Christine Falls, Learning to Swim and Reality and Dreams

 

The only reason I read the Quirke novels is because John Banville (or as Benjamin Black for these books) is such a good writer. So the mostly family drama at the beginning is fine. But at work (Quirke is a pathologist) there is a mystery about the death of one Christine Falls. He even has to have the body returned to his mortuary for closer inspection after it is moved. There is another story where a baby Christine is adopted by Andy Stafford and his wife Claire at St Mary's Convent. It is Quirke's unflagging attempts to uncover the mystery that leads him to a conspiracy between church and state. There are some unsatisfactory diversions all for the sake of nastiness. But it is Quirke's decision to accompany young Phoebe to Boston and the coastal home of the elderly Josh Crawford that finally brings the answers he was looking for. The book has pace which I thought was at the detriment of the author's usually superb prose. I guess you cannot have it both ways.

A mixed bag of short stories, most of which were published in different magazines at different times.
SERAGLIO
An unsettling story about a marriage hurt by a death in the family. The husband describes their anguish, told in the first person. Why do they stay together? They have all the money they need which enables their continental holidays. These seem to preserve their uneasy relationship.
THE TUNNEL
A young couple have just finished with school, leave home and start living together in a flat due for demolition. It's what they see from their window that gives us a horrible non-ending.
HOTEL
Our narrator leaves a type of mental hospital and after saving for many years, opens his own hotel. Successful at first but not until ...... Strange and surreal.
HOFFMEIER'S ANTELOPE
A kind of philosophical question about existence. A story about a zookeeper, as crazy as the title suggests.
THE SON
Some strange family history erupts for a man from Greece.
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC
A young GP ruminates on his marriage to a much younger wife. But more troublesome is a patient referred to as "M". who visits the surgery all the time complaining about various symptoms. The doctor has no explanation and believes there is nothing wrong. But this does not satisfy "M" until .....
GABOR
Perhaps the most memorable of these stories concerns Roger, looking back to his youth in 1957. Joining the family as a refugee is Gabor from Budapest. He's the same age as Roger, but how will he fit in?
THE WATCH
Another surreal piece about a family of clock and watch watch makers. But our narrator Adam Krepski tells us this is not a story about clock making. It is the day of his wedding anniversary, even though his wife left him thirty years before. Adam thinks about when they married in 1957. His grandfather is one hundred and fifty years old, continuing the extreme longevity of the male line. Is this all to do with the watch? Later, Adam's grandfather, now 161, accompanies him to the Sussex South Downs, leaving behind the failing shop. A fantasy that I just did not get. Such as "Our ancestors are our first and only Gods. It is from them we get our guilt, our duty, our sin - our destiny". Then " Time is circular. The longer you live, the more you long to go back, to go back". Maybe. But having toiled through this unusual story, the last ten pages are the best in the book.
CLIFFEDGE
A proper short story about a brother and a wife, and how both are lost. There are glimpses of the lives we all lead. Excellent.
CHEMISTRY
The narrator lives with his mother and grandfather in the later's house, his father having disappeared. Ralph is a friend of the mother and he eventually moves in. A cuckoo in the nest? Leading to the son and his grandfather taking up residence in the shed where they practice chemistry. Again, all very strange. Not a nice ending.
LEARNING TO SWIM
A story that lends the book it's title. Mrs Singleton is the central character, her marriage and an unexpected child. While Mr Singleton tries to teach the young boy to swim, his wife contemplates their early relationship and where that fell away. A tug of war between the two ends in neither winning.

I much prefer Graham Swift's novels so these stories were mainly a big disappointment.

I love Muriel Spark's writing. The dialogue (and there is loads of it) is just that tiny bit off kilter. Nothing is ever quite like it seems. A seemingly straightforward story of a film writer and director. Tom has fallen from a crane trying a fancy shot on his latest film. So he is recovering at home with visits from his vastly rich wife Claire, family (many spongers, redundancy in a theme that runs through the book) and friends. I enjoyed the stuff about the two daughters from different mothers. Marigold, especially, was a natural disaster. Everyone said she was difficult.

I enjoyed all the parts about Tom making pictures, especially when he goes back to the studio in a wheelchair. "The trouble with producers is that they want both an art film and a commercial success. They want sentimentality, emotion and higher moods of detachment. They want bloody everything".

Both Tom and Claire have affairs but stick together like glue. "What steadily drew him towards her was her loyalty to him which always predominated over her infidelities".

My copy of the book when it arrived was, unusually, a hardback. However, it said the cover picture was "Tours Sunset" by J.M.W. Turner. In fact it turned out to be "The Scarlet Sunset". My book was a 1996 Edition that seemed brand new. The quality of the pages and text was just superb, given it was twenty eight years old.