The Book of Evidence by John Banville: book review

The Book of Evidence (1989, this edition 2001) is set in Coolgrange, Ireland. The narrator, 38-year-old Frederick Montgomery, is in prison as a remand prisoner, awaiting his trial due in a month’s time.

Montgomery says he is not seeking to excuse his actions, but to explain them. It started in the Mediterranean when he borrowed money from an American guy called Randolph. He can’t pay it back. He says he would have to go home to ask his friends and family to help him out. He knows though that he is ‘running away’ from his responsibilities.

Back home, he hopes to sell his mother’s paintings, but Dorothy (Dolly) has sold all of them to Binkie Behrens. Frederick is not happy about this and goes to Whitewater to visit Anna Behrens – whom he loved briefly, 15 years ago. But she turns him away. He then tries to steal a painting, bludgeons a girl (Josie Bell) to death, evades the police, and implicates his 60ish-year-old friend, Charlie French.

Montgomery has been in prison for two months. He is writing his explanation of what happened in Whitewater. His wife, Daphne, visits him once a week.

He describes himself as having bad (black) moods, an itinerant, a deserter, and a weeper. ‘I am afraid to think what I have done’ he says, and tries hard not to cry. He’s looking at the possibility of 30 years in prison.

His counsel, Maolseachlainn (Mac) Gunna, was ‘hinting at the possibility of an arrangement’ whereby if he pleads guilty, no evidence will be heard. The Book of Evidence is his evidence. What does Montgomery plead?

Whether you empathize with Freddie or not (I did not), he is an articulate, educated man with the gift of a turn of phrase. For example, his description of Daphne throughout his account of his life is touching, beautiful, and full of longing and regret. For example – ‘She was not nice, she was not good. She suited me’ and ‘I could have hung back in the shadows and painted her, down to the tiniest, tenderest detail, on the blank inner wall of my heart, where she would be still, vivid as in that dawn, my dark, mysterious darling.’ Even Anna Behrens he describes ‘like one of Klimt’s gem-encrusted lovers.’

There is some fine writing, but the topic and plot didn’t interest me enough to want to find out why Montgomery committed the crime. It was too self-absorbed, and, in the end, an excuse for his actions. Therefore the plot is not as riveting as his descriptions.

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog