Style
Banville is considered by critics as a master stylist of English, and his writing has been described as perfectly crafted, beautiful, dazzling. David Mehegan of the Boston Globe calls him "one of the great stylists writing in English today"; Don DeLillo described his work "dangerous and clear-running prose"; Val Nolan in The Sunday Business Post calls his style "lyrical, fastidious, and occasionally hilarious"; The Observer described The Book of Evidence as "flawlessly flowing prose whose lyricism, patrician irony and aching sense of loss are reminiscent of Lolita." Banville himself has admitted that he is "trying to blend poetry and fiction into some new form". He is known for his dark humour, and sharp, wintery wit.
In five of his novels (including one as Benjamin Black), he has used the trope of a character's eyes darting back and forth "like a spectator at a tennis match."
In 1984, he was elected to the Irish arts association, Aosdána, but resigned in 2001 so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas (annuity).
In an interview with Argentine paper La Nacíón, he described himself as a West Brit.
Banville has a strong interest in animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.
In 2011, he offered to donate his brain to The Little Museum of Dublin "so visitors could marvel at how small it was".
Read more about this topic: John Banville
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“In comedy, the witty style wins out over every mishap of the plot.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)