Posted by Lale on 7/7/2009, 13:32:11, in reply to "Re: The Sea"
174.115.190.162
Hi All,
Just came back from Istanbul last night.
I read The Sea entirely in Istanbul and liked it very much. I loved the prose. On the back cover of my copy the Nabokov comparison is made ("John Banville is the heir to Nabokov..." - The Sunday Telegraph) and I was also thought of Nabokov's wordsmithship while reading the book.
I was also very much surprised by the revelation at the end, I wasn't expecting it, and such a quiet surprise was very welcome.
What bothered me was not that none of the characters were likable, but that the narrator was not likable. Still, he was one of the better ones.
A very elegant book, and I enjoyed the style very much.
I also needed a dictionary occasionally. I did think usage of some words were pretentious, I even wondered if the author knew these words all along or ig he had searched for them while writing the book. I wished I had access to a dictionary (kindle would have been very handy during my vacation). I also wished I had marked the fancy words so that I could at least look them up later. But unfortunately I couldn't do that either while travelling.
Steven, why don't you share with us the earmarked passages so that we can discuss them.
Lale
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