Adrift in a stream of consciousness
A prisoner recounts his story. In his own words. At his own pace. Slipping into a tributary here and there to fill in some psychological blanks. And often as not, having done that, he makes a point of telling you it wasn’t really relevant. But here’s the bit that makes his ambling tale utterly believable. He never once proclaims his innocence.
John Banville’s The Book of Evidence was first published in 1989. It is a tidy novel that has lost none of its impact some twenty plus years after its original penning. There are obvious parallels to that most classic confessional, Crime and Punishment, but they don’t get in the way of this absorbing foray into the mind of a not completely unappealing neer-do-well hoisted rather clumsily on his own petard.
Freddie Montgomery is an Irishman drinking to excess (pardon the redundancy) and squandering his meager inheritance as he and his wife island-hop around Greece and the Mediterranean. Falling in with a rogue of equal or perhaps even less moral fortitude than himself, Freddie winds up owing some rather nasty fellows a good bit of money that he is totally unable to repay. Being the ruffians that they are, they refuse to let Freddie slide on his debt and hold his wife as collateral while he heads back to his ancestral home to come up with the funds.
In due course, we learn that Freddie virtually abandoned his aging mother upon his father’s death, and went off to make his way in the world. So as you might expect, his mother is neither thrilled to see him, nor in the least moved, to loan him any money. She’s not really in a financial position to do so anyway, as she’s sold what was left of her husband’s questionable art collection to fund an equestrian business that spends more in feed than it recoups in revenue. Freddie however, is convinced that she was probably cheated and got far less than she should have for the sale of the paintings. He therefore sets out on a quest to run the art treasures down and get what was rightfully theirs. So begins the journey that will eventually lead to Freddie becoming a full-fleged thief and murderer.
The author, John Banville, does a masterful job of letting Freddie tell his story with enough elan that the reader becomes empathetic to his plight, while simultaneously seeing him for the slacker that he is. In point of fact, Freddie’s troubles are directly attributable to Freddie himself, and his inability to put virtually anything in the world in the proper perspective. That fatal flaw, combined with his copious consumption of alcohol, leads to murder most fowl, flight, treachery, capture, and eventually incarceration.
Banville writes with consummate skill and erudition. He gives Freddie a voice that is educated, one quite capable of deception, yet the reader somehow feels he is being told the absolute truth. For now that Freddie has done the worst any of us can do, why should he add lies to that which he must ultimately answer for.
It really is a pleasure to partake of Banville’s prose. Here’s one edited example:
“My counsel is a large, lumbering, unhandy man. Yards, literally yards of pinstripe with a big, square head, raggedy hair, tiny and pointed eyes. I think a life spent poking in the crevices of other people’s nasty little tragedies has damaged something in him.”
John Banville’s The Book of Evidence was an early example of what the author had to offer. Many books and many literary prizes have occurred since it was written. The Fiction Fortune Hunter would like to join the chorus of those singing the praises of this exceptional writer. You’d do well to find and read more of his work. It’s unforgettable.
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