Time remains in the form of incidents and they do not fade away from the banks of one’s memory once for all. They stay deep inside the unexplainable chambers of human mind according to the importance and impact. Incidents are considered lost and forgotten but suddenly something like smell, taste, colour, climate or a sudden phenomenon takes them out from the depth of one’s mind and immediately they become very much alive with the power that they possessed earlier. A memory does not simply emerge and fade away, but it brings out another memory as a continuation and they define the existence of a particular character. Like this, memories become a crowd of ants which form a line, one behind the other, trying to reach the top of the mountain of
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This is Banville’s thirteenth novel that made him world famous and he received Man Booker Prize for it in the year of its publication 2005. In the name of Benjamin Black, he wrote crime stories also. The Sea is a poetic prose written performance by John Banville dealing with the life of an art historian Max Morden. He has lost his beloved wife Anna recently and the impact of it takes him back to the seaside village where his early days were spent during a summer. Almost fifty summers earlier, he stayed there in a boardinghouse in which the Grace family also stayed. Max now tries to find out the meaning of his existence by connecting the present with his past. The flood of memories of his wife and his painful early childhood move front and back in his mind without his permission and the conflict brings the inevitable understanding on the nature of human …show more content…
A careful reader is bound to understand the communion between the characters, the writer, the story and the elegant presence of the sea as the backdrop of the novel. It is true that this novel could not have been written in any other setting except the sea. The experiences of Max with his wife Anna brings back his early experiences with Grace family members in the Cedars Inn in that seaside village- he calls them “Gods”. The series of photographical memories of his past dwell as a sweet and yet bitter burden in his wounded heart forever. He relives those experiences when he is unable to live his present which is deprived of both those beauties. For him past seems to be comfortable to think and even to live in.2 The narration makes the magic as it progresses like an unseen slow galloping horse throughout the novel exploring the immense pleasure of Max with Chloe and the painful last days of his loving wife Anna who is fighting a fatal disease. We cannot simply neglect Max’s attraction towards Mrs.Grace because it denotes a strong affinity towards a kind of longing for an affectionate mother near him who can give him anything. When he thinks of the death of his wife, it reflects his own death too. For him death is separation and in that sense Mrs.Grace, Chloe and the seaside village which he has visited now- all are
This is Banville’s thirteenth novel that made him world famous and he received Man Booker Prize for it in the year of its publication 2005. In the name of Benjamin Black, he wrote crime stories also. The Sea is a poetic prose written performance by John Banville dealing with the life of an art historian Max Morden. He has lost his beloved wife Anna recently and the impact of it takes him back to the seaside village where his early days were spent during a summer. Almost fifty summers earlier, he stayed there in a boardinghouse in which the Grace family also stayed. Max now tries to find out the meaning of his existence by connecting the present with his past. The flood of memories of his wife and his painful early childhood move front and back in his mind without his permission and the conflict brings the inevitable understanding on the nature of human …show more content…
A careful reader is bound to understand the communion between the characters, the writer, the story and the elegant presence of the sea as the backdrop of the novel. It is true that this novel could not have been written in any other setting except the sea. The experiences of Max with his wife Anna brings back his early experiences with Grace family members in the Cedars Inn in that seaside village- he calls them “Gods”. The series of photographical memories of his past dwell as a sweet and yet bitter burden in his wounded heart forever. He relives those experiences when he is unable to live his present which is deprived of both those beauties. For him past seems to be comfortable to think and even to live in.2 The narration makes the magic as it progresses like an unseen slow galloping horse throughout the novel exploring the immense pleasure of Max with Chloe and the painful last days of his loving wife Anna who is fighting a fatal disease. We cannot simply neglect Max’s attraction towards Mrs.Grace because it denotes a strong affinity towards a kind of longing for an affectionate mother near him who can give him anything. When he thinks of the death of his wife, it reflects his own death too. For him death is separation and in that sense Mrs.Grace, Chloe and the seaside village which he has visited now- all are