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Liked It “Interesting as varied character sketches of the masses that linger in the grey seam of human morals. A mathematics prodigy's tryst with the Mephistopheles of modern world, Felix. A very interesting character this Mefisto.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“Interesting as varied character sketches of the masses that linger in the grey seam of human morals. A mathematics prodigy's tryst with the Mephistopheles of modern world, Felix. A very interesting character this Mefisto.”
faustusin wrote this review Tuesday, February 14, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“An interesting novel that is, in many ways, not about much of anything except the condition of separation - how intellect, genius, and physical deformity all can (and, in the case of Gabriel Swan, do) distance the individual from the society in which he lives. Here, Gabriel becomes a Faustian figure whose distance from both family and society is a dual product of his attachment to the Mephistophelian Felix (and company) and his own self-alienation from a world that refuses to understand him. Although it is hard to say what the novel is actually about (or, to some extent, what happens in it), it is nevertheless a remarkable story in which, despite many profound events, nothing really changes.”
imagisme wrote this review Friday, April 30, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“One could say that this complex novel by Irish author John Banville is about the inadequacy of language to explain the world. The hero Gabriel Swann tries to account for and make sense of life's chaos in terms of numbers. This is also a Faustian tale of duality (two souls in one breast..etc.). Gabriel tells his story so that symmetries and parallelisms crop up everywhere. The hero is an artist and a scientist, the novel's two parts more or less correspond to each other in characters and events, the beginning is mirrored by the ending. Not an easy read, but totally fantastic.”
avd.reader wrote this review Friday, November 14, 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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