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Quirke #2
The Silver Swan
It has been two years since the events of Christine Falls, the bestselling novel that introduced the world to an irascible Dublin pathologist named Quirke. Quirke's beloved Sarah has died, his surrogate father lies paralyzed by a stroke, and he's been sober for half a year. When a near-forgotten acquaintance asks him to cover up his beautiful young wife's apparent suicide, Quirke knows he should stay clear, for the sake of his sobriety and his peace of mind. But his old itch is irresistible, and before long he is probing further into the circumstances of Deidre Hunt's death, into a web of drugs and illicit sex that may have snared his own daughter, Phoebe. With its vivid, intense evocation of 1950s Dublin, and intricate, psychologically complex storyline, The Silver Swan is "even more engrossing than last year's Christine Falls" (Entertainment Weekly).
310 pages, Paperback
First published November 2, 2007
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About the author
Benjamin Black
29 books684 followersPen name for John Banville
Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.
Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect he did not attend university. Banville has described this as "A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free." After school he worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus which allowed him to travel at deeply-discounted rates. He took advantage of this to travel in Greece and Italy. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. On his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.
After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left. Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books since 1990. In 1984, he was elected to Aosdána, but resigned in 2001, so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas.
Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007. Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like "a murderer who's just come back from a particularly bloody killing". Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.
Banville has a strong interest in vivisection and animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/benjam...
Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.
Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect he did not attend university. Banville has described this as "A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free." After school he worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus which allowed him to travel at deeply-discounted rates. He took advantage of this to travel in Greece and Italy. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. On his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.
After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left. Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books since 1990. In 1984, he was elected to Aosdána, but resigned in 2001, so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas.
Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007. Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like "a murderer who's just come back from a particularly bloody killing". Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.
Banville has a strong interest in vivisection and animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/benjam...
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August 6, 2023
8/5/23: Reflecting on this book after seeing the second in the Quirke series featuring Gabriel Byrne: As I say below, I don't like sensationalist serial killer stories, but the 90-minute episode pares things down and tells the story of this book more subtly and powerfully than I recall in reading it. My take on it is that if the first book, Christine Falls, honors women and children, and reveals how little the world of Catholic Ireland in the fifties protected/advocated for them, The Silver Swan extends that point to show women still unprotected by the Church and society, and also by men such as The Silver Swan, who is less cartoonish in the filmed version. As a father I saw how vulnerable and near to disaster Quirke's daughter Phoebe is in this story. Powerful scenes between Phoebe and Quirke, and between Sarah and Quirke.
Original review, 7/13/22: So I have until now loved three straight books by John Banville, including his mysteries written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. I really loved the first of Black’s Quirke series, Christine Falls, a layered, complex story set in Dublin in the fifties, featuring all sorts of deeply flawed characters with a backdrop of shady, deeply sad dealings of the Catholic Church with respect to “wayward women.” Banville has said that “crime fiction is a good way of addressing the question of evil;” both Christine Falls and Silver Swan (also titled elsewhere The Double Life of Laura Swan, which I think is more appropriate) seem to mainly focus on the treatment of women during this period, by the Church, by anyone in power, especially by men, of course.
Oh, Quirke, our main character pathologist, has his own issues with women. He was once in love with Sarah, but she married Malachy; Quirke married Sarah’s sister Delia, who died in childbirth. Always a heavy drinker, he begins, in his grief, the long steady project of drinking himself to death, with failed relationships with women (mainly one-night stands) along the way. As a pathologist he feels more comfortable with the dead than the living, until something sparks in him with the death of Christine Falls, in childbirth. Why is he interested in this case? He can’t exactly answer that, until the end when he says that it maybe is his chance to do something right in his life after all these years.
Spoiler alert: The Silver Swan takes place a couple years after the events of Christine Falls, also involving the death of a woman, presumed to be a suicide. Quirke has discovered that his niece Phoebe is actually his daughter, and after he finally tells her, at nineteen, she is enraged and becomes estranged from him. And then the secret (unrequited, never acted on) love of his life, Sarah, is also suddenly dead. And in this book, he suddenly wakes up one day and stops drinking. He does interact with lots of strong women in this story--Phoebe’s grandmother Rose is a great character--but the central women in the story, Deirdre Hunt (who as a beautician changes her name--and identity, to the more dramatic Laura Swan [think of the character Laura Hunt from the 1944 noir Otto Preminger film, or even Hitchcock’s Rebecca]) and Phoebe make "mistakes" (they are manipulated)/passivity with obviously horrifically bad men.
When Hunt is found drowned by accident or suicide, Quirke's "old itch to cut into the quick of things, to delve into the dark of what was hidden" prompts him to investigate, especially after his old university acquaintance, Billy Hunt, approaches him to request there be no post-mortem autopsy--too upsetting to think of his wife cut up--and Quirke for no really good reason, agrees, falsifying the death certificate! Why?! Then he finds a needle mark on Deirdre’s arm, so "he knew he would dive, headfirst, into the depths. Something in him yearned for the darkness there."
But then we don’t see Quirke for most of the book, as author Black tries out a couple mystery novel strategies; 1) he goes back in time to see how it is Deirdre, the beautician, married to Billy, gets herself dead (yeah, no one buys those suicide or accidental death explanations), telling the story from her perspective, and 2) revealing how she (and many women) get entangled with a silver-haired handsome con man named Lesley White (yeah, he's the "Silver Swan" of the title, but he's not really the main character). I don’t mind too much the shift in perspectives (though I missed the interesting Quirke for half the book), but I really disliked White as a character. He’s into s/m, he’s a Svengali, an obvious liar, a heroin addict, a kind of cult leader, just a ball of cliches.
Yes, women do fall for these kinds of guys and are taken in, trafficked by or otherwise just hoodwinked by these guys, but I just found him uninteresting as a character. And I hate it when crime authors turn, for “thriller”-effects, to salacious details associated with serial killers of women. Other good writers, too, such as Lawrence Block (in his otherwise amazing Matt Scudder detective series) succumb to this ploy, and it detracts from the kind of serious character study that we saw in Christine Falls. There’s another weirdo Svengali guy White is associated with, too, Dr. Kreutz, a charlatan that teaches “spiritual healing” classes to women, drugs them and takes--this is the fifties--"dirty pictures” of them (in part to blackmail them). Again, I know nothing about this character, really. It’s just slimy sensationalism to include him as a character. He seems like some thirties noir creep, too unreal. Maybe a tribute to some noir writing Black has in mind. But I say: Keep your focus on Quirke and Phoebe, Black!
It is finally Detective Hackett (that blunt instrument) who solves the case, always suspecting Quirke has been lying about various aspects of the case. Hackett’s an interesting character, a good foil and potential partner for Quirke, and it’s interesting to see him take a more central role. I won’t say exactly what happens with Phoebe, but it stretched credulity that she got mixed up in this mess.
The writing of the very ending was beautiful, reminding me that this is one of the best writers in the world, raised my rating of the book a bit, but it was still not enough for me to say I really loved the book. I was disappointed in this entry, but will certainly read on.
Original review, 7/13/22: So I have until now loved three straight books by John Banville, including his mysteries written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. I really loved the first of Black’s Quirke series, Christine Falls, a layered, complex story set in Dublin in the fifties, featuring all sorts of deeply flawed characters with a backdrop of shady, deeply sad dealings of the Catholic Church with respect to “wayward women.” Banville has said that “crime fiction is a good way of addressing the question of evil;” both Christine Falls and Silver Swan (also titled elsewhere The Double Life of Laura Swan, which I think is more appropriate) seem to mainly focus on the treatment of women during this period, by the Church, by anyone in power, especially by men, of course.
