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About This Item
London: Picador, 2002. Limited Edition. Cloth. Fine. 8vo. Black cloth with paper title label to spine and front panel. Edition limited to 65 numbered copies signed by the author. This is number 12. Fine copy without dust jacket as issued.
Synopsis
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His first book, Long Lankin , was published in 1970. His other books are Nightspawn , Birchwood , Doctor Copernicus , Kepler , The Newton Letter , Mefisto , The Book of Evidence (which was shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize), Ghosts , Athena , The Untouchable , and Eclipse . He lives in Dublin.
Reviews
On Mar 31 2010, Serendipity said:
Warning: here be SPOILERS....Another fine example of Banville's eloquent prose being used to tell a twisted, deceitful story concerning notions of the Self and reality. Axel Vander, the snobbish, literate, ageing narrator, has fled the sunny coast of California (where he is a celebrated academic modelled in part after Paul De Man) and returned to the Old World; specifically Turin, to meet and confront a young research student who has unwittingly uncovered a great lie at the heart of Vander's life: that as a youth in Holland he wrote anti-semitic articles in a right-wing journal. But there are deeper secrets than that, not the least of which is that he isn't Axel Vander at all, but a Jewish friend of Vander's who appropriated his name after hearing that Vander had been killed in the early part of the war. Now old and dying, Vander begins an impossible love-affair with his young un-masker. The setting, of course, is significant as the Shroud of Turin is both an object of worship and a fake. As usual with Banville, the prose is exquisite to the point where excessive praise seems superfluous. The plot is of less interest than the delicious descriptive language, and the setting allows Banville to explore the meaning of "meaning", fakery, etc, along with his requisite dose of sex, unhappy ghosts, haunting memories, lies, tenderness and torture. Brilliant. I waited a long time to get around to reading this novel, and I wasn't disappointed.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA (CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 34805
- Title
- Shroud
- Author
- BANVILLE, JOHN
- Format/Binding
- Cloth
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- Limited Edition
- Publisher
- Picador
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 2002
Terms of Sale
Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA
Biblio member since 2012
Toronto, Ontario
About Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA
Interesting and unusual books and printed matter. Visual items, illustrated books, private press, mythology/folklore, modern first editions. Member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Canada (ABAC) and theIndependent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA)
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...