DOCSLIB.ORG

Indestructible Treasures: Art and the Ekphrastic Encounter in Selected Novels by John Banville

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Indestructible Treasures: Art and the Ekphrastic Encounter in Selected Novels by John Banville DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY Indestructible Treasures: Art and the Ekphrastic Encounter in selected novels by John Banville. by Bevin Doyle Supervised by Dr. Brigitte Le Juez September 2015 2 Declaration I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of PhD is entirely my own work, and that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken form the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledge within the text of my work. Signed: _____________________ (Candidate ID No.: _______________ Date:________________ 3 For Roberta Gray 4 Acknowledgements My most heartfelt thanks must go to Dr. Brigitte Le Juez, for her encouragement, advice and endless support. Many thanks also to all in SALIS, and I must particularly acknowledge the help given to me by the SALIS Research Committee. My family, friends and work colleagues have also been a hugely supportive, and have bravely asked the question, ‘How’s the thesis going?’ on a regular basis, despite knowing how long that answer will be. More thanks than I can ever fully express goes to Ciarán, for his unrelenting patience, and for never giving up hope, even when I did (a little). 5 Abstract In the novels of John Banville, the search for authenticity is a well-established preoccupation of what we can refer to (after John Kenny) as the middle period of the author’s work and beyond. Beginning with The Book of Evidence his work is marked by aesthetic shift; primacy is given to visual art, ahead of the scientific motif of the tetralogy that preceded it and significant instances of ekphrasis appear. Ekphrasis is traditionally the domain of poetry and is a natural medium for an author who espouses the novel as a form that must go beyond narrative. Here, three novels are examined, The Book of Evidence, The Untouchable and The Sea. Each novel depends on a dramatic ekphrastic encounter that is the locus of the success and failure of the quest for authenticity that lies at the heart of Banville’s work of this period. 6 Table of Contents Declaration……………………………………………………….…………….………….2 Dedication……………………………………………….……………………………..…..3 Acknowledgements………………………………………….……………….……………4 Abstract…………………………………………………………….………….…………..5 Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………....6 1 Introduction: Research Question and Thesis Outline…………………….…..…9 1.2 Methodology………………………………………………………………….……11 1.2.1 Ekphrasis…………………………………………………………….11 1.2.2 What is Ekphrasis?..............................................................................12 1.2.3 What Does Ekphrasis Do?.................................................................15 1.2.4 The Dramatic Ekphrastic Encounter……………………………...24 1.3 Literary Review: John Banville……………………………………………….…..26 1.3.1 Art, Ekphrasis and Representation in Banville…………………...29 1.3.2 Ekphrasis in The Infinities………………………………………….31 1.3.3 Athena and Ghosts…………………………………………………..41 2 The Book of Evidence ………………………………………………………………..48 2.1 The Ekphrastic Encounter………………………………………..53 2.2 Undoing the encounter ………………………………………...…61 3 The Untouchable…………………………………………………………………….72 3.1 “the Frankenstein’s monster who would be Victor Maskell”…...75 3.2 The Death of Seneca ………………………………………………88 3.3 Maskell and Blunt, Poussin and David…………………………..93 3.4 The Death of Victor Maskell…………………………………….104 3.5 Ekphrasis in The Untouchable………………………………..…108 7 4 The Sea………………………………………………………………………………113 4.1 Pierre Bonnard……………………………………………….