Oh, Quirke, our main character pathologist, has his own issues with women. He was once in love with Sarah, but she married Malachy; Quirke married Sarah’s sister Delia, who died in childbirth. Always a heavy drinker, he begins, in his grief, the long steady project of drinking himself to death, with failed relationships with women (mainly one-night stands) along the way. As a pathologist he feels more comfortable with the dead than the living, until something sparks in him with the death of Christine Falls, in childbirth. Why is he interested in this case? He can’t exactly answer that, until the end when he says that it maybe is his chance to do something right in his life after all these years.
Spoiler alert: The Silver Swan takes place a couple years after the events of Christine Falls, also involving the death of a woman, presumed to be a suicide. Quirke has discovered that his niece Phoebe is actually his daughter, and after he finally tells her, at nineteen, she is enraged and becomes estranged from him. And then the secret (unrequited, never acted on) love of his life, Sarah, is also suddenly dead. And in this book, he suddenly wakes up one day and stops drinking. He does interact with lots of strong women in this story--Phoebe’s grandmother Rose is a great character--but the central women in the story, Deirdre Hunt (who as a beautician changes her name--and identity, to the more dramatic Laura Swan [think of the character Laura Hunt from the 1944 noir Otto Preminger film, or even Hitchcock’s Rebecca]) and Phoebe make "mistakes" (they are manipulated)/passivity with obviously horrifically bad men.
When Hunt is found drowned by accident or suicide, Quirke's "old itch to cut into the quick of things, to delve into the dark of what was hidden" prompts him to investigate, especially after his old university acquaintance, Billy Hunt, approaches him to request there be no post-mortem autopsy--too upsetting to think of his wife cut up--and Quirke for no really good reason, agrees, falsifying the death certificate! Why?! Then he finds a needle mark on Deirdre’s arm, so "he knew he would dive, headfirst, into the depths. Something in him yearned for the darkness there."
But then we don’t see Quirke for most of the book, as author Black tries out a couple mystery novel strategies; 1) he goes back in time to see how it is Deirdre, the beautician, married to Billy, gets herself dead (yeah, no one buys those suicide or accidental death explanations), telling the story from her perspective, and 2) revealing how she (and many women) get entangled with a silver-haired handsome con man named Lesley White (yeah, he's the "Silver Swan" of the title, but he's not really the main character). I don’t mind too much the shift in perspectives (though I missed the interesting Quirke for half the book), but I really disliked White as a character. He’s into s/m, he’s a Svengali, an obvious liar, a heroin addict, a kind of cult leader, just a ball of cliches.
Yes, women do fall for these kinds of guys and are taken in, trafficked by or otherwise just hoodwinked by these guys, but I just found him uninteresting as a character. And I hate it when crime authors turn, for “thriller”-effects, to salacious details associated with serial killers of women. Other good writers, too, such as Lawrence Block (in his otherwise amazing Matt Scudder detective series) succumb to this ploy, and it detracts from the kind of serious character study that we saw in Christine Falls. There’s another weirdo Svengali guy White is associated with, too, Dr. Kreutz, a charlatan that teaches “spiritual healing” classes to women, drugs them and takes--this is the fifties--"dirty pictures” of them (in part to blackmail them). Again, I know nothing about this character, really. It’s just slimy sensationalism to include him as a character. He seems like some thirties noir creep, too unreal. Maybe a tribute to some noir writing Black has in mind. But I say: Keep your focus on Quirke and Phoebe, Black!
It is finally Detective Hackett (that blunt instrument) who solves the case, always suspecting Quirke has been lying about various aspects of the case. Hackett’s an interesting character, a good foil and potential partner for Quirke, and it’s interesting to see him take a more central role. I won’t say exactly what happens with Phoebe, but it stretched credulity that she got mixed up in this mess.
The writing of the very ending was beautiful, reminding me that this is one of the best writers in the world, raised my rating of the book a bit, but it was still not enough for me to say I really loved the book. I was disappointed in this entry, but will certainly read on.
February 29, 2016
"Death is a rough customer."
"Everything rushes back. Everything replaces itself."
-- Benjamin Black (or John Banville), The Silver Swan
'The Silver Swan' is Benjamin Black's (alter ego of John Banville) second Quirke novel. There is something about Dublin in the 50s that makes sense for a noir novel. The rain. The brooding. The whiskey. The shit food. The damp seediness and decay (both material and moral).
Quirke is a perfect character for these novels. He is an off-the-wagon (Christine Falls), on-the-wagon (The Silver Swan) pathologist who seems to have just as much trouble with his own family dynamics as he does with his work. He is all over ethical lines and exigencies, lonely, introverted, with a "hard heart and hot soul."
Black, the alter-ego, gives Banville the room and excuse to let loose a bit. He isn't aiming for poetic prose, but just mood and thrill. He's able to wack at a couple festering issues (Catholicism, poverty, sex, death, marriage, drugs, women, family) without having to make it so damn serious. In a period when a lot of good literary fiction is actually genre fiction, I rather enjoy it when an author is able to jack around the authorial persona AND play with the genre too.
“Banville, you swot.”
This is a pot boiler that is never quite allowed to boil (think of trying to cook Ramen on Everest). Black is a tease. Quirke is a charade. His name is a game. That said, these aren't fun novels. I've only read two, mind you, but Banville/Black's books can only be considered funny in the way a kick in the balls or a chemical burn is funny. These novels are arresting. They are painful in parts. They are a throb, a choke, a tease and a cough, but never -- never once -- a tickle. If you like Banville, crime fiction, genre fiction, etc you should probably give these a shot. You won't tattoo many lines on your arm from these books, but they may leave you scarred anyway.
July 26, 2012
With Quirke's life now in a bit more of a muddle after the revelations made in Christine Falls, he is making more of an attempt to stay off the drink, but he always needs that one more -- but "of course, it would not be just the one." But it's over tea that he meets with Billy Hunt, an old schoolmate he hasn't seen in years. Billy's wife Deirdre was found in the waters of Sandycove Bay, seemingly a victim of suicide, and he asks Quirke to forego an autopsy, claiming that he can't stand thinking of her "sliced up," wanting to preserve his memories of her before she died. By law, Quirke is required to do a postmortem, but agrees to see what he can do for Billy. Back in the morgue he lifts the plastic sheet covering Deirdre, a hairdresser who also went by the professional name of Laura Swan, and while he's trying to picture what may have happened to her, he comes across a small puncture mark on the inner side of one of her arms. While struggling over what course of action he should take now, his better judgment warns him to "stay on dry land," but
"he knew he would dive, headfirst, into the depths. Something in him yearned for the darkness there."
Conducting an unofficial autopsy anyway, Quirke realizes that this was no suicide and begins his own investigation. Offered to readers from an omniscient, third-person pov that frequently switches, as Quirke sets to work trying to figure out exactly what's happened, and as his daughter Phoebe becomes caught up in her story in her own way, Deirdre's story is revealed, little by little via flashbacks, interspersed with action in the present. The Silver Swan reveals a nightmarish view from below, so to speak, in various forms of darkness that envelop seemingly ordinary people in the city.
There are some incredible characterizations here beyond the main players of this series: Dr. Kreutz, a "spiritual healer" who, along with Leslie White, slowly begin to erode Deirdre's sense of freedom; Billy Hunt, Deirdre's husband, and Deirdre herself, who wants to rise above her origins and make something of herself but who makes some very bad decisions. But what really sucks you in is the whole nightmarish scene of what people are capable of -- and Deirdre's story takes you down into an abyss among some of the worst.
