The Gods, They Must Be Happy with Mr. Banville

Reviewers all over the world are falling in love with John Banville’s storytelling in his new novel, The Infinities, a contemporary comedy in the classical mode, complete with a pantheon of Greek gods meddling in the human lives below. Laura Miller in The New York Times calls the novel “sumptuous,” going on to say, “If The Infinities has the bones of a novel of ideas, it’s fleshed out and robed as a novel of sensibility and style.”

Tim Rutten doesn’t mince his words in the Los Angeles Times when he declares, “Banville is, without question, one of the great living masters of English-language prose. The Infinities is a dazzling example of that mastery, as well as of the formal daring and slyly erudite humor that makes his novels among the most rewarding available to readers today.”

My favorite review must be this one from the Boston Phoenix, wherein Ed Siegel sighs, “Admit it, fellow scribblers. You’d sell your soul to come up with an opening sentence like the one from The Infinities…The gods, they must be happy with Mr. Banville.”

For one of the best author interviews ever conducted (a great claim, but it’s deserved), click through to The Millions to read John Banville in conversation with Anne Yoder.