Posted by Seema
on 15/7/2009, 7:27:56, in reply to "Re: The Sea"
76.119.89.181
Hi Steven,
I just finished the book and I'm feeling that familiar (and yet rare) excitement of having fallen with a book.
Yeah, I had marked the same passages as you as well and I have more questions now that I'm done with the book. But I'll wait and raise those once we're sure others are ready to discuss as well.
Looking forward to talking about this some more.
-Seema
--Previous Message--
: Thanks for the additional quotes, Seema. There are a lot
: of links between the issues of mortality, aging and
: memory in the book. Here are two more passages I had
: marked. In the first Max is addressing Anna, his late
: wife:
:
: "...how could you go and leave me like this,
: floundering in my own foulness, with no one to save me
: from myself. How could you ." (p. 145)
:
: "I was thinking of Anna. I make myself think of
: her, I do it as an exercise. She is lodged in me like
: a knife and yet I am beginning to forget her. Already
: the image of her tha I hold in my head is fraying,
: bits of pigments, flakes of gold leaf, are chipping
: off. Will the entire canvas be empty one day? I have
: come to realize how little I knew her.... I know so
: little of myself, how should I think to know
: another?" (p. 159)
:
: The issue of Max's being ashamed of his parents brings
: up an aspect of his affair with Chloe that he goes
: into just below that quote on page 145. Max is very
: much aware of his relative poverty and low social
: status. His love affair with the Grace's is an attempt
: to hide from his own embarrassed situation, but is
: also tinged with envy. It's not entirely his love for
: Chloe that keeps her memory vivid in his mind for a
: lifetime, but also his hate for what he was, and is,
: and his resentment against his parents for being poor.
:
: There are more issues I'd like to bring up, but only
: when we're sure that everyone has finished reading the
: book.
:
: --Previous Message--
: Hi All,
:
: I am not sure if any of you remember me but I posted
: here a few times a long time ago and then disappeared.
: Life got hectic and so on. The usual excuses. But I've
: reading your discussions and using this group to make
: my own reading choices all this time.
:
: I am about halfway through The Sea and am absolutely
: loving it so far. I meant to read this earlier but one
: of my friends described Banville as dense, dry and
: dreary. But then I was encouraged by the reaction here
: which seemed so positive.
:
: I needed a dictionary as well but I never got the
: sense that he was using the words to make a point but
: rather that he genuinely loves the language and enjoys
: the sound these words make as they roll of his tongue.
: Obviously, it's possible that I'm being too generous
: but I, like most of you I imagine, have a soft spot
: for people who are in love with language.
:
: I am posting a few lines that I've come across so far
: that just sounded beautiful to me. Not so much to
: elicit discussion but just to see if they resonated
: with anyone else.
:
:
: "She was still young then, they both were, my
: father and my mother, younger certainly than I am now.
: How strange a thing that is to think of. Everybody
: seems to be younger than I am, even the dead."
:
: --- I agree with Steven's comment that the book seems
: to deal primarily with the idea of memory and
: language. But this and some other parts of the book
: also seem to talk about mortality and aging. I still
: haven't started Part II of the book, so I could be way
: off, but so far I get the feeling that part of this
: lingering in the past has to do with him not wanting
: to deal with his present life as an older man.
:
: "I did not hate them. I loved them, probably.
: Only they were in my way, obscuring my view of the
: future. In time I would be able to see right through
: them, my transparent parents."
:
: "Had it been in my power I would have canceled my
: shaming parents on the spot, my fat little bare-faced
: mother and my father whose body might have been made
: of lard."
:
: I was struck by how impersonal and almost cruel he
: sounds while talking about his parents. His passages
: about Anna seem a lot more tender in comparison.
:
: "I have developed too a queasy fascination with
: the processes of my body, the gradual ones, the way
: for instance my hair and my fingernails insistently
: keep growing, no matter what state I am in, what
: anguish I may be undergoing. It seems so
: inconsiderate, so heedless of circumstance, this
: relentless generation of matter that is already dead,
: in the same way that animals will keep going on about
: their animal business, unaware or uncaring that their
: master sprawled on his cold bed upstairs with mouth
: agape and eyes glazed over will not be coming down,
: ever again, to dish out the kibble or take the key to
: that last tin of sardines."
:
: -- It's a ridiculously long sentence but I enjoyed
: reading it .
:
: "On all sides there were portents of mortality.
: I was plagued by coincidences; long-forgotten things
: were suddenly remembered; objects turned up that for
: years had been lost. My life seemed to be passing
: before me, not in a flash as it is said to do for
: those about to drown, but in a sort of leisurely
: convulsion, emptying itself of its secrets and its
: quotidian mysteries..."
:
: -- This last one might be my favorite one so far. It's
: so vivid.
:
: Anyway, really nice to be back here and to finally be
: able to contribute even. I hope to be here more
: regularly from now on. I read A House for Mr. Biswas
: as well earlier this year and loved it. I'll try and
: post about that as well later.
:
: Thanks,
: Seema
:
:
:
:
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