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11 October 2005

"They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide". The Man Booker Prize was awarded Monday to Irish writer and critic John Banville.
They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. 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 rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes.

The rusted hulk of the freighter that had run aground at the far end of the bay longer ago than any of us could remember must have thought it was being granted a relaunch. I would not swim again, after that day. The seabirds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed, by the spectacle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam.

They looked unnaturally white, that day, those birds. The waves were depositing a fringe of soiled yellow foam along the waterline. No sail marred the high horizon. I would not swim, no, not ever again.

Someone has just walked over my grave. Someone.

The name of the house is the Cedars, as of old. A bristling clump of those trees, monkey-brown with a tarry reek, their trunks nightmarishly tangled, still grows at the left side, facing across an untidy lawn to the big curved window of what used to be the living room but which Miss Vavasour prefers to call, in landladyese, the lounge.

The front door is at the opposite side, opening on to a square of oil-stained gravel behind the iron gate that is still painted green, though rust has reduced its struts to a tremulous filigree. I am amazed at how little has changed in the more than fifty years that have gone by since I was last here.

Amazed, and disappointed, I would go so far as to say appalled, for reasons that are obscure to me, since why should I desire change, I who have come back to live amidst the rubble of the past?

posted by matteo 11 October | 11:48
Do you agree that the judges made a controversial and perverse choice? I have to admit I haven't read any of the books on the short list. How many have you read? After reading the excerpt you pasted above, my first thought was "this is very dry and calculated - cold." I don't think I could an entire book written like that. What do you think?

I'm going to take the shortlist with me when I go to the book store later today - I need something new to read! I print out the AskMe threads about good books and take them with me, too. I wonder how many other people do that.
posted by iconomy 11 October | 12:00
I've only read Banville and Zadie. I was rooting for him because I am a fan, and he's been writing great stuff for 35 years now, he deserved it. maybe it's not his best book (and yes, he can be a bit dry) but really, he is one of the most elegant writers in the English language
posted by matteo 11 October | 12:25
I agree. I've not read this one, but his work is usually excellent, ambitious and (coldly) beautiful. I'd like to read the Zadie Smith book, I'm afraid that I found White Teeth overrated, but I haven't read Autograph Man or this one.
posted by omiewise 11 October | 13:09
There's also this news from Nobel Land, which may say something about what kind of quality we can expect from this year's choice. I don't know.
posted by omiewise 11 October | 14:32
mmm... Saguenay || What would you do

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