RaveThe Irish Times (UK)... a synthesis of Banville’s own fiction and a book about what such a synthesis means. It provides a theory not just of itself but of the author’s entire self-contained fictional universe, a deeply textured space that can be endlessly fissured and remade. He is also at his most mischievous: his devotees will have enormous fun hunting for allusions and references to works from his other novels. There are many superb self-referential jokes, including one about Godley being hoaxed into believing he had won a major prize ... critics and commentators have often emphasised the artistry of his prose and his mastery of language. But it is sometimes not remarked upon that Banville is also one of the most substantial Irish writers of the past 50 years. In this book, as in others, he has created a work that meditates in highly sophisticated ways on the nature of reality, existence, knowledge, art, love and death ... And in a literary culture that is dominated by realism, his continued experimentalism marks him out as the most eminent innovator in Irish fiction of the last 50 years. Does it matter here if readers have not read all or any of his other works? It does not. One can linger in the lushness of the prose and admire the extraordinary capaciousness of Banville’s unique imagination.
Benjamin Black
RaveThe Irish TimesThere is much that is familiarly Banvillian about The Secret Guests. Over his career, Banville has returned time and again to the eternally-fading grandeur of the Anglo-Irish Big House with its token cast of comic eccentrics and haunted secret-keepers ... There is also something timely about this particular mixture of fact and fiction in The Secret Guests, given how the changing political relationships between Ireland and Britain and the current decade of commemorations are compelling a re-examination of Irish and British history ... And yet, for all that, the author has great fun here. The Secret Guests is a brilliantly entertaining, conceptually inventive, and frequently funny novel that combines Banville’s stylistic virtuosity with the excitement of a well-plotted thriller. If the first half of the novel is all atmosphere and intrigue, the second half of the book is action and adventure. The chapters are short and punchy, the writing typically deft, and the drama rapidly accelerates towards its inevitable denouement. If The Secret Guests is a sign of things to come from BW Black, then there is much to anticipate.
