MixedThe Denver PostThe Sea is a dual narrative combining the ‘present-day’ life of Max Morden – an aging dilettante art historian – with his memories … Through the novel’s fitful movements back and forth there is a disquieting feeling of trouble, but it is curiously lacking in incident. Nearing the end, things start to happen, new revelations tumble out, and though they are believable, they threaten to overbalance the plot … At the end, Max is leaving The Cedars, with secrets revealed and, apparently, the past redeemed. But the strength of The Sea is not in what Max does or even what he remembers doing a half-century earlier, but in his voice and Banville’s brilliant creation of atmosphere.
