Yet another great article about John Banville and his alter ego Benjamin Black. I just can’t get enough of this guy, and I am especially taken by when he discusses his alter ego (and himself) in the third person. “Banville would never be able to do what Black does …” You can sense the fun he has, mixing it up, creating serious craftsman-like novels as John Banville, and atmospheric tense noir thrillers as Benjamin Black. He’s obviously a great interview. I read everything about the man I can get my hands on, and I have not read a boring interview with him yet. He’s a detailed thinker, obviously, but with a sense of humor I love. He’s so Irish, and so honest about being Irish (his Benjamin Black novels are about many of the dirty little secrets of the Emerald Isle, collective guilt, collective shame), and I get the sense that the fact that he is writing under a pseudonym, even though everyone knows it is him, gives him a sense of freedom that he DOESN’T have as Banville – he is quite honest about this, and I love him for it. I love him for having fun, open FUN, as a writer, even as he tackles terrible subjects.)
In the interview, he talks about atmosphere:
“I can only write here.” He points through the window to a rain-filled, platinum sky. “Isn’t that absolutely beautiful. That’s the colour inside my mind.”
He alternates books. A Banville book, then a Black book – and I anticipate all of them eagerly. I am quite behind in my Banville/Black reading, due to 2009 being a total wash, in terms of reading. Still haven’t got my fiction legs under me. But when I read articles like the one about Banville, I start to burn with the desire to pick up fiction again.
One of the other things I love about Banville is he directly attacks (just through being himself, AND being Benjamin Black) the notion that serious literature is somehow elitist, and popular literature is somehow “easy”. He resists all of those labels. I don’t happen to think “elitist” is an insult, anyway. At least not in the way it is thrown about now by the sneering hordes, when they use it to mean “well-read, has a good vocabulary, includes references that I might need to look up”. “Elitist”, when said by the anti-intellectuals, is something I cop to gladly. Naturally, I don’t like it when it is meant “exclusive”, like a country club that doesn’t allow women, Jews, minorities, or artificial barriers between people meant to keep a certain class or group OUT – but a good vocabulary is elitist? We’ve come to that? Really? Well, alrighty then, I’m an elitist. At least I’m in good company.
Banville is a perfectionist, famously so. His sentences are crafted within an inch of their lives, and that does not come easily. He works at it. But as Benjamin Black, he lets it all go. I read the Benjamin Black books with great delight – they are awesome Irish who-dun-its, with dark terrible underbellies of corruption and decay – but the prose is easy, free, confident. I love how much Banville understands what Black has done for him, how openly he talks about it. No other writer today is so open and honest about the craft of writing. Perhaps he felt a bit trapped by “Banville the great artist” and had to create “Black, the crime thriller writer” to take the edge off. Seems that way. But still: the Benjamin Black books are not what I would call “easy”. They just have a totally different feel and energy to them, with well-drawn characters you can’t forget, and plots that ache to be told.
Banville, again, seems to rub people the wrong way – (the interview I link to is all about that) – but for me, the reasons he rubs people the wrong way is the reason I love him. Being smart is fun. Knowing words for things is fun. I was called “elitist” once on my blog for using the word “epistolary”. It happens to be one of my favorite words, I love the sound of it, and then also: I love it because it is accurate. I could certainly say “letter-writing relationship”, or “relationship based on writing letters” – but those are three and four words when there is actually ONE word that will suit: EPISTOLARY. I love that. If that makes me elitist, then I sure am guilty as charged, and happy about it. I would be sad if I didn’t know the word “epistolary”, and I also would be sad if I encountered words I didn’t understand and felt ANGRY and RESENTFUL about it, instead of thinking, “Holy shit, what the hell is that word, let me look that up.”
Banville says in the interview, answering to the charge that sometimes he is an “intellectual bully” in his writing (ie: you’re gonna sit there, and you’re gonna take what I dish out):
“Well, sometimes it’s good to be bullied like that. What I’ve always tried to do is give my prose the same denseness and weight of poetry, and you cannot read a poem and do your knitting at the same time, or think about sex, or what you’re going to have for dinner. You have to read a poem or not read a poem. I want my books to be the same. You read them, or you don’t. If you don’t, that’s fine.”
Love him for his honesty. He is a breath of fresh air. I still have not read The Infinities
I love how this experiment/project (writing as two separate writers) seems to be continuing. He’s committed to it. He’s into it. He hasn’t dropped it, it’s not a pose. I read Christine Falls: A Novel
Once again: Interview with John Banville about Benjamin Black and other topics.
More of my posts about Banville/Black:
More on The Sea, by John Banville
“My goodness, these are very deep questions you’re asking …”
I read “The Sea” and loved it. I adore the black humor of his descriptions such as, “”He does a good job of hiding his Belfast accent but hints of it keep escaping, like trapped wind.” This book reminded me of another Booker Prize winner, “Moon Tiger” by Penelope Lively. There’s a dearth of sentimentality about childhood and family expressed in language that is vivid and precise. I need more Banville and Lively in my library.
Yes, I love the black humor as well. The Sea was pretty bleak – it really needed those lighter moments.
Have you read his Benjamin Black stuff? They’re sort of a series, so I would start with Christine Falls, if you haven’t read them!