"The Sea" by John Banville

"The Sea" by John Banville won the Man Booker Prize in 2005.

Writers love using The Sea as a metaphor, a symbol and location. This isn’t even the first Booker Prize winner with the words “The Sea” in its title, (“The Sea, The Sea” by Iris Murdoch having also won this award).

Having lost his wife to cancer, the main character, an art critic, retreats to the seaside resort where he spent childhood summers. The book jumps between his recollection of these holidays and his wife’s illness. Nothing actually happens in the course of the novel. At one point he mentions what an eventful day a certain day had been, but it isn’t anything particularly dramatic. There is what I take to be a slight twist in the tale towards the end, but I’m not sure if perhaps I’d skimmed over some vital information earlier.

Despite the lack of action, it is not to say that I disliked this book. Compared to “Saturday” by Ian McEwan (which was long-listed for the same prize in the same year), another book where the reader is forced to spend a lot of time in the mind of a self-absorbed male, I found this one much more engaging. I don’t know whether I’d go so far as to actively seek out another book by John Banville, but the prospect wouldn’t send me screaming from the room.