I'm reasonably confident that I will never read this book, but I'm definitely clipping Barry Forshaw's incandescent review as fodder for my collection of hackneyed review cliches.

In three taut, elegant paragraphs, Forshaw leaves the reader breathless, stunned by the vacuous pomposity of his unusually moribund parade of bloviated buzzwords. Never one to eschew the sesquipedalian latinate impenetrability, Forshaw deploys them throughout his review with laserlike precision and beautifully textured transparency. Meaningless adjectives are scattered throughout the review to delight the reader, much like the partially gnawed limbs of the Donner Party. This review will make you pee your pants, it's such a fracking fully realised tour de force.

As the link to Forshaw's review is no longer accessible, I include it below:

Incandescent prose. Beautifully textured characterisation. Transparent narratives. The adjectives to describe the writing of John Banville are all affirmative, and The Sea is a ringing affirmation of all his best qualities. His publishers are claiming that this novel by the Booker-shortlisted author is his finest yet, and while that claim may have an element of hyperbole, there is no denying that this perfectly balanced book is among the writer’s most accomplished work.

Max Morden has reached a crossroads in his life, and is trying hard to deal with several disturbing things. A recent loss is still taking its toll on him, and a trauma in his past is similarly proving hard to deal with. He decides that he will return to a town on the coast at which he spent a memorable holiday when a boy. His memory of that time devolves on the charismatic Grace family, particularly the seductive twins Myles and Chloe. In a very short time, Max found himself drawn into a strange relationship with them, and pursuant events left their mark on him for the rest of his life. But will he be able to exorcise those memories of the past?

The fashion in which John Banville draws the reader into this hypnotic and disturbing world is non pareil, and the very complex relationships between his brilliantly delineated cast of characters are orchestrated with a master’s skill. As in such books as Shroud and The Book of Evidence, the author eschews the obvious at all times, and the narrative is delivered with subtlety and understatement. The genuine moments of drama, when they do occur, are commensurately more powerful. --Barry Forshaw