Definitely recommended, but let me say something here. Black's focus is not so much on plotting the perfect crime or following the success or failure of the police investigations in this book, or for that matter in any of his books -- it's largely on the characters who inhabit the streets of Dublin and the forces around them that lead them to act as they do. If you would keep that in mind as you read, it will make the experience that much better.
"he knew he would dive, headfirst, into the depths. Something in him yearned for the darkness there."
Conducting an unofficial autopsy anyway, Quirke realizes that this was no suicide and begins his own investigation. Offered to readers from an omniscient, third-person pov that frequently switches, as Quirke sets to work trying to figure out exactly what's happened, and as his daughter Phoebe becomes caught up in her story in her own way, Deirdre's story is revealed, little by little via flashbacks, interspersed with action in the present. The Silver Swan reveals a nightmarish view from below, so to speak, in various forms of darkness that envelop seemingly ordinary people in the city.
There are some incredible characterizations here beyond the main players of this series: Dr. Kreutz, a "spiritual healer" who, along with Leslie White, slowly begin to erode Deirdre's sense of freedom; Billy Hunt, Deirdre's husband, and Deirdre herself, who wants to rise above her origins and make something of herself but who makes some very bad decisions. But what really sucks you in is the whole nightmarish scene of what people are capable of -- and Deirdre's story takes you down into an abyss among some of the worst.
Definitely recommended, but let me say something here. Black's focus is not so much on plotting the perfect crime or following the success or failure of the police investigations in this book, or for that matter in any of his books -- it's largely on the characters who inhabit the streets of Dublin and the forces around them that lead them to act as they do. If you would keep that in mind as you read, it will make the experience that much better.
June 7, 2023
My disappointment with this second entry in Benjamin Black’s Quirke series is not, I’ve learned after checking some GR reviews, unique. Christine Falls, the first book, was an outstanding blend of John Banville’s terrific writing (Banville wrote these books under the name Benjamin Black) and a plot that exposes the devastating consequences of the power exerted by the Church and the ruling elite in Dublin in the 1950’s. Quirke is a pathologist with a righteous streak whose curiosity and family relationships drive the story.
The Silver Swan goes in different directions. For one thing, it’s not a story of the religious and political infrastructure of Ireland in the 1950’s. It’s more personal - the story of incredibly venal men, one in particular, and their interactions with women. (I have to say that it was difficult for me to get a handle on these women, even given the difference in time period.)
Also, after the opening chapters, Quirke is only present in the background, occasionally popping up to draw incorrect conclusions about events and motivations. Much of the story is told through the POV of the woman whose death opens the book. Overall, it’s really more of a character story than a mystery.
Well, that happens. But the reality is that this book lacked an ongoing thread, a theme that pulled you in, engaged you, made you want to know what happens to the characters. They were, for the most parts, unpleasant people that you’d just as soon never have met.
At one point I thought perhaps my negative feelings about the book were related to the narration. The reader is Timothy Dalton, and his rich, sonorous voice really threw into relief the frequently depressed and depressing individuals and events that make up this book. But after reading the opinions of other reviewers, I’ve concluded it’s the book, not the narrator. I might dip back into the series someday, but this book is not an encouragement.
The Silver Swan goes in different directions. For one thing, it’s not a story of the religious and political infrastructure of Ireland in the 1950’s. It’s more personal - the story of incredibly venal men, one in particular, and their interactions with women. (I have to say that it was difficult for me to get a handle on these women, even given the difference in time period.)
Also, after the opening chapters, Quirke is only present in the background, occasionally popping up to draw incorrect conclusions about events and motivations. Much of the story is told through the POV of the woman whose death opens the book. Overall, it’s really more of a character story than a mystery.
Well, that happens. But the reality is that this book lacked an ongoing thread, a theme that pulled you in, engaged you, made you want to know what happens to the characters. They were, for the most parts, unpleasant people that you’d just as soon never have met.
At one point I thought perhaps my negative feelings about the book were related to the narration. The reader is Timothy Dalton, and his rich, sonorous voice really threw into relief the frequently depressed and depressing individuals and events that make up this book. But after reading the opinions of other reviewers, I’ve concluded it’s the book, not the narrator. I might dip back into the series someday, but this book is not an encouragement.
July 31, 2020
This is the second offering in the Quirke series by Benjamin Black (the nom deplume of Man Booker winner John Banville). The author received an Edgar Award nomination for Christine Falls, his first offering in the series. Banville stated that “crime fiction is a good way of addressing the question of evil”. So, it is surprising that his protagonist, Quirke, the pathologist for the Hospital of the Holy Family in 1950s Dublin, is a clueless detective, and definitely no hero. He falsifies a death certificate for a friend, and muddles his complicated relationship with his daughter, Phoebe.
The story of Deirdra Hunt’s suicide death is melodramatic and involves tawdry sex with a manipulative man. Indeed, Banville’s misogynistic prose paints the women in this tale naïve, if not stupid. The melancholy atmosphere matches the morally claustrophobic world of The Silver Swan.
The story of Deirdra Hunt’s suicide death is melodramatic and involves tawdry sex with a manipulative man. Indeed, Banville’s misogynistic prose paints the women in this tale naïve, if not stupid. The melancholy atmosphere matches the morally claustrophobic world of The Silver Swan.
March 20, 2008
This is the new (second) novel written by John Banville under the pen name Benjamin Black. I think I was first on the reserve list at the MCPL. I had enjoyed the first Black book, "Christine Falls," so much that I was quite eager to get my hands on this one.
I was disappointed. I truly enjoyed my visit to Dublin that Black/Banville provided (it's one of my favorite towns) but notwithstanding that, I thought the characters acted in ways that were not in harmony with their natures.
I won't make this review a spoiler, but I can say that at the start of the book the protagonist, who is a pathologist, lies in report. He certifies that a woman drowned and conceals the fact that he found a needle mark and discovered that her body was full of a narcotic that would have rendered her unconscious and that her lungs disclosed that she had not drowned.
He didn't know the woman and had no reason to commit malfeasance other than he was curious and wanted to be the only one knowing how she died so his (totally unofficial) investigation would be unimpeded by the police investigating the event. Translation: the author wanted the plot to proceed with the protagonist being the only person on the track of the truth. For this, he had the protagonist jeopardize his professional reputation and commit a crime by intentionally withholding evidence of a possible crime even though he had no substantial interest in doing so. Not a likely scenario.
This authorial manipulation cast, for me, a cloud on my enjoyment of the rest of the novel. And there were other instances of people acting other than one might reasonably expect them to act, apparently to further the plot.
I gave the book three stars because Black/Banville uses language and fictional techniques so startlingly well.
"The Silver Swan" was not a difficult book to finish because it is so stylishly written and the characters are quite fascinating and so richly portrayed, but the book's motivation problems nagged at me throughout.
I was disappointed. I truly enjoyed my visit to Dublin that Black/Banville provided (it's one of my favorite towns) but notwithstanding that, I thought the characters acted in ways that were not in harmony with their natures.
I won't make this review a spoiler, but I can say that at the start of the book the protagonist, who is a pathologist, lies in report. He certifies that a woman drowned and conceals the fact that he found a needle mark and discovered that her body was full of a narcotic that would have rendered her unconscious and that her lungs disclosed that she had not drowned.
He didn't know the woman and had no reason to commit malfeasance other than he was curious and wanted to be the only one knowing how she died so his (totally unofficial) investigation would be unimpeded by the police investigating the event. Translation: the author wanted the plot to proceed with the protagonist being the only person on the track of the truth. For this, he had the protagonist jeopardize his professional reputation and commit a crime by intentionally withholding evidence of a possible crime even though he had no substantial interest in doing so. Not a likely scenario.
