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The Silver Swan

Author: Benjamin Black
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

7 reviews
Sales Rank: 159075

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.3 x 1.3

ISBN: 033045403X
EAN: 9780330454032
ASIN: 033045403X

Publication Date: November 2, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book dispatched from stock in the UK

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Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

I Cannot Separate The Two April 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I have read all the novels published by Mr. Banville and have now read both that he has written under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black. Try as I have I cannot read these books under his pen name without comparing them to the work that carries the name of Mr. Banville. Just for the record I believe Mr. Banville to be one of the finest writers of fiction producing books at present.

"The Silver Swan" is the second in a series of books that center on the primary character of Quirke. This subsequent effort is inferior to the first. The scope of the book is very narrow, coincidence takes the place of great plotting, and even Quirke seems to have trouble deciding who he is and the difference between right and wrong. Except perhaps for the idea they are very flexible and for personal use as opposed to moral absolutes.

These books are not poor but I don't believe they would have gained notice if the author had remained unknown. I never came across these books until they were pointed out to me, and I would not have completed the second if I were not an admirer of Mr. Banville's work. As an author he is wonderful even when his skills are not as apparent as is the case with these books.

He has a third forthcoming work as Mr. Black and that will likely decide if I continue to read these books. For people who have never read a book under the name Banville these books may well work. It would probably be wise to read reviews by people who know only the work of "Mr. Black".

4 out of 5 stars

Dead birds April 6, 2008
The world of Benjamin Black (aka Booker Prize-winning author John Banville) is a bleak and cynical one.

So it's rather unsurprising that "The Silver Swan" is a bleak and cynical murder mystery, full of secrets, dark streets and loneliness. The second book about the ironically-named ex-alcoholic pathologist Quirke is a pretty depressing affair, but the tangled relationships do make it a bit harder to identify just who dunnit.

An old classmate of Quirke's comes to him for help -- his wife Dierdre was just found dead at the bottom of a sea cliff, and he's begging for a little understanding and help. But when Quirke does a postmortem, he spies a needle mark on Dierdre's arm -- and though he's unsure of whether it was murder, suicide or an accident, he begins poking into the life she was living before she died.

To make matters worse, his perpetually estranged, chilly daughter Phoebe has become involved with Leslie White, a seductively foppish hairdresser who was also Dierdre's partner in business -- and, Quirke finds, the bedroom. His investigations lead him to a smarmy "spiritual healer" and White's ex-wife, who are pieces in a murderous puzzle...

Do not expect the sunny quirky Ireland of "Waking Ned Devine," or the quaintly modern land of certain chick-lit novels. The Ireland of "Silver Swan" is a determinedly bleak place -- dark, grimy, sunless, where people drink and have sex to forget the miserable emptiness of their lives. Every loved one dies, leaving the remaining people counting down the days until they themselves die.

But while Black's prose starts off rather stilted and spare, he hits his stride a few chapters in -- full of nuanced details and atmospheric little descriptions ("...until at last there should be nothing of her left but a hair's-breadth outline sketched from a few black and silver lines"). Everything takes on the cynical edge of a reminiscence, so that even a shocking crime seems weary and painful.

As for the mystery itself, it's told half in Quirke's meandering inquiries -- he sort of pokes and prods around here and there, unearthing clues. But we get more of a glimpse into the past than he does, via chapters from Dierdre's point of view -- we see the men who enthralled her, used her, and may have murdered her. Pretty creepy stuff.

And the characters, like the prose, are sad outlines. Quirke, as always, is anything but quirky. He's still haunted by a past of lost loves and alcoholism, but he pays more attention to his present problems -- his estrangement from his daughter, and his love life -- than he did before. Phoebe is less striking, mainly because she's so determined to look and act a dried-up spinster.

"The Silver Swan" is a bleak desert of motives and maybe-murders, painted in dark words by a very talented author. But if you feel depressed, then don't touch this book with a ten foot pole.

