The Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea gives us a brilliant, profoundly moving new novel about an actor in the twilight of his life and his career: a meditation on love and loss, and on the inscrutable immediacy of the past in our present lives. Is there any difference between memory and invention? That is the question that fuels this stunning novel, written with the depth of character, the clarifying lyricism and the sly humor that have marked all of John Banville’s extraordinary works. And it is the question that haunts Alexander Cleave, an actor in the twilight of his career and of his life, as he plumbs the memories of his first—and perhaps only—love (he, fifteen years old, the woman more than twice his age, the mother of his best friend; the situation impossible, thrilling, devouring and finally devastating) . . . and of his daughter, lost to a kind of madness of mind and heart that Cleave can only fail to understand. When his dormant acting career is suddenly, inexplicably revived with a movie role portraying a man who may not be who he says he is, his young leading lady—famous and fragile—unwittingly gives him the opportunity to see with aching clarity the “chasm that yawns between the doing of a thing and the recollection of what was done.” Ancient Light is a profoundly moving meditation on love and loss, on the inscrutable immediacy of the past in our present lives, on how invention shapes memory and memory shapes the man. It is a book of spellbinding power and pathos from one of the greatest masters of prose at work today.
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"Favorite book of 2012. One of my favorite books of all time. I have read other books by John Banville and enjoyed some of them (could not get through Infinities -- just not my style), but Ancient Light brings together all of the things that Banville does best: exotically beautiful prose, humor, a thoroughly fascinating protagonist/narrator, and a brilliantly structured plot. Wrapped in themes of love, loss, memory, and invention. I admit that the synopsis had me wondering if I would like the book: A 65-year-old man (actor Alex Cleave), recounts the story -- as he remembers it (probably inaccurately) -- of his summer-long affair with his best friend's mother, Mrs. Gray, when he was 15 and she was 35. At the same time, Cleave has been asked to star in a Hollywood biopic about critic Alex Vander, who was in Portovenere, Italy, at the same time his daughter Cass committed suicide there ten years ago. The present story is wrapped in mystery and I hope that Banville has a sequel in progress. Alex Cleave and his daughter featured in two earlier Banville novels, which I have already sought out and plan to read early in 2013.
I've just finished the book and I'm reeling from its beauty, so I think I'll stop for now. Maybe come back when I can articulate more successfully what it is about this book that knocked me out. Other reviewers have said that either you like Banville's prose or you don't. I definitely do. Banville has been compared to Nabokov, because of his elegant prose and exquisite use of words you never read before. Ancient Light has been compared to Lolita, but once again, it's from the male point of view. And Mrs. Gray. Why did she do it? You will find out."
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Kristine (5 out of 5 stars)