….115 4.1.2 Bonnard and Marthe………………………………………122 4.1.3 Bonnard’s work and method……………………………...126 4.2 Ekphrases in The Sea…………………………………………...130 4.2.1 The Grace Family………………………………………….131 4.2.2 Morden and Anna / Marthe and Bonnard ……….........147 4.2.3 Anna’s photographs……………………………………....157 5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..167 6 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………...173 7 List of Images………………………………………………………………….189 8 1 Introduction: Research Question and Thesis Outline The original purpose of this study was to investigate the use of ekphrasis in the novels of John Banville. The author’s interest in visual art and use of art in his work is well established, but a truly comprehensive study dedicated to ekphrasis in Banville’s oeuvre is lacking, and many questions remain unanswered: Is there continuity in the author’s use of art over different novels? What are the commonalities and disparities in his treatment of ekphrasis from one novel to another? Is there a particular approach to visual art and ekphrasis in the novel that we may identify as specifically Banvillean? What do Banville’s novels reveal about ekphrasis? However, such is the depth and breadth of the author’s textual engagement with art that a comprehensive study eludes the scope of this thesis also. The research process indicated the need to streamline the original research question, but simultaneously opened up a little researched strain of ekphrasis that remains formally unidentified for scrutiny. For the purpose of this thesis, I focus on The Book of Evidence, The Untouchable, and The Sea, because of how ekphrasis is used within the narrative of each novel. These three novels, more than any other from Banville’s oeuvre, best exemplify the strain of ekphrasis that is the subject of my research: the dramatic ekphrastic encounter. The Book of Evidence and The Untouchable both revolve around a principal ekphrasis in which the protagonist has a fateful encounter with a painting, an encounter that drives all subsequent action. This occurs differently in both texts, but there are also striking similarities, and I regard The Untouchable to be a development of the ekphrasis in The Book of Evidence. The Sea is quite a different novel, and something of a departure within the author’s oeuvre. Visual art is one way in which the novels intersect, and ekphrasis in The Sea is a development from the ekphrases and the ekphrastic approach of the earlier novels. In addition to paintings, photography plays a key role in what can be termed Banvillean ekphrasis. With Freddie Montgomery in The Book of Evidence, an overwhelming response to a painting unleashes something in him that had been heretofore contained. The result is a crime spree of theft and murder, immediate and brief in duration. Victor Maskell in The Untouchable is more circumspect in his reaction to the artwork he encounters, but it sends him on a life-long path of duplicity and treachery. Where Freddie takes ‘his’ painting by force and soon abandons it, Victor acquires his legitimately (or so it would seem) through a friend and lives with it for many years. Both characters find that an artwork unlocks something fatal within them. 9 The Sea is a somewhat different proposition to the other two novels. Max Morden is not a criminal, nor will he become one during the narrative. Morden is grieving for his wife who has recently died, and endeavours to effect a literal retreat into the past by moving to a boarding house in the seaside town where he holidayed as a child. Actual ekphrasis is used in an innovative way in that it is ingrained into the text, with ekphrases of the work of Pierre Bonnard not so much presented in the narrative, as forming part of it. In contrast, the dramatic ekphrastic encounter is of some photographs, and is purely notional. There is now a large, interdisciplinary and still growing body of research about ekphrasis. Likewise, John Banville’s work has proved stimulating for researchers across the span of his now forty-year writing career. A methodology section will to outline the term ekphrasis and elaborate upon some commentaries that have been of essential use to the current study. This is not intended to serve as an overview of research into and critical commentary on ekphrasis generally, which would require an entire volume or more. The literary review will focus on an introduction to John Banville’s work generally, and