This authorial manipulation cast, for me, a cloud on my enjoyment of the rest of the novel. And there were other instances of people acting other than one might reasonably expect them to act, apparently to further the plot.
I gave the book three stars because Black/Banville uses language and fictional techniques so startlingly well.
"The Silver Swan" was not a difficult book to finish because it is so stylishly written and the characters are quite fascinating and so richly portrayed, but the book's motivation problems nagged at me throughout.
August 5, 2017
Although John Banville is a very good and evocative writer, I was disappointed in this book, especially since, with some reservations, I quite enjoyed "Christine Falls". The characters were unpleasant, much of the mystery takes place in the head of the murdered woman in the months leading up to her murder, rather than from the perspective of the 'detective' figuring things out, which makes it more of a regular novel than a mystery, and the main bad guy was so, so, SO disgustingly amoral it made me sick. I also find myself wondering about this environment in which women fall into bed with men, no, wait -- BEG men to go to bed with them -- as easily as shaking hands. It's like a big male fantasy. They meet, they lock eyes, they fall into bed. They continue falling into bed even when it is completely clear they are being used, are about to be roundly dumped, AREN'T WANTED. The amoral bad guy is shaking them off with a stick (including the detective's daughter). Perhaps this is the boggy, depressed, alcohol-soaked, poetic, shady, gaelic (sp) world of Ireland, but I found myself wanting to shout: "For God's sake, women, show some self-respect!"
Also, the first mystery where the sleuth does not solve the mystery. We are told who did it by going into the murderer's mind. Never clear whether he/she is brought to justice.
Three stars because he is one hell of a writer. But it's his last mystery I'll read.
Also, the first mystery where the sleuth does not solve the mystery. We are told who did it by going into the murderer's mind. Never clear whether he/she is brought to justice.
Three stars because he is one hell of a writer. But it's his last mystery I'll read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 18, 2010
A murder mystery to be solved by an inept pathologist who does a bad job of trying to be an amateur detective. Quirke should stick to being a pathologist, report his complete and truthful findings at the coroner's inquest and walk away from the case. His detecting instincts are awful, causing more issues than he resolves. In this one he just gets it all wrong.
Characters seemed flat and engendered no feelings of empathy. Female characters remain the same helpless, undirected, sex objects they were in Christine Falls. If you like the 1950's and darkly described scenes you may like this character study. I really didn't. So despite the Edgar nomination for Christine Falls I will probably not read further volumes in this series.
May 11, 2010
For some reason, this second book by Benjamn Black (a.k.a. Irish Booker-Prize winner John Banville) was easier to get into than the first one. 1950s Ireland is just as parochial and repressed as I had imagined. Although I like the weather which is very Seattle-like.
This is a novel of 1950s-era sexual predators and con men, but without church involvement. Their prey are women: women with money, women with access to drugs, women who long for spiritual fulfillment, women of diminished hopes, lonely women both single and married. They use a potent concoction of charm, sex, alcohol and violence to make their initial conquests and then bind the woment to them.
It would be tempting to paint these women in modern psychological terms and say that they are insecure, uncertain of their true selves, and owners of an acute lack of self-esteem. But I think it is anger that fuels them to seek their own oblivion in ever-descending circles of violence and misfortune.
It's not so much that they think they deserve it, but that they are angry at the constriction of their lives by marriage, low expectations, and societal norms. They live in a strait-jacket and they are willing to trade personal ruin for a chance to live and be sexual, even if the men are bad.
The initial excitement is the heady fulfillment of a woman's dream: not a man to settle for, but a handsome, exciting, attentive, desirable and charming man who has chosen them and thus thwarted all the other aggressive women who openly pursue him.
The tragedy lies in the trick of the con man. He charms with a purpose and without a conscience. He may steal or find a willing victim for his violence or sexual degradations and he will leave the instant he finds a better mark or the old one becomes too demanding.
What happens to the woman afterward is none of his concern. And some, including the primary con man in this book, will have a streak of malicious mischief: finding a clever way to let the cuckold know.
Any and all damages inflicted on the woman and her mate provide no satisfaction for the con man because he really doesn't care one way or the other. But it does momentarily satisfy his itch to be cruel and punish the woman for ruining the good game he had going for a while.
This is the path of women who have no other way in society to realize their individual hopes and dreams. She's the Madonna or the whore. A virtuous woman who repels all advances or a fallen woman who gives in out of her inner desperation to experience a little of the woman's dream. The middle ground is nowhere to be seen.
This is a novel of 1950s-era sexual predators and con men, but without church involvement. Their prey are women: women with money, women with access to drugs, women who long for spiritual fulfillment, women of diminished hopes, lonely women both single and married. They use a potent concoction of charm, sex, alcohol and violence to make their initial conquests and then bind the woment to them.
It would be tempting to paint these women in modern psychological terms and say that they are insecure, uncertain of their true selves, and owners of an acute lack of self-esteem. But I think it is anger that fuels them to seek their own oblivion in ever-descending circles of violence and misfortune.
It's not so much that they think they deserve it, but that they are angry at the constriction of their lives by marriage, low expectations, and societal norms. They live in a strait-jacket and they are willing to trade personal ruin for a chance to live and be sexual, even if the men are bad.
The initial excitement is the heady fulfillment of a woman's dream: not a man to settle for, but a handsome, exciting, attentive, desirable and charming man who has chosen them and thus thwarted all the other aggressive women who openly pursue him.
The tragedy lies in the trick of the con man. He charms with a purpose and without a conscience. He may steal or find a willing victim for his violence or sexual degradations and he will leave the instant he finds a better mark or the old one becomes too demanding.
What happens to the woman afterward is none of his concern. And some, including the primary con man in this book, will have a streak of malicious mischief: finding a clever way to let the cuckold know.
Any and all damages inflicted on the woman and her mate provide no satisfaction for the con man because he really doesn't care one way or the other. But it does momentarily satisfy his itch to be cruel and punish the woman for ruining the good game he had going for a while.
This is the path of women who have no other way in society to realize their individual hopes and dreams. She's the Madonna or the whore. A virtuous woman who repels all advances or a fallen woman who gives in out of her inner desperation to experience a little of the woman's dream. The middle ground is nowhere to be seen.
December 22, 2022
A woman is found naked in the river, presumably having committed suicide by drowning. This was at a time when the Catholic Church would not allow suicides in Catholic cemeteries. Also, the family did not want the stigma associated with suicide. Quirke is asked to meet a man he knew in school years ago who, as it turns out, is the woman's husband. He asks Quirke not to perform a postmortem and look on the death as an accident. Quirke reluctantly promises, but then sees a reason he must go back on that promise.
This is probably as much a straight novel as it is a mystery. I say that because Quirke is a terrible detective. Quirke says he has an innate curiosity, but, though he does meet with some of the bit players, he really isn't doing any sort of investigation. I don't think it is a spoiler to say that he draws erroneous conclusions. The reader is rewarded with the truth in spite of him.
There is no hiding John Banville's wonderful prose. I note that some of his more recent mysteries are published under his own name rather than the Benjamin Black pseudonym. This series takes place in the 1950s and I think the time is well represented. I say that even though I really know nothing of Dublin of the time. There was some pornography in this, though not really much sex (yeah, I realize that sounds like a contradiction) and some violence.
I see it has been 10+ years since I read the first in this series. My review reveals little of what I thought - except for praising the writing. Again, the writing is the strength here, but I must have liked this mystery a bit more. Still, I'm not ready to start handing out 4-stars willy nilly. It's a really good 3-stars, though.
