I share interesting things I’ve read/watched on Sundays and publish an essay, story, or book review on Wednesdays. This is a book review of The Sea.
I recently returned to New York and immediately realized that quite a few Americans speak more poorly than, strangely, Europeans and South Americans who learned English as a second language. Although the former set knows more words, they use, in quotidian conversation and text, approximately the same number, at comparable levels of complexity, as the foreigners I spent time with. The difference is that Americans, generally, appear less interested in poetic description and sound—points we will return to—and default to using dilapidated slang where a foreigner chooses simple words that are more illustrative and euphonious. For example, many young American men refer to almost everything positive as sick or cool (an addiction that I still have not kicked), but a Brazilian man of the same age, unfamiliar with the vernacular, has to search for words that actually mean something; once he finds them, he uses his native mode of speech to make them sing. In a sense, he might even speak worse Portuguese than English, similarly suffering from the bad habits of one’s maiden tongue.
Three times during my travels, however, I met people who learned English through cheap channels, and their speech was starkly different from what I’ve just described. One of them, a Brazilian teenager, switched from smooth Portuguese into English that was indistinguishable from the way modern rappers—those who grew up on the internet—speak; he mastered not only the tone, but the blank-eyed vocabulary. The two others were European girls who spoke rich French and Spanish; yet, suddenly, started speaking as though they were starring in Mean Girls when they switched languages. Personal anecdotes aside, if one thinks about the variety of dialects and accents that span the globe, the point I’m making is obvious: there is a strong social component to language, and how we speak is shaped, dramatically, by the people we spend time with as well as the media we absorb.
For this reason alone, people who want to improve their English should read The Sea. Banville runs as far away from poor habits as the spectrum allows, balancing precise technical terms—mewl, littoral, blench, desiccated, hydrangea—with vivid imagery and an intuitive understanding of pace:
All morning under a milky sky the waters in the bay had swelled and swelled, rising to unheard-of heights, the small waves creeping over parched sand that for years had known no wetting save for the rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes.
When the novel came out, however, most of the literary community’s ire was aimed at this highbrow language and, what they considered, its middling plot. One reviewer writes that it is “stilted, claustrophobic and numbingly pretentious”; another calls it a “solemn, shimmery verbal miasma”; and another says it is “more like sitting an exam than taking in a tale.” In short, the critics who did not enjoy the work or, at the minimum, thought it undeserving of the prestigious Booker Prize, feel that the author employs pedantic language at the expense of well-written simple prose and a more engaging plot.
I understand this criticism because I disliked Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian for the same reason (not to mention quite a few others); however, the prose in The Sea is more effective than other ornate works. In part, this is because even Banville’s most complex sentences are accessible and exceptionally pleasing to the ear; but mainly because it comes from a first-person narrator, Max, who by repeatedly highlighting his imperfections makes himself authentic and relatable. There is not an invisible pretentious black hole on the other side of the memoir, but a human being who humbly and frequently volunteers his faults. Max comes across as a hermetic learned uncle cooped up in a study, seemingly ready to concede, if pushed on the point, that he is wordy, he is pedantic, and, well, that’s just how he is. Thus, none of his ornate language comes across as affected; instead, he is a more akin to a computer scientist who uses mathematical terms in conversation simply because he loves them, because he is openly self-indulgent, and because he is disinterested—perhaps incapable—of prioritizing the interests of others over his own. We learn through each of Max’s actions that he is an unwaveringly flawed character, and the trust that the novelist builds allows his verse to shine where others implode.
Banville uses his poetry to explore familiar subjects—death, love, lust, class, nostalgia, grief—in a non-linear fashion reminiscent of Vonnegut’s concept of becoming “unstuck in time” in Slaughterhouse-Five, and the author recreates the way memory functions with such accuracy that the tower never comes crumbling down. He jumps between eras without warning, but, through his descriptive ability, is able to repeatedly construct a clear scene that we can immediately immerse ourselves in. By directly calling out the shortcomings and inaccuracies of his recollections—by drawing attention to them—Banville removes doubt from the reader’s mind. Throughout the entire novel, I found myself unwilling to believe that this did not really happen, and, more impressively, one week on, I’ve come away from the novel with the feeling that Max’s story happened to me. Now, at twenty-nine years-old, I carry an older grief-stricken version of myself, and although I know that my future will not turn out as Max’s did, I feel like I’ve traversed the offshoots of my life’s decision tree that fate will prevent me from exploring in reality.
Despite the mixed reception the book received, it accomplishes all of the goals of a novel, and I expect that by the end of this century—if people are still reading, then—the work will be considered amongst the finest of our time. One walks away from The Sea more wise, more imaginative, more curious, and—perhaps most importantly—more interested in language, in imagery, in sound, in eloquence. The modern world, with its waning interest in words, could use that.
Good review! Banville's definitely a writer's writer (a common title thrown at him). It's been a few years since I've read this so forgive me if I misrepresent anything.
Like you, I didn't mind the elegant prose. In fact, it mingled and emulsified well with the story given that most of the text are these slippery, lucid memories, ebbing and flowing in their clarity within Max's mind. But this the only Banville that I've read so I can see why it can get old quickly if he does this every time out.
Anyway, as Max ages and approaches death he feels the sea returning. It consumes us all eventually.