Synopses & Reviews
The Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea gives us a brilliant, profoundly moving new novel about an actor in the twilight of his life and his career: a meditation on love and loss, and on the inscrutable immediacy of the past in our present lives.Is there any difference between memory and invention? That is the question that fuels this stunning novel, written with the depth of character, the clarifying lyricism and the sly humor that have marked all of John Banville’s extraordinary works. And it is the question that haunts Alexander Cleave, an actor in the twilight of his career and of his life, as he plumbs the memories of his first—and perhaps only—love (he, fifteen years old, the woman more than twice his age, the mother of his best friend; the situation impossible, thrilling, devouring and finally devastating) . . . and of his daughter, lost to a kind of madness of mind and heart that Cleave can only fail to understand. When his dormant acting career is suddenly, inexplicably revived with a movie role portraying a man who may not be who he says he is, his young leading lady—famous and fragile—unwittingly gives him the opportunity to see with aching clarity the “chasm that yawns between the doing of a thing and the recollection of what was done.”
Ancient Light is a profoundly moving meditation on love and loss, on the inscrutable immediacy of the past in our present lives, on how invention shapes memory and memory shapes the man. It is a book of spellbinding power and pathos from one of the greatest masters of prose at work today.
Review
Longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award 2015, A Readers' Choice Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Writing 2015
"This is a gimmick-free novel of truthfulness, uncorrupted by a yearning for praise. At its heart is a touching and inspiriting sense of empathy, that rarest but most human of traits. Boundaries melt, other hearts become knowable. This is the work of the highest artistic seriousness. …Baume proves that the real can still be the province of literature, the only art form to which we can turn, heart in our hands, for an uplifting, consoling and dizzying reminder that language is the most sacred thing we’ve made."—Joseph O'Connor, for The Irish Times
"Unbearably poignant and beautifully told."—Eimear McBride, author of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
"The story is powerful, heartbreaking, told with great control. The writing is superb...I had an image of all of language standing to attention, eager to serve this writer."—Mary Costello, author of Academy Street
"In a relentlessly inventive language that, it seems, can maneouvre anywhere and describe anything, Baume’s story of a man and his dog examines and elegizes the myriad strange, ramshackle, and ephemeral worlds locked deep inside the world. An exceptional, startling, and original book."—Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins
"Touching and weird and sometimes comical and sometimes heartbreaking . . . Sad, Solid, Fragile, Witty."—Kjersti Skomsvold, author of The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am
"An important and quite brilliant new Irish writing talent."—Irish Independent
"What makes Baume's book worth reading is the stark beauty of her prose. Her lyrical depictions of the Irish seascape are particularly evocative, and reminiscent of Tim Winton at his wild and wintry best...Baume's stunning debut shows that Irish fiction is well and truly back on the map. With Spill Simmer Falter Wither she has created a dark, tender portrait of what it's like to live life on the margins."—The Sydney Morning Herald
"Ambitious and impressive."—Times Literary Supplement
"A heart-breaking read from a major new talent."—Independent on Sunday
"An ambitious stylist with an astonishing eye for detail and a clear passion for language. But it is the beautifully measured control of plot and the authenticity of the narrative voice that most impresses."—Irish Examiner
"A remarkable voice that grabs the reader early."—Sunday Business Post"A masterpiece of language, a demonstration of the heights that words are able to reach when guided by a master hand."--tn2 Magazine
Review
Winner of the Davy Byrnes Award
Longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award 2015, A Readers' Choice
Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Writing 2015
"A tour de force.... No writer since JM Coetzee or Cormac McCarthy has written about an animal with such intensity. This is a novel bursting with brio, braggadocio and bite. Again and again it wows you with its ambition…At its heart is a touching and inspiriting sense of empathy, that rarest but most human of traits. Boundaries melt, other hearts become knowable…This book is a stunning and wonderful achievement by a writer touched by greatness."—Joseph O'Connor, for The Irish Times
“Unbearably poignant and beautifully told.”—Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing
“Extraordinary . . . Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a heartbreaking read, and heralds Baume as a major new talent.” —Independent on Sunday
“Ambitious and impressive . . . Baume’s engaging, intriguing and brightly original first novel may mark a comparably significant debut.”—Times Literary Supplement
“One of the most quietly devastating books of the year…With Spill Simmer Falter Wither she has created a dark, tender portrait of what it’s like to live life on the margins.”—Sydney Morning Herald
"An important and quite brilliant new Irish writing talent."—Irish Independent
"An ambitious stylist with an astonishing eye for detail and a clear passion for language. But it is the beautifully measured control of plot and the authenticity of the narrative voice that most impresses."—Irish Examiner
"In a relentlessly inventive language that, it seems, can maneuver anywhere and describe anything, Baume’s story of a man and his dog examines and elegizes the myriad strange, ramshackle, and ephemeral worlds locked deep inside the world. An exceptional, startling, and original book."—Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins
“Powerful, heartbreaking, told with great control. The writing is superb . . . I had an image of all language standing to attention, eager to serve this writer.” —Mary Costello, author of Academy Street
"Touching and weird and sometimes comical and sometimes heartbreaking…Sad, Solid, Fragile, Witty."—Kjersti Skomsvold, author of The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am
Synopsis
A debut novel already praised as "unbearably poignant and beautifully told" (Eimear McBride), this captivating story follows—over the course of four seasons—a misfit man who adopts a misfit dog.