This is probably as much a straight novel as it is a mystery. I say that because Quirke is a terrible detective. Quirke says he has an innate curiosity, but, though he does meet with some of the bit players, he really isn't doing any sort of investigation. I don't think it is a spoiler to say that he draws erroneous conclusions. The reader is rewarded with the truth in spite of him.
There is no hiding John Banville's wonderful prose. I note that some of his more recent mysteries are published under his own name rather than the Benjamin Black pseudonym. This series takes place in the 1950s and I think the time is well represented. I say that even though I really know nothing of Dublin of the time. There was some pornography in this, though not really much sex (yeah, I realize that sounds like a contradiction) and some violence.
I see it has been 10+ years since I read the first in this series. My review reveals little of what I thought - except for praising the writing. Again, the writing is the strength here, but I must have liked this mystery a bit more. Still, I'm not ready to start handing out 4-stars willy nilly. It's a really good 3-stars, though.
April 16, 2013
I'm hooked on Quirke-the taciturn, rather unfriendly "hero" of Benjamin Black (aka John Banville) mystery series. The Silver Swan is the second in the series (and the second I've read). Laura Swan (real name: Deirdre Hunt) is dead and her husband has contacted morgue pathologist Quirke requesting Quirke not do a post-mortem. Of course, this awakens Quirke's (already infamous from the first book in the series) curiosity. Once again, Quirke is drawn into a mess of murder (and dubious sexual activities) that he seems unable to walk away from. And, as in his first adventure, nothing is what it seems.
While this book is not as seamless as the first and I found sections that were slow, at least as compared to the first in the series (Christine Falls), I nevertheless loved the book. I am oddly drawn to Quirke and his painful relationship with his daughter Phoebe.
None of Black's characters are "easy" or comfortable. They are rather edgy, jagged people who are deeply flawed and caught in an ingrown society in which everyone knows everything about each other and secrets are everywhere. The plot in this story was well-executed and I almost didn't guess the ending (although, sadly, I did). The writing is, as Banville's consistently is, beautifully crafted and worth the read all by itself.
I can hardly stop myself from buying the next volume in the series immediately.
While this book is not as seamless as the first and I found sections that were slow, at least as compared to the first in the series (Christine Falls), I nevertheless loved the book. I am oddly drawn to Quirke and his painful relationship with his daughter Phoebe.
None of Black's characters are "easy" or comfortable. They are rather edgy, jagged people who are deeply flawed and caught in an ingrown society in which everyone knows everything about each other and secrets are everywhere. The plot in this story was well-executed and I almost didn't guess the ending (although, sadly, I did). The writing is, as Banville's consistently is, beautifully crafted and worth the read all by itself.
I can hardly stop myself from buying the next volume in the series immediately.
December 31, 2017
I really enjoyed this second in a series even more than the first. Quirke is such a mess. His family connections and personal life are in tatters, then he stumbles through this book actually making things worse for everyone. Why would that make a great mystery novel? I felt empathy for these characters (good and bad ones). The time and setting (1950s Dublin) are fascinating, but as with the first book, the writing made me love this one.
January 6, 2025
4.5, rounded down. Put only to give myself leeway for future volumes in the series. A fine book and Banville, with his obsessive and excessive use of alliteration, is a fine writer. The dense literary works of his younger days have, no doubt, taken a lot out of him. And he finds these easier. He said that in interviews. But these “easier” books have as much humanity in them, if not more, than his earlier virtuoso performances.
And then there is the writing, with its dim echoes of the Dubliners’ “The Dead”:
“A SAGGING PALL OF CLOUD HUNG LOW OVER THE AIRPORT, AND A steady summer drizzle was drifting slantways down.”
And then there is the writing, with its dim echoes of the Dubliners’ “The Dead”:
“A SAGGING PALL OF CLOUD HUNG LOW OVER THE AIRPORT, AND A steady summer drizzle was drifting slantways down.”
April 30, 2010
Dark & Brooding. Delves the depths of human existence. Compelling prose. Wonderfully read by Timothy Dalton.
September 23, 2014
THE SILVER SWAN could easily be considered a continuation of the author's first book in the series, CHRISTINE FALLS. Readers are warned here that the second book contains numerous spoilers to the first. In addition, however, reading the first book will enhance the momentum of character development as well as the reader's enjoyment.
Once again, Quirke's curiosity leads him into trouble. As a Dublin pathologist in the 1950's, Quirke is occasionally asked for favors. Relatives of a deceased may ask for a lock of hair or other memento. In Catholic Ireland, a finding of suicide can be problematic. In CHRISTINE FALLS, he was urged to ignore a falsified death report. Here, he is approached by a long-forgotten colleague from med. school, Billy Hunt. The previous night, Hunt's wife Deirdre drove up to a secluded beach, neatly folded her clothes, and apparently jumped into the icy waters where she drowned. Billy begs Quirke not to perform an autopsy; he can't bear the thought of her being cut up. Quirke barely remembers Billy who dropped out of med school after that first year and became instead a pharmaceutical salesman. He is intrigued not exactly knowing why. Billy has a rough simple kind of appeal. “[His] accent was at once flat and singsong, with broad vowels and dulled consonants. A countryman....At last a face began to assemble itself in Quirke's laboring memory. Big broad forehead, definitively broken nose, a thatch of wiry red hair, freckles. Grocer's son from somewhere down south, Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, one of the W counties.” A part of Quirke is sympathetic to Billy's obvious grief. His own life has been filled with a succession of losses which have made him susceptible to Billy's plea. He also has strong personal reasons. “He was weary of being the object of everyone's blame. The past was tied to him like a tin can to a cat's tail, and even the smallest effort he made to advance produced a shaming din behind him.” His life is in shambles; the last thing he needs is more problems.
His memories and regrets are no longer filtered out by alcohol. It has been two years since the events of the previous book, and Quirke has been sober for about a year and a half. The evenings are the worst. Quirke's desire for a drink intensifies with each new strain in his personal life. His craving reinforces the tension of the narrative, as well as the reader's sympathy for Quirke. On one occasion “The fumes of the rum she was breathing over him were making Quirke's head swim. His mouth was dry and his fingers had the arthritic ache in the joints that came on when he was most in need of a drink. Would it never abate, he wondered, this raw craving?”
The narrative is split. The second account is told from the point of view of Deirdre, the dead woman. She rose from an abusive family living in a government housing project. She met Billy when she was a salesclerk at a druggists. The portrait that emerges is of a curious woman of limited experience with romantic longings but with a solid practical bent.
Black is particularly skillful at exploiting the evocative power of smell in this book. Quirke's abstinence has sharpened his senses, and the heavy smell of ground coffee beans nearly overcomes him with nausea. Billy's presence elicits the thought: “He had that smell, hot and raw and salty, that Quirke recognized at once, the smell of the recently bereaved.” Deirdre's strongest memory of her past is a vivid stew of smells. When she notices an intriguing dark-skinned customer at the pharmacy she thinks: “He had a smell that also was dark, she thought, spicy and dark — she caught it distinctly when he came in; she was sure it was not cologne or shaving lotion but a perfume produced by his skin itself.” And finally, Quirke's regrets are evoked by Sarah's garden: “The garden's mingled fragrances seemed for a second a breath out of the past, a past that was not theirs, exactly, but rather one where their younger selves still lived somehow in a long-gone and yet unaging present.”
Once again, Black interconnects his characters' relationships. Quirke's niece Phoebe was acquainted with Deirdre and her partner at their cosmetics boutique, The Silver Swan. The shop is a short distance from the millinery shop where she is employed.
