Seven of us met to discuss The Sea by John Banville. We thought that the book was well crafted and that some of the language was quite beautiful. This said, we felt that the author’s decision to pepper the book with words that none of us were familiar resulted in it feeling affected and pretentious. Taken together these factors make the book more a piece of literature than a novel.
Most, if not all of us, didn’t really like Max, the main character and felt that he came across as pompous and depressing. The twins Chloe and Miles were cruel and very unlikeable. Reviews of the book include comments about it being dreamlike which made sense in terms of how the story is about Max’s grief following the death of his wife and a series of memories from his childhood. The book is also described as being discombobulating and we felt that this was probably the best description of the book.
A couple of us really liked the book but most of us thought it middling at best. We gave it a marking of 5.9.