1 out of 5 stars

Disappointing January 21, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful

This is a very poor attempt at a crime novel for such a gifted writer. I had expected a lot more having read other John Banville books. Can't really say anything positive and wonder if the other (good) reviewers were reading the same book.

5 out of 5 stars

Gripping January 10, 2008
Buy this book! Easy to read, gripping, simple yet dramatcic right to the last page. I wanted this book to go on and on, I hope the author writes another book about Quirke and Phoebe (his daughter) and all the other wonderful characters (that are left alive!!) just so we know what happens to them after this. Unfortunately I read this before "Christine Falls" which means I will now go on to find out about the main character (Quirke) in his youth knowing what happens to him in his more mature years!

The detail the author uses to describe his characters is simply stunning. The book is littered with metaphors which really make you feel that you are there and the fact that he switches (using chapters) between past and present leaves you interested throughout as you cannot wait till the chapter following the one you are on. Concentrate or you will get lost! The plot is simple but absorbing throughout, leaving you in suspense until the very last page. There are only four/five main characters which makes the story pretty easy to follow, and you really will not know "whodunnit" until the penultimate page. In fact right up until that page you are convinced it is someone else, then someone else after that, but it isn't (I am trying not to give anything away hence the vague detail). Let's just say I felt so engrossed by the storyline and part of this life he pictures that I wanted to find the killer and throttle him myself - then realised it was just a book! READ IT!

5 out of 5 stars

Benjamin Black - The Silver Swan December 31, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Incurably curious pathologist Quirke is back, in John Banville's second novel written as Benjamin Black. It's two years since the events of Christine Falls, and Quirke has given up the drink. He and his daughter aren't on good terms, his step-father's suffered a severe stroke, and his step-brother's lonely and mourning the death of his wife. A bleak picture in 50's Dublin, then. Things threaten to become even more interesting when Billy Hunt, an old school-friend Quirke barely remembers, calls him and asks a favour: his wife has been found drowned, a suspected suicide, and could Quirke please see that an autopsy is not performed. Billy can't bear the thought of his wife body under the pathologist's scalpel. Quirke, being Quirke, agrees but does one anyway after he notices a suspicious mark on the dead woman's skin. It seems he is right to be suspicious, but all that he finds only begs more questions, questions Quirke begins to worry away at, slowly picking his way through a puzzle of drugs, messy finances, and adultery, to reveal the answer.

It's possible that Banville is the best writer at work in the genre at the moment, in terms of artfulness at least. His prose is simply brilliant, gorgeous and evocative and poetic. The sentences he writes stun, the descriptions of the people and the city seem lovingly penned. However, there are moments when you get the sense he's working on autopilot with these books. Every now and then, a clunker, which would never happen in a book written under the real name. I read somewhere that he writes them very quickly, and if you were to compare the writing here to the writing in, for example, The Sea, I can certainly believe that. If his writing is this good when he's not even really trying, if he were to spend the time on a crime novel that he spends on a normal piece of fiction, imagine the result!

Quirke is a stunning character, too. Troubled, determined, dogged, melancholy, tee-total here, Banville furnishes him with dimension and makes him fascinating with absolute ease. The characterisation of Quirke alone is reason enough to read the series. As would be the atmosphere of the novel: vaguely sordid, repressed, a little desperate, dark, with everything seeming sinister.

Though only area where Banville is less than brilliant is the plotting. Christine Falls was a little too predictable in this department, though with a brilliant end. The plot of The Silver Swan is actually quite simple, but Banville moves it along at a perfect pace and this time ensures that there's enough the reader doesn't know to keep them interested in that department. There are no great shocks (there are, after all, only about three scenarios which could prove to be the truth), but it's all developed excellently. There's no punch at the end as there was with the last novel, but the whole thing is more satisfying over all. I can't wait for the next from the Benjamin Black pen... (Apparently called The Lemur, and to be serialised in The New York Times...)