THE SEA -- John Banville

Alfred A. Knopf -- hc
New York -- ©2005 -- 195pp
ISBN: 0-307-26311-8
Man Booker Prize Winner

A man returns to a sea-side home to reflect on life, death, and love after the death of his wife.

I enjoyed this novel more than Banville's The Eclipse, but a little Banville goes a long way for me. The melancholy of Banville's writing and themes wears thin, and I find myslef emotionly exhausted simply from trying to stay energized while reading his work.

The weaving of the reflections the narrator recreates, is well done and much easier to follow than it was in the previous novel I read. But when a narrator tells a story by way of a thread which ultimately leads back his reflections after the death of his wife, even the most exciting of times (a young boy's glance up the skirt of his heart's desire [the mother of a friend]) comes across painfully reflective and curious rather than dangerous and exciting. This is that melancholy that becomes the mood throughout.

I won't be venturing in to Banville territory anytime too soon. I need more than reflection in the books I read.

I hesitantly recommend this book. It is well written and offers some nice insights to a life, but it does seem to be paced in a very monotonous way.

ECLIPSE -- John Banville

Alfred A. Knopf -- hc
New York -- ©2000 -- 212pp
ISBN: 0-375-41129-1

An aging actor believes he is encountering ghosts at his childhood home, where he has retreated to in order to reflect on his life and career.

Banville's writing is very lyrical, and one can enjoy the simplest of descriptions. Sometimes, however, the descriptions get in the way of the progress of the story. Any time I encounter writing in which paragraphs run longer than two pages, I begin to wonder if the paragraph is filled with description or advancing story. The best writing, I believe, should be an appropriate balance between the two.

This book was difficult to follow at times, though I've come to see that it is set up as a five-act drama, with each "act" containing specific aspects of the story/life of the narrator. Knowing this helps to put some focus in to the reading of the book. Though I suppose, with my theatre background, I should have been able to figure that out, there is nothing at the beginning of the book to indicate that the story is put together in five parts.

The title of the book is perhaps prophetic as this book seems to have been eclipsed by Banville's The Untouchable (which was published immediately before this), and his most recent, Man Booker Prize winning, The Sea.

Not recommended as a first foray into the books of John Banville.

BEST ONE-ACT PLAYS 1947-1948 -- ed. Margaret Mayorga

Dodd, Mead & Company -- hc
New York -- ©1948 -- 278pp

A collection of one-act plays.

Introduction -- Margaret Mayorga
"On This Green Bank" -- Sylvan Karchmer
"The Sunny Side of the Atom" -- Carl Beier and Ruth Ashton
"Suffer the Little Children" -- Nicholas Bela
"Who Are the Weavers" -- Joseph Shore and Scott Graham Williamson
"A Woman's Privilege" -- Marrijane and Joseph Hayes
"Frankie and Albert (A Play with Music)" -- Elizabeth Wilson Hughes
"Easter Eve" -- Anna F. Trevisan
"Through a Glass Darkly" -- Stanley Richards
"The Meadow" -- Ray Bradbury
"Before the Bullfight" -- Theodore Apstein
Bibliographies
Selected Plays of the Year
New Collections of One-Act Plays

A mostly forgettable, unremarkable collection. Assuming that these were indeed the best from 47-48, then they just don't stand the test of time. Only "A Woman's Privilege" stands out as being very Pinter-esque, before Pinter had made a name for himself. Almost theatre of the absurd, just before Ionesco revolutionized/created the genre.

No real gems here, sadly.

THE SILENCE OF THE LOONS -- "The Minnesota Crime Wave"

Nodin Press -- tpb
Minneapolis, MN -- ©2005 -- 224pp
ISBN: 1-932472-36-3
Introduction by R.D. Zimmerman

A collection of short, mystery stories selected by a regional fiction, crime-writing group. A list of eight items were given to each author, and each story had to contain at least three of those items as part of the mystery. As reader's, our mystery was to see if we could identify what those eight items were. Stories included in the anthology are:

Introduction -- R.D. Zimmerman
"Holiday Murder at Harmony Lake" -- M.D. Lake
"Loon Lodge" -- Mary Logue
"Before Swine" -- William Kent Krueger
"The Gates" -- Judith Guest
"Root of the Matter" -- Monica Ferris
"Mickey's Last Mark" -- K.J. Erickson
"Norwegian Noir" -- Ellen Hart
"A Winter's Tale" -- Carl Brookins
"Take Me Out" -- Lori Lake
"Waltz of the Loons" -- Deborah Woodworth
"Confidential Sources" -- Kerri Miller
"A Domestic Matter" -- David Housewright
"Jake" -- Pat Dennis

I'm not a big reader of mystery fiction, but this intrigued me because of it's origins and it's Minnesota roots. Over-all, I really enjoyed this collection...much more than I thought that I might (made me think that I ought to try my hand at some mystery fiction). In fact, only one story struck me as NOT being good, and oddly enough, that was the story by the biggest "name" (to me, anyway) -- Judith Guest. It seemed to me that she either misunderstood the rules or was trying to be smart and included all eight items in her very briefest of stories.

A fun collection, well-worth reading.

THE DEVIL'S STORYBOOK -- Natalie Babbitt

Farrar Strauss Giroux -- hc
New York -- ©1974 -- 101pp
ISBN: 0-374-31770-4
illustrations by the author

A collection of short stories -- fables -- featuring the Devil.

"Wishes"
"The Very Pretty Lady"
"The Harps of Heaven"
"The Imp in the Basket"
"Nuts"
A Palindrome"
"Ashes"
"Perfection"
"The Rose and the Minor Demon"
"The Power of Speech"

These very brief stories were actually a delight to read. The come across as fables, each with a short moral. My daugher had requested the book from the library because she wanted to read as much Natalie Babbitt as she could, after watching Tuck Everlasting on television. My daughter, too, enjoyed these stories. It only takes about an hour to read through the entire book, but the writing flows nicely and most of the stories were quite enjoyable to read.

A LONG WAY DOWN -- Nick Hornby

Riverhead Books -- hc
New York -- ©2005 -- 333pp
ISBN: 1-57322-302-6
signed by Nick Hornby

Four people's lives become entwined when they meet on New Year's Eve, each with the intention of committing suicide.

I enjoyed this book, though I did feel that it had difficulty maintaining the story once we got to know each of the people involved (which happened fairly quickly -- at least by the end of the first third of the book).

The book is written from the point of view of each of the four people who had intended to kill themselves. For the most part, they were fairly interchangeable (they all seemed to react the same way towards each other) with the exception of the sheltered woman who has spent her life taking care of her whp os, for the most part, a vegetable.

The four people involved seem to be stock characters. Who you think they are at the beginning of the book is pretty much who they are at the end of the book, though perhaps a tad wiser in one or two cases.

I think that the American, "JJ" sums it up well:

"I had wanted to kill myself, not because I hated living, but because I loved it. ...We were up on the roof because we couldn't find a way back into life..."

I've read that many critics do not feel that this is Hornby at his best, and I'll likely read more of his work.