visual art in the author’s work specifically. In order to contextualise Banville’s use of visual art, some commentary is forthcoming on The Infinities, Athena and Ghosts, which will outline the relevant ekphrases in theses novels, but also clarify the reasons for their omission from the main analyses. I examine the main novels in sequence of authorship, which corresponds to the order of the complexity of the dramatic ekphrastic encounter found in each novel. The Book of Evidence and The Untouchable are considered first, followed by an analysis of The Sea. 10 1.2 Methodology 1.2.1 Ekphrasis Ekphrasis: a Greek rhetorical term for a kind of description.1 The above definition of ekphrasis is the eager student’s first clue that they have wandered into very deep waters indeed. The use of the words ‘Greek’ and ‘rhetorical’ in a companion guide to visual art ominously denotes a lengthy history. The remainder of the definition seems suspiciously general, and the questing student must continue further to find out what ‘kind of description’ could be involved. One will immediately find that definition of ekphrasis is still variable, and somewhat contested. The above wording is a particular example, but in general definitions of ekphrasis, while revelatory on first reading, often prompt as many questions as they answer. As a constituent element of the epic poetry of ancient Greece, ekphrasis is part of the infrastructure of Western literature, and has a history that extends back to the foundation texts of the Western canon, yet it is still being disputed and discoursed upon, still fruitful and dynamic for artist, reader and researcher alike. Comparative literature is the appropriate discipline for the study of ekphrasis, inherently interdisciplinary and comparative in nature. The author to whom this complex term, and concomitantly vast body of research, is being applied, is John Banville. Banville consistently produces writing which, being richly inter-medial and inter-textual, is also perfectly suited to the comparative approach.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Addison Street Poetry Walk
    THE ADDISON STREET ANTHOLOGY BERKELEY'S POETRY WALK EDITED BY ROBERT HASS AND JESSICA FISHER HEYDAY BOOKS BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA CONTENTS Acknowledgments xi Introduction I NORTH SIDE of ADDISON STREET, from SHATTUCK to MILVIA Untitled, Ohlone song 18 Untitled, Yana song 20 Untitied, anonymous Chinese immigrant 22 Copa de oro (The California Poppy), Ina Coolbrith 24 Triolet, Jack London 26 The Black Vulture, George Sterling 28 Carmel Point, Robinson Jeffers 30 Lovers, Witter Bynner 32 Drinking Alone with the Moon, Li Po, translated by Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu 34 Time Out, Genevieve Taggard 36 Moment, Hildegarde Flanner 38 Andree Rexroth, Kenneth Rexroth 40 Summer, the Sacramento, Muriel Rukeyser 42 Reason, Josephine Miles 44 There Are Many Pathways to the Garden, Philip Lamantia 46 Winter Ploughing, William Everson 48 The Structure of Rime II, Robert Duncan 50 A Textbook of Poetry, 21, Jack Spicer 52 Cups #5, Robin Blaser 54 Pre-Teen Trot, Helen Adam , 56 A Strange New Cottage in Berkeley, Allen Ginsberg 58 The Plum Blossom Poem, Gary Snyder 60 Song, Michael McClure 62 Parachutes, My Love, Could Carry Us Higher, Barbara Guest 64 from Cold Mountain Poems, Han Shan, translated by Gary Snyder 66 Untitled, Larry Eigner 68 from Notebook, Denise Levertov 70 Untitied, Osip Mandelstam, translated by Robert Tracy 72 Dying In, Peter Dale Scott 74 The Night Piece, Thorn Gunn 76 from The Tempest, William Shakespeare 78 Prologue to Epicoene, Ben Jonson 80 from Our Town, Thornton Wilder 82 Epilogue to The Good Woman of Szechwan, Bertolt Brecht, translated by Eric Bentley 84 from For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide I When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Ntozake Shange 86 from Hydriotaphia, Tony Kushner 88 Spring Harvest of Snow Peas, Maxine Hong Kingston 90 Untitled, Sappho, translated by Jim Powell 92 The Child on the Shore, Ursula K.
