The Sea is the story of a troubled man who, after great personal tragedy, returns obsessively to the site of an earlier tragedy and re-experiences it without exhibiting much relief. I don’t think this character changes much; it is more that the reader is invited to make an increasingly large emotional investment as he reveals himself. So, how is this story told? Last week, I suggested that the protagonist, Max, relies on The Sea’s literary style to tell the story, perhaps to

The drowning of Chloe and Myles Grace, is alluded to mysteriously in The Sea’s first line: “They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide.” Here, Chloe and Myles are referred to as gods, and their deaths described as a departure. The actual event, shown close to the end, is in many ways the climax of the book. Let’s look at it more closely. At a deeper level of theme, the gods depart to death in the sea after one of them, Chloe Grace, has a sexual experience. This e

A central question (not the only one) in The Sea is to whom is the narrator, Max, addressing his narration? Max’s narrative has the feel of a diary, a private, often unedited document meant solely for the author’s use. However, given this definition, trouble lies ahead. Oh, no! The Sea is but a facsimile of a private document—facsimile because it is not a private document at all, it is a public work of fiction. Also, although we have every reason to accept that Max would narr

The premise of The Sea is that, after the death of his wife, a man is grieving, trying to go on but struggling, not only with the loss, but also his own mortality. He is living in the house he and his wife shared, the house their daughter grew up in, but feels estranged from it and is ready to sell. He journeys to a place he stayed at as a child, choosing to take a room in a hotel, The Cedars, which had been the residence of an eccentric family that had captured his attention

This week, a new novel: John Banville’s The Sea, published in 2005 and the winner of that year’s Man Booker Prize. It begins: “They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide.” I believe this is the fourth time I’ve read the book, the first time six years ago. Back in 2005, (ten years before that) I’d read a review of it, a review that really stuck with me. Why do we read particular books at particular times? We’re reminded of something, perhaps, or it’s has been sitt