinson, ‘Echo and Coincidence in John Banville’s Eclipse’, in Irish University Review, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Autumn/Winter 2003), pp.356-70.
- Brendan MacNamee, ‘A Rosy Crucifixion: Imagination and Time in John Banville’s Birchwood’, in Studies (Spring 2003) [q.p.; infra].
- Neil Murphy, Irish Fiction and Postmodern Doubt – An Analysis of the Epistemological Crisis in Modern Irish Fiction (Edwin Mellen Press 2004), 286pp. [Chap. 3: John Banville - Out of the Postmodern Abyss].
Notes
God's Gift (2000) is a tale based on Heinreich Von
Kleist’s 1807 version of the myth of Prince Amphitryon whose wife
is seduced by Jupiter, now set in Ireland following the 1798 Rebellion
with General Ashburningham's Minna, with a subplot concerning Jupiter's interference
with the General's servant Souse and his wife Kitty; produced by Barabbas
(dir. Veronica Coburn). See Irish Emigrant Arts Review (Dec.
2000).
Juggery-pokery: There is another version of von Kleist’s De Zerbrochen Krug trans. by Blake Morrison as The Cracked Pot played at Skipton Auction Mart using copious amounts of recorded Yorkshire dialect of 1911 (see Times Literary Supplement, 22 March 1996, p.20.)
What the Dickens!: In Birchwood (1973) Banville introduces a travelling circus, much as Dickens does in Hard Times while the term “whelp” is shared by both texts. If intentional, the borrowed trope and term are among very many intertextual elements in the novel including an echo of Joyce’s Dubliners in the naming of the protagonists Gabriel and Michael.
Alan Gilsenan, dir., stage-version of Banville’s Book of Evidence as a dramatic monologue for the Royal Shakespeare Company [RSC], 2000.
Macolm MacArthur (b.1946), arrested 4 Aug. 1982 and convicted of murdering Bridie Gargan, sentenced to a life term of imprisonment and served as the model for the character Freddie Montgomery in The Book of Evidence. He was moved from Mountjoy to an Shelton Abbey, an open prison, on 6 May 2003. In January 2005 MacArthur challenged his further detention as one of the the longest held prisoners in the state, and sought a High Court declaration that it is in contravention of the the Constitution and the European Human Rights Convention on the basis that a minister cannot perform a judicial function in over-riding the recommendation of the parole board, as well as damages from the Irish State - see The Irish Times, 27 Jan 2005.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)