    [Show full text]
  • "Et in Arcadia Ille – This One Is/Was Also in Arcadia"
    99 BARBARA PUSCHMANN-NALENZ "Et in Arcadia ille – this one is/was also in Arcadia:" Human Life and Death as Comedy for the Immortals in John Banville's The Infinities Hermes the messenger of the gods quotes this slightly altered Latin motto (Banville 2009, 143). The original phrase, based on a quotation from Virgil, reads "et in Arcadia ego" and became known as the title of a painting by Nicolas Poussin (1637/38) entitled "The Arcadian Shepherds," in which the rustics mentioned in the title stumble across a tomb in a pastoral landscape. The iconography of a baroque memento mori had been followed even more graphically in an earlier picture by Giovanni Barbieri, which shows a skull discovered by two astonished shepherds. In its initial wording the quotation from Virgil also appears as a prefix in Goethe's autobiographical Italienische Reise (1813-17) as well as in Evelyn Waugh's country- house novel Brideshead Revisited (1945). The fictive first-person speaker of the Latin phrase is usually interpreted as Death himself ("even in Arcadia, there am I"), but the paintings' inscription may also refer to the man whose mortal remains in an idyllic countryside remind the spectator of his own inevitable fate ("I also was in Arcadia"). The intermediality and equivocacy of the motto are continued in The Infinities.1 The reviewer in The Guardian ignores the unique characteristics of this book, Banville's first literary novel after his prize-winning The Sea, when he maintains that "it serves as a kind of catalogue of his favourite themes and props" (Tayler 2009).
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices by Katharine Bubel BA, Trinity
    Edge Effects: Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices by Katharine Bubel B.A., Trinity Western University, 2004 M.A., Trinity Western University, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English Katharine Bubel, 2018 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This dissertation may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Edge Effects: Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices by Katharine Bubel B.A., Trinity Western University, 2004 M.A., Trinity Western University, 2009 Supervisory Committee Dr. Nicholas Bradley, Department of English Supervisor Dr. Magdalena Kay, Department of English Departmental Member Dr. Iain Higgins, Department of English Departmental Member Dr. Tim Lilburn, Department of Writing Outside Member iii Abstract "Edge Effects: Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices” focusses on the intersection of the environmental and religious imaginations in the work of five West Coast poets: Robinson Jeffers, Theodore Roethke, Robert Hass, Denise Levertov, and Jan Zwicky. My research examines the selected poems for their reimagination of the sacred perceived through attachments to particular places. For these writers, poetry is a constitutive practice, part of a way of life that includes desire for wise participation in the more-than-human community. Taking into account the poets’ critical reflections and historical-cultural contexts, along with a range of critical and philosophical sources, the poetry is examined as a discursive spiritual exercise. It is seen as conjoined with other focal practices of place, notably meditative walking and attentive looking and listening under the influence of ecospiritual eros.
    [Show full text]
  • The ESSE Messenger
    The ESSE Messenger A Publication of ESSE (The European Society for the Study of English Vol. 26-2 Winter 2017 ISSN 2518-3567 All material published in the ESSE Messenger is © Copyright of ESSE and of individual contributors, unless otherwise stated. Requests for permissions to reproduce such material should be addressed to the Editor. Editor: Dr. Adrian Radu Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Faculty of Letters Department of English Str. Horea nr. 31 400202 Cluj-Napoca Romania Email address: [email protected] Cover illustration: Jane Austen’s Reading Nook at Chawton House Picture credit: Alexandru Paul Margau Contents Jane Austen Ours 5 Bringing the Young Ladies Out Carmen María Fernández Rodríguez 5 Understanding Jane Austen Miguel Ángel Jordán Enamorado 18 A Historical Reflection on Jane Austen’s Popularity in Spain Isis Herrero López 27 Authorial Realism or how I Learned that Jane Was a Person Alexandru Paul Mărgău 40 Adaptations, Sequels and Success Anette Svensson 46 Reviews 59 Herrero, Dolores and Sonia Baelo-Allue (eds.), The Splintered Glass: Facets of Trauma in the Post-Colony and Beyond. Cross Cultures 136. (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011). Irene Visser 59 Nancy Ellen Batty, The Ring of Recollection: Transgenerational Haunting in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande (New York: Amsterdam, 2010). Rabindra Kumar Verma 63 Konstantina Georganta, Conversing Identities: Encounters between British, Irish and Greek Poetry, 1922-1952 (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2012). Aidan O’Malley 64 George Z. Gasyna, Polish, Hybrid, and Otherwise: Exilic Discourse in Joseph Conrad and Witold Gombrowicz (London: Continuum, 2011). Noelia Malla García 66 David Tucker, Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing a literary fantasia.
