; one of the portions into which something is divided; part, component
Well, it's just the three of us again. Or, to be correct, the seven, counting the cats and Daisy. We probably won't have any guests again until the winter, when David comes to visit.
This week's Author Profile is devoted to an Irish crime novelist, one of my favorites:
Benjamin Black
Born: Wexford, Ireland, 1945.
Career: Benjamin Black is actually a pseudonym for Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville. Banville was educated and went to college in Wexford, Ireland. He had jobs at the Irish airline Aer Lingus as a clerk, as sub-editor at The Irish Press and The Irish Times. From 1988 to 1999, he was Literary Editor of The Irish Times.
I have read no books by Banville, but I have long meant to. His first novel, Nightspawn, came out in 1971 but he didn't really start gaining notice until 1976's Dr. Copernicus, a fictional account of the 15th-century Polish astronomer, the first in a series of fictionalized novels about the inner lives of scientists and their ideas: 1981's Kepler and The Newton Letter: An Interlude (1982). 1989's The Book of Evidence was a finalist for the UK's prestigious Booker Prize for fiction (kind of like their Pulitzer); it is about a scientist's inner thoughts as he awaits trial for needlessly killing a woman.
2000's Eclipse was a praised, existential novel about an emotionally hollow actor who returns to his childhood home by the sea to try figure out who he is. Similarly themed, the Booker-winning The Sea (2005) is about a recently-widowed art historian who returns to the seaside villa his family vacationed at when he was a child.
Banville's novels are reputedly difficult, as the author prefers language and rhythm over plot or characterization. They're usually dense, largely interior, challenging, tough to get into; this isn't a bad thing for some readers.
In 2006, Banville started writing Dublin noir under the Black pseudonym. He did this unexpectedly (his publishers had no idea) and found it liberating to play with character and plot more. On the surface, it was a way to earn money, to achieve financially security to continue to write the Banville novels, which have a limited audience. The inspirations for the books: the existentialist thrillers of George Simenon and, in a roundabout way, the thrillers Black had been reading all his life, from Agatha Christie to James Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), from Dorothy Sayers to Richard Stark (The Hunter, made into the great Lee Marvin film Point Blank).
Christine Falls, the first of the Black novels, was an award-winning introduction to murky, politically fractious, nasty 1950s Dublin and alcoholic pathologist Quirke, a large, lumbering man who tends to antagonize everyone he encounters. It's one of the best books I've ever read. A wealthy, Catholic Dublin family has skeletons in its closet, and they're somehow related to the body of a young woman in the morgue - Christine Falls.
Banville enjoys being Benjamin Black and finds it very easy. From an interview in The Paris Review:
If I’m Benjamin Black, I can write up to two and a half thousand words a day. As John Banville, if I write two hundred words a day I am very, very happy. A Banville novel will take me up to five years to write.
To date, there are four Black novels about Quirke and one stand-alone Black novel, 2008's The Lemur, a thriller about a biography gone wrong.
Why You Should Read Him: I'll keep it short here. Simply put, Black makes you feel smart. When you read a Black book, you'll need to keep a dictionary handy, as you'll learn plenty of new words. The plots are layered and dense, but they're fun, and it's ultimately not too difficult to see them through. Quirke should be a composite of every cliche every possessed by a detective - alcoholic, sticks his nose where it doesn't belong, haunted, lost daughter - but Black makes the well-worn cliches feel fresh. The books contain twists and atmosphere so pungent, you can almost smell it and breath it. The author makes you nostalgic for the genre and with a greater appreciation for it. It's literature and genre writing, done with finesse and a lifetime of hard-earned practice.
Banville's novels divide critics; he wasn't a populist choice (to say the least) when he won the Booker. Readers find him digressive, heavy, difficult, too allusive and symbolist. The Black novels appeal to critics and reader, finding a fertile, happy common ground without dumbing down the art.
Books I'd Recommend: I've read three Black novels and would recommend them all. Christine Falls (*****) contains everything you could possibly want in a noir-ish thriller, with plenty of heart and feeling. 2010's Elegy For April (***1/2) finds Quirke on the trail of his daughter's missing friend, a doctor. 2011's A Death in Summer (***1/2) has Quirke investigating the death of a newspaper magnate, in a case that finds Quirke revisiting the orphanage he spent time in as a kid.
Books I Want to Read: The second Quirke outing, 2007's The Silver Swan, and the upcoming Vengeance (August 7).
Author's website: http://benjaminblackbooks.com/aboutauthor.htm
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Day 7 in the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time and it's time to give props to...
Morgan Freeman
as Fast Black in Street Smart (1987)
Let me say straight off that Street Smart is just an average movie. It's about a magazine reporter (bland Christopher Reeve) who concocts a made-up story about a colorful pimp, which is then published and becomes a sensation. A district attorney believes that a pimp who is on trial for murder (Freeman) is the subject of Reeve's story and wants to see Reeves' notes; of course, there aren't any. Freeman's Fast Black, a ruthless, knife-wielding Times Square pimp, agrees to be the subject of Reeve's story (the writer in hot water for concocting a fictional story and passing it off as true), if Reeve will only provide Fast Black with an alibi. It's never believable, but Freeman (who won every critics award imaginable for the role but lost the Oscar to Sean Connery for The Untouchables) is utterly terrifying. This was the first real introduction and major role for Freeman (a decade-long character actor and stage actor) and he is positively beguiling, scary, and quick-witted, as alert and poised as a tomcat. He blows Reeve off the screen, but never overacts, slipping into this role with a sinuous grace. He is a great, multi-dimensional villain and a scene where he threatens one of his girls (well played by Kathy Baker) with a pair of scissors is memorable. This is a rare chance to see Freeman at his loosest and springiest.
Let's do one more today, shall we?
Joseph Cotten
as Uncle Charlie Oakley in Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Hitchcock provided some great, plummy villain parts for his actors, and this is a good one. Cotten was a terrific actor, not quite a star, who appeared in some classic films: Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Gaslight, Portrait of Jennie, The Third Man. He never had a better role than he did in Hitch's black suburban comedy masquerading as a thriller. Charlotte (Teresa Wright, at her best) is so happy when her beloved Uncle Charlie comes to town, for she has idolized him for years. She is a bit of a crime buff (a sentiment she shares with her next door neighbor, played by Hume Cronyn) and begins to be a little suspicious when she sees her wonderful Uncle Charlie hiding a newspaper article about the Merry Widow Killer. Is Uncle Charlie... hiding something? Cotten, with his rich, plummy voice, and slightly dried-out air of benevolence is perfect at suggesting there are all sorts of manias roiling beneath his character's avuncular worldliness. He gets one of the funniest, most telling speeches in any Hitchcock film, which I had to provide a link to here. He talks about the merry widows who loiter in the cities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEoTXa_52A0
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To go or not to go to the Decatur Book Festival, just NW of Atlanta, which runs from August 31 to September 2? A few authors I'd like to see will be there: Michael Connelly, Tess Gerritsen, Julie Otsuka, Kathy Reichs, Chelsea Cain, Michael Koryta. Not sure yet.
Information:
http://literature.britishcouncil.org/john-banville
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5907/the-art-of-fiction-no-200-john-banville
http://benjaminblackbooks.com/aboutauthor.htm
Images:
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/2c/c4/8fa5e1e06c490a7d936280.L._V192271132_SX200_.jpg
http://content7.flixster.com/photo/11/32/80/11328097_gal.jpg
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312055394l/199600.jpg
http://theroadshowversion.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/cotten_shadowofadoubt.jpg
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