Phoebe and Deirdre could not be more unalike. Yet, both are tempted by curiosity to take risks; neither had sufficient experience of the world to evaluate danger. Danger is still something abstract, like the feelings from watching the actors in a movie.
Two welcome characters from the first book make their appearance. Rose Crawford, Phoebe's grandmother, arrives from Boston. She is a still handsome, strong-willed woman, adept at summoning her southern belle charms to disarm the unwary. The second character is Detective Hackett with his broad, comforting Midlands accent and subtle method of probing.
Black successfully involves the reader with the fate of his characters. Like CHRISTINE FALLS, the ending is a plot formality; the reader is left curious about the next chapter in these characters' lives.
Once again, Quirke's curiosity leads him into trouble. As a Dublin pathologist in the 1950's, Quirke is occasionally asked for favors. Relatives of a deceased may ask for a lock of hair or other memento. In Catholic Ireland, a finding of suicide can be problematic. In CHRISTINE FALLS, he was urged to ignore a falsified death report. Here, he is approached by a long-forgotten colleague from med. school, Billy Hunt. The previous night, Hunt's wife Deirdre drove up to a secluded beach, neatly folded her clothes, and apparently jumped into the icy waters where she drowned. Billy begs Quirke not to perform an autopsy; he can't bear the thought of her being cut up. Quirke barely remembers Billy who dropped out of med school after that first year and became instead a pharmaceutical salesman. He is intrigued not exactly knowing why. Billy has a rough simple kind of appeal. “[His] accent was at once flat and singsong, with broad vowels and dulled consonants. A countryman....At last a face began to assemble itself in Quirke's laboring memory. Big broad forehead, definitively broken nose, a thatch of wiry red hair, freckles. Grocer's son from somewhere down south, Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, one of the W counties.” A part of Quirke is sympathetic to Billy's obvious grief. His own life has been filled with a succession of losses which have made him susceptible to Billy's plea. He also has strong personal reasons. “He was weary of being the object of everyone's blame. The past was tied to him like a tin can to a cat's tail, and even the smallest effort he made to advance produced a shaming din behind him.” His life is in shambles; the last thing he needs is more problems.
His memories and regrets are no longer filtered out by alcohol. It has been two years since the events of the previous book, and Quirke has been sober for about a year and a half. The evenings are the worst. Quirke's desire for a drink intensifies with each new strain in his personal life. His craving reinforces the tension of the narrative, as well as the reader's sympathy for Quirke. On one occasion “The fumes of the rum she was breathing over him were making Quirke's head swim. His mouth was dry and his fingers had the arthritic ache in the joints that came on when he was most in need of a drink. Would it never abate, he wondered, this raw craving?”
The narrative is split. The second account is told from the point of view of Deirdre, the dead woman. She rose from an abusive family living in a government housing project. She met Billy when she was a salesclerk at a druggists. The portrait that emerges is of a curious woman of limited experience with romantic longings but with a solid practical bent.
Black is particularly skillful at exploiting the evocative power of smell in this book. Quirke's abstinence has sharpened his senses, and the heavy smell of ground coffee beans nearly overcomes him with nausea. Billy's presence elicits the thought: “He had that smell, hot and raw and salty, that Quirke recognized at once, the smell of the recently bereaved.” Deirdre's strongest memory of her past is a vivid stew of smells. When she notices an intriguing dark-skinned customer at the pharmacy she thinks: “He had a smell that also was dark, she thought, spicy and dark — she caught it distinctly when he came in; she was sure it was not cologne or shaving lotion but a perfume produced by his skin itself.” And finally, Quirke's regrets are evoked by Sarah's garden: “The garden's mingled fragrances seemed for a second a breath out of the past, a past that was not theirs, exactly, but rather one where their younger selves still lived somehow in a long-gone and yet unaging present.”
Once again, Black interconnects his characters' relationships. Quirke's niece Phoebe was acquainted with Deirdre and her partner at their cosmetics boutique, The Silver Swan. The shop is a short distance from the millinery shop where she is employed.
Phoebe and Deirdre could not be more unalike. Yet, both are tempted by curiosity to take risks; neither had sufficient experience of the world to evaluate danger. Danger is still something abstract, like the feelings from watching the actors in a movie.
Two welcome characters from the first book make their appearance. Rose Crawford, Phoebe's grandmother, arrives from Boston. She is a still handsome, strong-willed woman, adept at summoning her southern belle charms to disarm the unwary. The second character is Detective Hackett with his broad, comforting Midlands accent and subtle method of probing.
Black successfully involves the reader with the fate of his characters. Like CHRISTINE FALLS, the ending is a plot formality; the reader is left curious about the next chapter in these characters' lives.
January 2, 2023
Hace poco escuché al genial violinista Itzhak Perlman hablar sobre la importancia de los silencios, de las pausas, a la hora de ejecutar una partitura. Esos silencios, decía Perlman, son los que luego realzarán el sentido de la melodía. Se refería, cómo no, a los sonidos del silencio, que dirían Simon y Garfunkel.
No confundamos esa gestión del silencio con las pausas dramáticas; artificiosas e ideadas para manipular al lector, oyente o espectador. Este silencio es algo diferente, más profundo; un elemento definitorio, del mismo modo que podría serlo un adjetivo calificativo. Personajes como Quirke reflejan a la perfección lo que significa el silencio ahondado, el esculpido a cincel a base de sufrimiento, miedo y pérdidas. El silencio del que teme, y también el del que no sabe cómo amar.
“El otro nombre de Laura” es la segunda novela de la serie del forense Quirke. al igual que en el caso de la primera (“La desaparición de Christine”), la historia comienza con el cadáver de una mujer joven sobre la fría mesa de autopsias de Quirke.
Desde este punto de partida, Black comenzará a desgranar la trama, a desenredar el ovillo, saltando de personaje a personaje (uno de los cuales, Leslie White, me recuerda enormemente al Terry Lennox de Chandler) a lo largo de las tres partes en las que se divide el libro, hasta llegar al resolutivo final, dónde la verdad será desvelada.
Cronológicamente hablando, los hechos narrados en esta novela suceden dos años después de los relatados en la primera. A los personajes les han acaecido importantes novedades, que no revelaré, y éstas no harán más que acentuar el carácter de Quirke. Un hombre que lucha consigo mismo por hacer lo correcto con la gente que le rodea, tratando de combatir el irrefrenable deseo de olvidarse de todos los problemas ahogándolos bajo litros de alcohol, y el impulso de autodestrucción que le ha quedado como lastre de los duros años vividos durante infancia en el orfanato de Carricklea. Black profundizará aún más en la personalidad de Quirke, al que vamos conociendo cada vez mejor, aunque quizás aún no logremos entender del todo el modo en el que se maneja en la vida y la forma que tiene de abordar las situaciones. A pesar de esta indefinición, de su dualidad, Quirke siempre intenta que se haga justicia con las víctimas.
El estilo de Benjamin Black es lento, haciendo alarde de una maravillosa prosa descriptiva. Es una lectura en la que la acción no tiene tanto protagonismo, sino que el deleite se logra paladeando cada párrafo del escrito. Una vez le oí decir a Banville que los libros que firma con su nombre real le llevaba más tiempo escribirlos porque el método de escritura era línea a línea. Por otro lado, las novela de Benjamin Black, los escribía más rápido porque lo hacía párrafo a párrafo. Los amantes del género de novela negra, por lo tanto, somos inmensamente afortunados de disfrutar del hecho de que el ebanista de la palabra, el orfebre de la tinta que escribió maravillas como “El mar”, le dedique su tiempo a verter todo su talento e inteligencia en una serie negra. Disfrutemos de ese regalo.
