Shroud: A Novel
by Banville, John
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very Good, Not Price Clipped
- ISBN 10
- 0375411305
- ISBN 13
- 9780375411304
- Seller
-
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Book. Very Good. Hardcover. American First. First American Edition stated on verso of title page; some edge wear to boards and dust jacket; otherwise a solid, clean copy with no marking or underlining; collectible condition..
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
- Hourglass Books (CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 007771
- Title
- Shroud: A Novel
- Author
- Banville, John
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good, Not Price Clipped
- Edition
- American First
- ISBN 10
- 0375411305
- ISBN 13
- 9780375411304
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf
- Place of Publication
- New York, NY
- Date Published
- 2003
- Keywords
- Irish Fiction
Terms of Sale
Hourglass Books
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
Hourglass Books
Biblio member since 2018
Vancouver, British Columbia
About Hourglass Books
I list a wide range of materials from both modern firsts to antiquarian books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Verso
- The page bound on the left side of a book, opposite to the recto page.