“We Don’t Know Anything About Other People. We Can Only Know Them From the Outside. This Is One Of the Great Joys Of Life.”

So says Irish writer John Banville in this awesome recent interview about his new book that has set my mind spinning. There’s so much in it. So much to think about.

There are only a couple of writers today where I wait for their latest to come out with baited breath. I scour Amazon and Google to make sure I haven’t missed anything. Like the good old days when I pored over TV Guide on a weekly basis to make sure that if Orphan Train was on repeat on some channel, even at 3 in the morning, I would know about it! Some authors (like Nancy Lemann) require much patience because she’s only written five books in the last 20 years. For the most part there is silence from her – and she’s just one of my favorites, ever. But I will not forget. I remain loyal. There are others, a short list:

A.S. Byatt (you write a book like Possession, and I don’t care, I’ll read your grocery list. But then there are her short story collections with masterpieces like this – she just excites me tremendously – can’t wait to read her latest – Booker-nominated, naturally)

Katherine Dunn (talk about patience. Sheesh, lady!)

Michael Chabon (even his genre stuff, which I don’t think is as good. Posts here, here, here, and here.)

Annie Proulx (still haven’t read her latest collection, but I am very excited to. Posts here, here, here, here).

Nancy Lemann (Yes, dear gentle Southern comic writer … you may not have had a giant world-wide hit, but seriously, you got it going on. I will read whatever you write. Posts here, here, here, here, here. You want a lovely read? Pick up Nancy Lemann.)

John Irving (I’ve been reading this guy since I was 16 years old. He still excites me. Posts here, here, and here.)

Mary Gaitskill (She scares me, unlike any other writer. She’s off the charts. She has a new one out too. I just can’t read fiction right now. Posts here, here, here, here – and this – my favorite story of hers. Ouch.)

Cormac McCarthy (naturally. If you’re not already reading this man, I don’t know what to say to you! Posts here, and here).

Lorrie Moore (whose latest book is now taking up all the airwaves at the moment and I am so excited about it – and also avoiding all reviews like the plague – not easy to do, since they are EVERYWHERE – until I am able to read fiction again myself – her latest book is the first on my list when I get back on my feet. Posts about her here, here)

Then we’ve got the non-fiction people, people who are always on my radar for their latest:

Joan Didion (excerpt here – hm, strangely I haven’t written much about her. She is huge to me.)

Robert Kaplan (posts about this wonderful writer here, here, here – there are also his columns in The Atlantic Monthly, which I never miss)

Joseph Ellis (a couple posts here, and here)

A. Scott Berg (posts here, here, and here)

Fouad Ajami (marvelous writer, he’s pretty much everywhere – post about one of his books here)

And John Banville – what can I say about John Banville that others haven’t said? It’s kind of a bittersweet thing for me. John Banville makes me lonely now. I see articles and interviews, and it makes me feel lonely, because I can’t share it. His latest is coming out, and so the press begins, because why wouldn’t it. As far as I’m concerned, he stands alone – not just in his gift as a writer, but in his fluidity with that gift. There’s something CRANKY about him that reminds me a little bit about Dean Stockwell, unafraid to talk about the bad side of the business, never comes off as “whining” (my least favorite word, used by my least favorite people), but as an honest observer of the trials and tribulations of his own chosen field. Stockwell didn’t find peace and happiness in acting until he was almost 50. The dude made his debut at age 7. So imagine. He HAPPENED to be good at something (acting), but that didn’t amount to much. He tried other things, other careers, but it kept drawing him back. Then, late 40s, he started having some FUN, and the fun has never stopped. Not that Banville was just enduring his writing career until his creation of his pseudonym Benjamin Black (more on that here) – of course not. Banville’s a heavy-hitter as he is. His books matter. Everyone talks about them. He’s at the top of the heap. But if you read all of Banville’s stuff (in order, preferably), and then – you read Christine Falls: A Novel (Quirke) (by Benjamin Black), it’s like: where the hell did THAT come from, and the only appropriate response, really, is to just bow down in awe before the maestro. I don’t want to paint this with too wide a brush – but another one of my favorite writers, Michael Chabon, also publishes “genre” books, in an attempt to “rescue” genres from being sidelined. A lovely impulse, but perhaps best reserved for fan-fic. It feels like potboilers to me. Like Chabon, having exhausted himself with Kavalier and Clay (and seriously, I’m exhausted just THINKING about even TRYING to write a book as amazing as that) – wants to just relax. And more power to him. I’ll just wait around, as he scribbles away, amusing himself … but there’s a sense (and I know I may be in the minority here) that he’s just messing around until he gets back to REAL work. Rather ironic, when you consider that Chabon is a huge champion of genre fiction (mysteries, science fiction, fantasy.) To me, his “genre” stuff just doesn’t come off. His latest, about the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, is supposed to be a Philip Marlowe gumshoe type book, and in interviews he talks about how fun it was to do that hard-boiled Dashiell Hammett prose, and Brendan and I were laughing about how much he DOESN’T do in the book what he said he did. His sentences are more intricate in that book than in any other of his works. His fantasy of himself as a writer, in that book anyway, was that he was being hard-boiled and blunt, but the reality is that he was wordy and flowery and descriptive as always. Again, I don’t begrudge him his experiments, and there is always something to love about ANY Michael Chabon book, but it feels like just that, an experiment.