No confundamos esa gestión del silencio con las pausas dramáticas; artificiosas e ideadas para manipular al lector, oyente o espectador. Este silencio es algo diferente, más profundo; un elemento definitorio, del mismo modo que podría serlo un adjetivo calificativo. Personajes como Quirke reflejan a la perfección lo que significa el silencio ahondado, el esculpido a cincel a base de sufrimiento, miedo y pérdidas. El silencio del que teme, y también el del que no sabe cómo amar.
“El otro nombre de Laura” es la segunda novela de la serie del forense Quirke. al igual que en el caso de la primera (“La desaparición de Christine”), la historia comienza con el cadáver de una mujer joven sobre la fría mesa de autopsias de Quirke.
Desde este punto de partida, Black comenzará a desgranar la trama, a desenredar el ovillo, saltando de personaje a personaje (uno de los cuales, Leslie White, me recuerda enormemente al Terry Lennox de Chandler) a lo largo de las tres partes en las que se divide el libro, hasta llegar al resolutivo final, dónde la verdad será desvelada.
Cronológicamente hablando, los hechos narrados en esta novela suceden dos años después de los relatados en la primera. A los personajes les han acaecido importantes novedades, que no revelaré, y éstas no harán más que acentuar el carácter de Quirke. Un hombre que lucha consigo mismo por hacer lo correcto con la gente que le rodea, tratando de combatir el irrefrenable deseo de olvidarse de todos los problemas ahogándolos bajo litros de alcohol, y el impulso de autodestrucción que le ha quedado como lastre de los duros años vividos durante infancia en el orfanato de Carricklea. Black profundizará aún más en la personalidad de Quirke, al que vamos conociendo cada vez mejor, aunque quizás aún no logremos entender del todo el modo en el que se maneja en la vida y la forma que tiene de abordar las situaciones. A pesar de esta indefinición, de su dualidad, Quirke siempre intenta que se haga justicia con las víctimas.
El estilo de Benjamin Black es lento, haciendo alarde de una maravillosa prosa descriptiva. Es una lectura en la que la acción no tiene tanto protagonismo, sino que el deleite se logra paladeando cada párrafo del escrito. Una vez le oí decir a Banville que los libros que firma con su nombre real le llevaba más tiempo escribirlos porque el método de escritura era línea a línea. Por otro lado, las novela de Benjamin Black, los escribía más rápido porque lo hacía párrafo a párrafo. Los amantes del género de novela negra, por lo tanto, somos inmensamente afortunados de disfrutar del hecho de que el ebanista de la palabra, el orfebre de la tinta que escribió maravillas como “El mar”, le dedique su tiempo a verter todo su talento e inteligencia en una serie negra. Disfrutemos de ese regalo.
September 21, 2017
“Over every scene of violent death Quirke had attended to in the course of his career there had hung a particular kind of silence. The kind that falls after the last echoes of a great outcry have faded. There was shock in it, of course, and awe and outrage, the sense of many hands lifted to many mouths, but something else as well, a kind of gleefulness, a kind of startled, happy, unable-to-believe-its-luckness. Things, Quirke reflected, even inanimate things, it seemed, love a killing.”
Banville describing the vicarious and wicked pleasures of writing as Black?
I sure love reading these killings.
Quirke is a keeper.
On to #3.
Banville describing the vicarious and wicked pleasures of writing as Black?
I sure love reading these killings.
Quirke is a keeper.
On to #3.
November 11, 2025
I read this on audiobook and the British upper crust voice of Timothy Dalton gives a very old fashioned feel and tone to the time and setting in Dublin, Ireland.
A young married woman, Deirdre, is thought to have committed suicide by drowning in the river. As the mystery and details unfold of why she would have killed herself, we learn about the lives of some of the connected characters. Their stories are very sexually charged and we find out a lot about a mysterious Mr White throughout the novel.
This may not be your typical Quirke thriller or mystery, with all of the sexual energy, but author Banville keeps us guessing right up to the end.
For me, it was sluggish for at least 50% of the novel, but Banville has such beautiful language that it’s hard to pass it up. More focus on Quirke and his daughter would have been interesting. Maybe in another book in the future?
A young married woman, Deirdre, is thought to have committed suicide by drowning in the river. As the mystery and details unfold of why she would have killed herself, we learn about the lives of some of the connected characters. Their stories are very sexually charged and we find out a lot about a mysterious Mr White throughout the novel.
This may not be your typical Quirke thriller or mystery, with all of the sexual energy, but author Banville keeps us guessing right up to the end.
For me, it was sluggish for at least 50% of the novel, but Banville has such beautiful language that it’s hard to pass it up. More focus on Quirke and his daughter would have been interesting. Maybe in another book in the future?
Want to read
June 8, 2017This book is signed by the author.
March 14, 2015
John Banville is one of my favorite modern authors, and I was tremendously excited when I learned he'd written noir mysteries under the pen name of Benjamin Black. The first of these Christine Falls grabbed me from page one, and never let go. For that reason I was a bit worried when I started this one; it was so bleak and depressing at the outset that it put me off, and I nearly set it aside. By a couple chapters in, however, I was hooked, although it does remain pretty grim.
If you aren't familiar with the series, the books focus on Dublin in the 1950s, which provides a neat substitute for the more familiar Los Angeles of Chandler or Ellroy. The main character is Quirke (does he have a first name? Presumably, but no one ever uses it), a Dublin pathologist who falls into solving a crime in the first book. At the start of this one, some time has passed since the end of Christine Falls, and a number of circumstances have changed. These have left Quirke, his friends, and his family, in a rather different state than that in which we'd last seen them. Despite many changes, Quirke finds himself again driven, reluctantly but uncontrollably, to get at the truth behind the death of a young woman, even while concealing the fact that it was murder from the courts and the police.
The structure of the book is unusual, in that the chapters alternate between a present that begins shortly after the victim's body is discovered, and a past that follows the life of the victim through the events leading to her death. As always in Banville, the language is beautiful, and masterfully wielded, to the point that I find myself stopping now and again to re-read a sentence, just to hear it once more.
I'll certainly continue to read whatever Banville writes.
If you aren't familiar with the series, the books focus on Dublin in the 1950s, which provides a neat substitute for the more familiar Los Angeles of Chandler or Ellroy. The main character is Quirke (does he have a first name? Presumably, but no one ever uses it), a Dublin pathologist who falls into solving a crime in the first book. At the start of this one, some time has passed since the end of Christine Falls, and a number of circumstances have changed. These have left Quirke, his friends, and his family, in a rather different state than that in which we'd last seen them. Despite many changes, Quirke finds himself again driven, reluctantly but uncontrollably, to get at the truth behind the death of a young woman, even while concealing the fact that it was murder from the courts and the police.
The structure of the book is unusual, in that the chapters alternate between a present that begins shortly after the victim's body is discovered, and a past that follows the life of the victim through the events leading to her death. As always in Banville, the language is beautiful, and masterfully wielded, to the point that I find myself stopping now and again to re-read a sentence, just to hear it once more.
I'll certainly continue to read whatever Banville writes.
March 19, 2022
This is a slow intriguing burn. An apparent suicide covers up sordid business.
Gradualy we get to know what’s going on. Via different points of view we get insight in the main characters thoughts and behaviours.
It is almost a character study into the psyche of the victum and the person who takes advantage of her. Most of the time we spend with the victum, primarily in the second part of the book.
Not a police procedural. That would not be possible with Quirke, being a pathologist.
And talking about Quirke, he does not play a big part in this book.
A gripping read that kept me captivated till the end.
Already at the beginning I enjoyed how John Banville describes seemingly ordinary things.
