The Infinities / by John Banville

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Once a renowned mathematician, Old Adam Godley now lies on his deathbed where family and friends have gathered round for his final days. In addition to his much-younger second wife Ursula, there's his desultory son Young Adam, who's never gotten out from beneath the shadow of his father, and his beautiful but flighty wife Helen, a once much sought after actress who's grown colder with age. Nineteen-year-old Petra, daughter to Old Adam, may or may not be insane (like her mother who killed herself) and Petra's wierd little boyfriend Roddy, an aspiring mathematician who seems more attached to dying Old Adam than Petra, are also present. This awkward combination of individuals in the house aren't quite alone though. Gods of the Greek myths, who've "always been here . . . ", mysteriously occupy the atmosphere and the consciousness of the scene around them. Pan (god of nature) wanders in on the crowd taking on the human form of Benny, a family acquaintance of bygone days, while Zeus, who's set his sights on the lovely Helen, maneuvers his way toward a series of "illicit amours". Meanwhile, monitoring the proceedings is Hermes, messenger god and son of Zeus, who's inhabited the body of a nearby farmer and fancifully interprets all that goes on.

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Banville, who won the Man Booker prize for his darker, more realist novel The Sea, displays just why he's called one of the greatest stylists of the English language alive today*. No one can quite mesh prose and poetry like he does. His story is more a forum for characterization than a plot with a beginning, middle and end. It's genius all the same. With lyrically adept personal emotions, thoughts and even subconscious ephemera all beautifully articulated, Banville is one of those authors who just seems more comfortable whispering thoughts than vocalizing dialogue (of which there is almost none here). So fluent is he at narrating the life of the mind, at evoking the substance of the soul that virtually no action is necessary. (FIC BANVILLE)

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*"Banville shines with profound rendering of a parallel universe" by Val Nolan". The Sunday Business Post. September 6, 2009.