Volume 44, Number 9 · May 29, 1997
The Double Life
By John Bayley
The Untouchable
by John Banville
Knopf, 368 pp., $25.00
John Banville occupies a very definite and indeed almost unique place among contemporary novelists. He is not fashionable. Indeed he disregards fashion, even the extent to which most novelists, however independent in their natures and talents, keep an eye on what is 'in' or 'out,' and are often insensibly influenced by this awareness. He shows no interest in discovering in his fiction who he 'really is'; nor does he consciously explore the predicament of a class or a society. Social indignation, or powerful statements about the inner life, are not for him: nor is the fantasy projection of the self that goes with magic realism.
Review, 3683 words
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