That shows what a great writer he is. (according to many people). I failed to really appreciate that in the other books I read from him; “The Sea” (Booker prize 2005) and “Christine Falls”, the first of the Quirke series.
Some philosophical wisdom.
p.72: about birth and death: “To not be here and then to be here was one thing, but to have been here, [...], and then suddenly to be gone, that was what was truly uncanny.”
Gradualy we get to know what’s going on. Via different points of view we get insight in the main characters thoughts and behaviours.
It is almost a character study into the psyche of the victum and the person who takes advantage of her. Most of the time we spend with the victum, primarily in the second part of the book.
Not a police procedural. That would not be possible with Quirke, being a pathologist.
And talking about Quirke, he does not play a big part in this book.
A gripping read that kept me captivated till the end.
Already at the beginning I enjoyed how John Banville describes seemingly ordinary things.
That shows what a great writer he is. (according to many people). I failed to really appreciate that in the other books I read from him; “The Sea” (Booker prize 2005) and “Christine Falls”, the first of the Quirke series.
Some philosophical wisdom.
p.72: about birth and death: “To not be here and then to be here was one thing, but to have been here, [...], and then suddenly to be gone, that was what was truly uncanny.”
August 13, 2008
Black is back! Whereas I didn't find the central characters as engaging as Christine Falls, this was still crime noir par excellence. It feels that Black aka Banville is setting the stage for future Quirke mysteries that center on the story more than on Quirke's troubled personal life. Christine Falls was rife with the melodrama surrounding Quirke's relationships. Now that a couple of key characters have left the scene, er, permanently, Quirke/Black/Banville is freer to uncover more sordid goings on in the mean streets of late 1950's Dublin.
But fear not- those closest to him were embroiled in this latest murder/suicide/sex and extortion scandal. Dublin is really a big village, so what is secret cannot remain so for long. Quirke struggles with sobriety and loneliness; his beloved niece, er, daughter struggles with bitterness and depression. It's all very bleak but with the warmth of the characters, the racy intrigue and Quirke's gentle giant humanity, it is an utter pleasure to read. I anxiously await the next installment.
But fear not- those closest to him were embroiled in this latest murder/suicide/sex and extortion scandal. Dublin is really a big village, so what is secret cannot remain so for long. Quirke struggles with sobriety and loneliness; his beloved niece, er, daughter struggles with bitterness and depression. It's all very bleak but with the warmth of the characters, the racy intrigue and Quirke's gentle giant humanity, it is an utter pleasure to read. I anxiously await the next installment.
April 12, 2014
This was so disappointing. "Christine Falls" was terrific, and my wife says "Holy Orders" is also a great read. "The Silver Swan" was not, at least for me. The story is confusing, and eventually I didn't have the incentive to follow it, because the characters were so dull. After 100 or so pages, I stopped reading.
July 20, 2018
I started it but didn't finish it. I read the reviews on Goodreads and concluded it wasn't worth the time. Too busy describing the environment instead of furthering the plot.
September 10, 2019
Two and a half stars...
I wasn't fully drawn into this one..but was never uninterested enough to set it aside.
Meh....
I wasn't fully drawn into this one..but was never uninterested enough to set it aside.
Meh....
February 14, 2025
La última entrega de Quirque y Strafford es otra genialidad de Banville en su alter ego de la novela negra, Benjamin Black. Leerlo en cualesquiera de sus manifestaciones es un deleite y una forma, en el caso de Black, de elevar el género policiaco a la altura de la más excelente ficción literaria. Es la muestra palpable de que la forma se impone al fondo cuando hablamos del placer de la lectura. Larga vida a ambos y espero que no pase como con Marías, y a éste sí le den el Novel en vida. En esta entrega, las relaciones entre los personajes se van complicando, la trama sigue estando perfectamente urdida, pero es sobre todo el poder de su narrativa lo que deja al lector con una sonrisa perpetua, con la certeza de que esa afición que tiene, la lectura, cuando encuentra autores como éste, lo convierten en mejor persona.
April 27, 2023
This was such a disappointment. Even with his beautiful writing and all the rich sensory detail, it was nothing more than an old man's wet dream. No wonder it was set in the 50s.
March 16, 2018
2.5 stars
March 26, 2022
Benjamin Black is a pen name for John Banville. I read Banville's most recent book, a mystery called "Snow" in which the detective is named St. John Strafford "with an R", as the character incessantly repeated. I thought it was reasonably good, engaging, and slightly outre. So I looked for other books by the same author who has won a Booker prize.
He wrote a series featuring a Dublin based pathologist named Quirke. The first one, "Christine Falls" was a good because it roundly exposed the RCC (Roman Catholic Corporation) in Ireland for the predatory, debased institution it was, feeding on the weak and the poor, and creating human misery instead of easing it.
I truly wish I had stopped there. This second in the series is an unpleasant, dragged out affair. Several of the characters are depraved, self-serving psychopaths, revolting and disturbing. Others are the pathetic, dysfunctional people they prey on. Is this what life in 1950's Ireland was like, a corrupt, dog-eat-dog world, or just the dark imaginings of a twisted mind? The writing is full of male fantasy style explicit pornography and sadism, which I was not expecting, and which can be skipped over somewhat. With the exception of one or two minor characters, everyone lacks the ability to face reality or even to sense danger, and this includes Quirke himself.
I will not continue with the series or bother with John Banville's "literary" works, as he calls them. This book has poisoned my mind against him. Reader beware.
He wrote a series featuring a Dublin based pathologist named Quirke. The first one, "Christine Falls" was a good because it roundly exposed the RCC (Roman Catholic Corporation) in Ireland for the predatory, debased institution it was, feeding on the weak and the poor, and creating human misery instead of easing it.
I truly wish I had stopped there. This second in the series is an unpleasant, dragged out affair. Several of the characters are depraved, self-serving psychopaths, revolting and disturbing. Others are the pathetic, dysfunctional people they prey on. Is this what life in 1950's Ireland was like, a corrupt, dog-eat-dog world, or just the dark imaginings of a twisted mind? The writing is full of male fantasy style explicit pornography and sadism, which I was not expecting, and which can be skipped over somewhat. With the exception of one or two minor characters, everyone lacks the ability to face reality or even to sense danger, and this includes Quirke himself.
I will not continue with the series or bother with John Banville's "literary" works, as he calls them. This book has poisoned my mind against him. Reader beware.
March 25, 2025
Yikes, early-reviewer me was a bit bland...
Original:
I liked this book. It had a strong cast of characters, although I didn't like any of them that much. Quirke is an interesting character - he is damaged and dark and I enjoy that about him. All the rest of the cast were very damaged, making Quirke look a bit of a saint. There is something I really like about Benjamin Black's books but without being overly excited about it. I like the darkness, I like the pace, although it is a bit slow, something about it is comforting to me. I listened to this as an audiobook and although I really enjoyed the narrator's reading and expressiveness it was also fairly quiet, no matter how much I turned it up, I felt I was straining to hear. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had read an actual book copy. I will continue this series.
Original:
I liked this book. It had a strong cast of characters, although I didn't like any of them that much. Quirke is an interesting character - he is damaged and dark and I enjoy that about him. All the rest of the cast were very damaged, making Quirke look a bit of a saint. There is something I really like about Benjamin Black's books but without being overly excited about it. I like the darkness, I like the pace, although it is a bit slow, something about it is comforting to me. I listened to this as an audiobook and although I really enjoyed the narrator's reading and expressiveness it was also fairly quiet, no matter how much I turned it up, I felt I was straining to hear. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had read an actual book copy. I will continue this series.
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