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Title details for Time Pieces by John Banville - Available

Time Pieces

A Dublin Memoir

by John Banville
John Lee
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
From the internationally acclaimed Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea comes "a delicious memoir" (New York Times) that unfolds around the author's recollections, experiences, and imaginings of Dublin.

As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived. And though, when he came of age and took up residence there, and the city became a frequent backdrop for his dissatisfactions (not playing an identifiable role in his work until the Quirke mystery series, penned as Benjamin Black), it remained in some part of his memory as fascinating as it had been to his seven-year-old self. And as he guides us around the city, delighting in its cultural, architectural, political, and social history, he interweaves the memories that are attached to particular places and moments. The result is both a wonderfully idiosyncratic tour of Dublin, and a tender yet powerful ode to a formative time and place for the artist as a young man.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 27, 2018

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525595731
      • File size: 134181 KB
      • Duration: 04:39:32

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The often marvelous John Lee makes a regrettable choice in delivering this memoir from the Irish novelist John Banville. Banville is a dryly elegant stylist, but Lee chooses to perform his text as if it were a series of tales being told by a loudmouth in a pub, or a comic Irish character on stage, with dramatically rolled "r"s, and a pacing as if Banville's memories, reflections, and nuggets of history were stories with punch lines. By chewing the scenery in this way, he sends a message that he thinks the text needs all the dramatic help an actor can give it. It does not. Banville's memories of his youth in Wessex and his adult life in Dublin have all the interest and charm they need. B.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from January 1, 2018
      In this subtle, elegant memoir, Irish novelist and screenwriter Banville (Mrs. Osmond) explores three overlapping Dublins: the contemporary city, the city of history, and the city he remembers. Despite spending centuries as a provincial backwater in the British Empire, Dublin produced a pantheon of great artists, among them Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Jonathan Swift, Orson Welles (who made his stage debut in Dublin’s Gate Theatre), Oscar Wilde, and W.B. Yeats. As a bookish youth in Wexford, Banville viewed Dublin as the locus of all sophistication, excitement, and meaning. In 1964 at age 18, he moved there and found his place in the bohemian milieu he’d admired from afar. In Banville’s survey of 21st-century Dublin, every shift in perspective triggers meditations on the myriad ways the city has shaped his long life. The real unity of the narrative rests in the remarkable interplay between text and image (preceding a two-page photo of the Shelbourne Hotel’s Horseshoe Bar, Banville describes it “as dimly lit and pleasingly louche today as it was then”). For much of the journey, a mysterious friend named Cicero accompanies Banville, a conceit adding yet another layer to a quietly remarkable work. Yet despite this intricate structure, Banville’s wit and humor make this book pass far too quickly. Dublin could not have asked for a more perceptive observer, or a more enchanting portrait.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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