Synopsis
It is springtime, and two outcasts-- a man ignored, even shunned by his village, and the one-eyed dog he takes into his quiet, tightly shuttered life – find each other, by accident or fate, and forge an unlikely connection. As their friendship grows, their small, seaside town suddenly takes note of them, falsely perceiving menace where there is only mishap; the unlikely duo must take to the road.
Gorgeously written in poetic and mesmerizing prose, Spill Simmer Falter Wither has already garnered wild support in its native Ireland, where the Irish Times pointed to Baume’s “astonishing power with language” and praised it as “a novel bursting with brio, braggadocio and bite.” It is also a moving depiction of how-- over the four seasons echoed in the title-- a relationship between fellow damaged creatures can bring them both comfort. One of those rare stories that utterly, completely imagines its way into a life most of us would never see, it transforms us not only in our understanding of the world, but also of ourselves.
About the Author
SARA BAUME studied fine art before earning a master’s in creative writing. Her short fiction has appeared in The Moth, The Stinging Fly, the Irish Independent, and other publications. She won the 2014 Davy Byrnes Short Story Award and the 2015 Hennessy New Irish Writing Award. She lives in Cork with her two dogs.
Reading Group Guide
The introduction, discussion questions, and suggested further reading that follow are designed to enliven your group’s discussion of Ancient Light, the new novel by Man Booker Prize winner, John Banville.
1. What are the most distinctive features of John Banville’s prose style? What accounts for its remarkable richness, lyricism, and subtlety of perception?
2. What is the effect of Ancient Light being told simultaneously from the points of view of the teenage Alex and the adult Alex? How does Alex’s present affect his past? How does his past affect his present?
3. Alex frequently interrupts himself as he’s telling his story by asking questions in asides, such as, “She was not a native of our town—have I said that?—and neither was her husband” (p. 66). What is the effect of this kind of self-reflexive, self-questioning narration? In what ways does it feel true to Alex’s character?
4. At the opening of the book, Alex writes: “Images from the far past crowd in my head and half the time I cannot tell whether they are memories or inventions. Not that there is much difference between the two, if indeed there is any difference at all” (p. 3). How reliable is Alex as a narrator? His memory seems extraordinarily vivid and detailed, but how trustworthy is it? Is it possible to discern what he’s remembering and what he’s inventing or embellishing?
5. Why does Alex feel compelled now, fifty years after the fact, to write about his first love? What purpose does writing this story serve for him?
6. After Mrs. Gray flees, Alex feels abandoned and afraid. “This was grown-up territory, where I should not have to be. Who would rescue me, who would follow and find me and lead me back to be again among the scenes and the safety I had know before...?” (p. 264). Has Alex been victimized by Mrs. Gray, in spite of his more-than-enthusiastic involvement in their passionate affair? Has he been prematurely robbed of his innocence or given the gift of a great love?
7. Why does Alex take Dawn Devonport to Ligurian coastal town of Portovenere after her failed suicide attempt? What are his ostensible motives? What deeper reasons might be guiding him?
8. In playing the part of the Belgian literary critic Axel Vander, who lived most of his adult life under an assumed identity, Alex is pretending to be an impostor. What is the significance of this double impersonation?
9. Near the end of the novel, Alex says “People, real people, expect actors to be the characters they play. I am not Axel Vander, nor anything like him. Am I?” (p. 274). Is Alex anything like Axel, beyond their anagrammatic names? Why would he assert that he is not like Axel, and then immediately question that assertion?
10. How has their daughter Cass’s suicide affected Alex and Lydia’s marriage? Does Dawn Devonport serve as a kind of daughter-substitute for them?
11. Alex says that he was happy to listen to Mrs. Gray’s ramblings, “or to pretend to, so long as she consented to lie in my embrace in the back seat of the station wagon or on the mattress in Cotter’s place” (p. 144). Is he a narcissist or merely displaying the passionate impatience of youthful male lust? Could he have loved her less selfishly?
12. Why doesn’t it occur to Alex that when Mrs. Gray wonders aloud what it might be like to not be here, and asks him if he ever thinks about death, she is tacitly referring to her own grave illness? Why does he immediately assume she’s referring to her husband’s impending death?
13. How does learning the fate of Mrs. Gray—the real reason she disappeared from Alex’s life—change the way the novel should be read? How might Mrs. Gray’s awareness of her illness help explain her affair with young Alex?
14. Alex muses, “I used to think, long ago, that despite all the evidence I was the one in charge of my own life. . . . Now I realise that always I have been acted upon, by unacknowledged forces, hidden coercions” (p. 278). Why would he come to this conclusion? What are the “unacknowledged forces” and “hidden coercions” that have acted on him?
15. Why does Banville choose to end the novel with Alex remembering sleeping on the floor next to his mother’s be, in the aftermath of the end of his affair with Mrs. Gray? What might be the “radiant being” he feels approaching the house just before he falls asleep?