Whereas John Banville (or should I say Benjamin Black) appears to have so immersed himself in the world of a 1950s alcoholic Dublin detective that you would barely know it was by the same writer. There are certain Banville touches, he’s good no matter what he does, but Christine Falls is the work of a great chameleon. It’s Meryl Streep submerging herself in accents and homework so that she can then let it all go when the camera is rolling. A.S. Byatt has a similar thing, only she does it in a more “meta” way, by weaving in different types of narrative (letters, scholarly papers, scrapbooks) into the more traditional linear narrative. Banville sticks with the straight story, but you hold Christine Falls up next to The Sea, and it just astonishing the difference. There is nothing in Christine Falls that feels ironic, arch, or experimental. He has submerged himself completely.

Christine Falls is one of the best books I read last year (I read it in one sitting), and the interviews with John Banville during that time are beyond illuminating. I remember my dad saying, “It sounds like he’s having so much fun.”

Banville’s other works (the ones written by “him”) are unrelentingly sad (at least I find them so). (Here’s a post I wrote about The Sea.)

Here’s a link, again, to the interview with Banville that set my mind spinning. I suppose I, too, like the interviewer, “feel like I am in At Swim-two-Birds“. What a slicing intelligence he has, what integrity. He’s cranky, but he is not unkind. He is precise. He is also emotional. He refers to his writing as his “succubus”. This gives you some idea. He contradicts himself, which is the best part. He says one thing in one thought, and then another in another context. His response to all of this is rather amusing, and in a small way I relate – by those who do not seem to understand (or respect) “context”. These are the people who try to play “gotcha” with comments you have made, ignoring the contexts. “But you said THIS here, how could you say THIS now??” All one can say in response (in my opinion) is either:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”, which pretty much ends the conversation – that’s why I use it –

OR

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” That about says it all.

There will be those who will never understand that.

There will be those who don’t understand Banville’s “experiment” with Benjamin Black, thinking that this might somehow lessen his serious reputation.

There will be those who will never understand context. Nuance. Also, you know, that little human quality known as “changing one’s mind”.

I very much enjoy watching Banville dodge labels and classifications here, without being overly surly or contemptuous. But he will resist the noose. That is his right, as a man certainly, but also as an artist. I don’t think it can be under-estimated either, the length of the shadow cast by James Joyce, and how Irish authors, unlike American authors, struggle with that. Anne Enright is very funny on this topic as well. Blessing and a curse, you know. Almost every single interview with a contemporary Irish author brings up James Joyce. Imagine. There really is no equivalent in American literature. He is omnipresent. Annoying. Yet something that has to be dealt with, incorporated somehow.

I am working on a project right now that is taking up all of my intellectual time. If I have a slow moment, my mind circles back to it. I’m in the thick of it now. It has been read by some, I am editing and creating as I go, and there are things I am working on. There are problems that need to be solved.

The quote that I chose to put in the title of this post really sliced to the heart of the matter:

“We don’t know anything about other people. We can only know them from the outside. This is one of the great joys of life.”

It seems to me that that is the thing. That is THE THING that I am trying to get at. But to write about it, to capture that … and not just the sense of alienation and separation – but also (so Irish!) – that last bit: that “this is one of the great joys of life” – Ouch, what a complex and beautiful thought. It has been with me all day.

I think that’s what I need to think about. I mean, I have been, that is exactly what I have been working on in this project – but it had been a bit muddy. I was reaching out in the dark for it, and there it is, boiled down – into the beautiful Banville clarity – bleak and yet somehow redemptive.

Can’t wait to read his latest.

I’m just glad he’s out there. Makes me feel happy. Yes, lonely too. But I love him.

Two things can exist at the same time.