    [Show full text]
  • Facts on File Companion to 20Th-Century American Poetry
    THE FACTS ON FILE COMPANION TO 20th-CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY CD EDITED BY BURT KIMMELMAN For Diane and Jane, as always The Facts On File Companion to 20th-Century American Poetry Copyright © 2005 by Burt Kimmelman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Facts On File companion to 20th-century poetry /[edited by] Burt Kimmelman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8160-4698-0 (alk. paper) 1. American poetry—20th century—History and criticism—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title: Companion to 20th-century poetry. II. Kimmelman, Burt. III. Facts On File, Inc. PS323.5.F33 2004 811'.509—dc22 2004050661 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design adapted by James Scotto-Lavino Cover design by Cathy Rincon Printed in the United States of America VB Hermitage 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS CD ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v FOREWORD vi INTRODUCTION xiv A-TO-Z ENTRIES 1 APPENDIXES I.
    [Show full text]
  • Alexander Literary Firsts & Poetry Rare Books
    CATALOGUE THIRTY-TWO Mark Alexander Alexander Rare Books 234 Camp Street ALEXANDER LITERARY FIRSTS Barre, VT 05641 Office: (802) 476-0838 & POETRY RARE BOOKS Cell: (802) 522-0257 [email protected] All items are US, UK or CN First Editions & First Printings unless otherwise stated. All items guaranteed & are fully refundable for any reason within 30 days.; orders subject to prior sale. VT residents please add 6% sales tax. Checks, money orders, most credit cards via electronic invoice (Paypal) accepted. Net so days. Libraries & institutions billed according to need. Reciprocal terms offered to the trade. Shipping is free in the US (generally via Priority Mail) & Canada; elsewhere $20 per shipment. Visit AlexanderRareBooks.com for cover scans or photos of most items. We encourage you to visit for the latest acquisitions. ------------- Due to ever increasing inventory, we will be increasing the frequency of electronic catalogues. If you receive our printed catalogues we encourage you to sign up for our electronic catalogues, also. We will continue to mail print catalogues four CATALOGUE THIRTY-TWO times a year. Electronic catalogues will include recently acquired Summer 2013 items as well as sales. Catalogue 32 5. Adam, Helen. Third Eye Shining. [San Francisco]: Intersection, 1980. First edition thus. Illustrated broadside with a poem by Adam. Designed and printed by Arion Press on Arches. Artwork by 1. A. C. D. (ed.); THE 11. Boulder, CO: Summer 1972. First edition. Adam tipped onto the broadside. One of 100 numbered and signed Stapled mimeograph magazine with a cover illustration by Charles diJulio. copies, this copy not numbered (presumably hors commerce), Printed on rectos only.
    [Show full text]
  • 5.00 #214 February/MARCH 2008 the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Summer Writing Program 2008
    $5.00 #214 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2008 The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Summer Writing Program 2008 7EEKLY7ORKSHOPSs*UNEn*ULYs"OULDER #/ WEEK ONE: June 16–22 The Wall: Troubling of Race, Class, Economics, Gender and Imagination Samuel R. Delany, Marcella Durand, Laird Hunt, Brenda Iijima, Bhanu Kapil, Miranda Mellis, Akilah Oliver, Maureen Owen, Margaret Randall, Max Regan, Joe Richey, Roberto Tejada and Julia Seko (printshop) WEEK TWO: June 23–29 Elective Affinities: Against the Grain: Writerly Utopias Will Alexander, Sinan Antoon, Jack Collom, Linh Dinh, Anselm Hollo, Daniel Kane, Douglas Martin, Harryette Mullen, Laura Mullen, Alice Notley, Elizabeth Robinson, Eleni Sikelianos, Orlando White and Charles Alexander (printshop) WEEK THREE: