The Singularities

May 1, 2022

Newly named and newly released from prison, a man arrives on the estate where he grew up to find a new family--the Godleys, descendants of the celebrated scientist whose theories radically reformulated perceptions of the universe. Booker Prize winner Banville himself shifts perceptions of life, death, and looking back.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2022
Booker winner Banville (The Sea) revisits characters and themes from his past works in this artful and atmospheric story of redemption. Recently released from prison, a murderer now calling himself Felix Mordaunt returns to Arden House, the estate of his childhood, which is inhabited by the family of Adam Godley, the legendary scientist behind the cosmic Brahma theory. Soon, Mordaunt infiltrates the lives of the late genius’s son and daughter-in-law and their amorous housekeeper by working as their driver and servant. But Mordaunt is not the only stranger on the premises nursing ulterior motives; he is soon joined by the nefarious William Jaybey, whose own scientific work was scorned and life destroyed by the elder Godley, and has come to write a biography of his fallen arch-foe. With penetrating psychological insight, Banville tracks the private struggles of these mismatched trespassers as they compete for the favor of their hosts and slowly uncover each other’s secrets. Though short on plot, the book boasts some of Banville’s greatest prose. Here’s a surprising and apt swerve in Mordaunt’s memory of coming across a cuckoo as a boy, “aware the two of them of being caught in a somehow compromising situation... like a gentleman and his valet brought face-to-face by ill-chance in the front parlour of a back-street brothel.” Overall, it’s a fine addition to a brilliant body of work.

August 15, 2022
Irish writer Banville once again mines past work for characters and a challenging narrative. It begins with a released prisoner and a pun on sentence. The man adopts the new name Felix Mordaunt and travels to his family's home in Ireland, but he finds it transformed, occupied by other people. Still, they take him in, and soon it becomes clear that he is Freddie Montgomery, who inhabited a trilogy by Banville starting with The Book of Evidence (1990). His hosts are Helen and Adam Godley, son of the Adam Godley who lay dying in The Infinities (2010) and whose work as a theoretical mathematician posited, inter alia, alternative universes. The household expands yet again when Adam Jr. hires a professor named William Jaybey (William John Banville is the author's full name) to write a biography of Adam Sr. with the stipulation that he work in the Godley house. The extended m�nage exhibits a meandering busyness, with couplings and hoped-for couplings, spying and pilfering, and frequent excursions to the past. Felix/Freddie revisits the death of his wife and only son. He reconnects with an old lover who has an odd request and who also is tied to Adam Sr. The latter is seen with a lover in Venice. Banville doesn't offer a conventional plot or clear theme, but he does fashion alternative universes with his recurring, repurposed characters, and all his players find in the past an alternative world they can't help dwelling on. To a great extent, Banville seems simply to revel in the delights of creativity, piling up wordplay and allusions (to Joyce, Flaubert, Lewis Carroll, Nabokov), playing the god of his literary realm, and all this with constant flashes of exquisite writing. An intriguing puzzle box that is variously enchanting and frustrating.

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Starred review from September 1, 2022
Booker Prize-winner Banville gives readers an exquisite and mischievously voyeuristic view into the lives of others. Character-driven and hinting at the solipsistic nature of humanity, The Singularities centers on Mordaunt, who is actually Freddie Montgomery from Banville's The Book of Evidence (1989) and was recently released after decades in prison. Mordaunt travels to Coolgrange, a place he used to call home but is now transformed, renamed Arden House, and occupied by the Godleys. The late Godley Sr. was a renowned scientist whose groundbreaking Brahma theory changed all that is known. His son, Godley Jr., lives in the house with his wife, Helen, and his infirm, nearly senile mother. After Mordaunt arrives, so does Dr. Jaybey, Godley Sr.'s high-strung biographer. Jaybey becomes preoccupied with Godley Sr.'s philandering and infatuated with Helen. Helen, on the other hand, takes a shine to Mordaunt, as does Anna, who knew Mordaunt from his past and makes an unusual request of him. When Helen decides to throw a party, the characters, while sorting through their own personal predicaments, clash, intermingle, and blend. Secrets are revealed, and relics are stolen. Banville's crisp wit, sardonic humor, and unique style will keep readers on edge, smiling and questioning, entranced and thoroughly entertained until the very end.

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Starred review from August 1, 2022

A central tenet of quantum physics and postmodernism is that people's perception alters the objectivity of observation. Banville's writing has always played with this notion, with characters constantly grappling to understand the complexity of knowing oneself. Here, Freddie Montgomery, the loquacious murderer from Banville's 1998 novel, The Book of Evidence, is released from prison and finds lodging at his childhood home. Seemingly in a dissociative state of guilt and remorse, Montgomery finds himself ensnared in the family drama of the Godleys, the kin of Adam Godley (the mathematician from Banville's 2009 novel, The Infinities, who postulated the theory of the multiverse). Searching for the meaning of existence and the consequences of their actions, the characters find themselves interrogating a world with no boundaries and no end. Science postulates that singularity happens at the center of a black hole, resulting in an unpredictable breakdown in space-time. VERDICT Banville's poetical fiction explores the implications of the theory of singularity through the human perception of memory, loss, and guilt, even as he slyly braids together characters and themes from his past novels into a meta-narrative about the haunting implications of parallel universes.--Joshua Finnell

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