June 30–July 6 Activism, Environmentalism: The Big Picture Amiri Baraka, Lee Ann Brown, Junior Burke, George Evans, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Lewis MacAdams, Eileen Myles, Kristin Prevallet, Selah Saterstrom, Stacy Szymaszek, Anne Waldman, Daisy Zamora and Karen Randall (printshop) WEEK FOUR: July 7–13 Performance, Community: Policies of the USA in the Larger World Dodie Bellamy, Rikki Ducornet, Brian Evenson, Raymond Federman, Forrest Gander, Bob Holman,Pierre Joris, Ilya Kaminsky, Kevin Killian, Anna Moschovakis, Sawako Nakayasu, Anne Tardos, Steven Taylor, Peter & Donna Thomas (printshop) Credit and noncredit programs available Poetry s&ICTIONs4RANSLATION Letterpress Printing For more information on workshops, visit www.naropa.edu/swp. To request a catalog, call 303-245-4600 or email [email protected]. Keeping the world safe for poetry since 1974 THE POETRY PROJECT ST. MARK’S CHURCH in-the-BowerY 131 EAST 10TH STREET NEW YORK NY 10003 NEWSLETTER www.poetryproject.com #214 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2008 NEWSLETTER EDITOR John Coletti 4 ANNOUNCEMENTS DISTRIBUTION Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh St., Berkeley, CA 94710 6 READING REPORTS THE POETRY PROJECT LTD.
    [Show full text]
  • Poem on the Page: a Collection of Broadsides
    Granary Books and Jeff Maser, Bookseller are pleased to announce Poem on the Page: A Collection of Broadsides Robert Creeley. For Benny and Sabina. 15 1/8 x 15 1/8 inches. Photograph by Ann Charters. Portents 18. Portents, 1970. BROADSIDES PROLIFERATED during the small press and mimeograph era as a logical offshoot of poets assuming control of their means of publication. When technology evolved from typewriter, stencil, and mimeo machine to moveable type and sophisticated printing, broadsides provided a site for innovation with design and materials that might not be appropriate for an entire pamphlet or book; thus, they occupy a very specific place within literary and print culture. Poem on the Page: A Collection of Broadsides includes approximately 500 broadsides from a diverse range of poets, printers, designers, and publishers. It is a unique document of a particular aspect of the small press movement as well as a valuable resource for research into the intersection of poetry and printing. See below for a list of some of the poets, writers, printers, typographers, and publishers included in the collection. Selected Highlights from the Collection Lewis MacAdams. A Birthday Greeting. 11 x 17 Antonin Artaud. Indian Culture. 16 x 24 inches. inches. This is no. 90, from an unstated edition, Translated from the French by Clayton Eshleman signed. N.p., n.d. and Bernard Bador with art work by Nancy Spero. This is no. 65 from an edition of 150 numbered and signed by Eshleman and Spero. OtherWind Press, n.d. Lyn Hejinian. The Guard. 9 1/4 x 18 inches.
    [Show full text]
  • Albert Nobbs Notes FINAL 10.8.11 ITA
    3 NOMINATION GOLDEN GLOBE ® DISTRIBUZIONE VIDEA 5 CDE Via Livigno, 50-00188 Roma - Tel 06.331851 - Fax 06.33185255 - [email protected] UFFICIO STAMPA ORNATO COMUNICAZIONE Via Flaminia 954 - 00191 Roma - Tel. 06.3341017 - 06.33213374 - [email protected] www.albertnobbs.it www.facebook.com/videa www.youtube.com/videa Sinossi La pluripremiata attrice Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) indossa i panni di una donna coinvolta in un insolito triangolo amoroso. Travestita da uomo per poter lavorare e sopravvivere nell’Irlanda del XIX secolo, più di trent’anni dopo si ritrova prigioniera della sua stessa finzione. Nel prestigioso cast internazionale, Mia Wasikowska (Helen), Aaron Johnson (Joe) e Brendan Gleeson (Dr. Holloran), oltre a Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Janet McTeer, Brenda Fricker e Pauline Collins. Rodrigo Garcia dirige il film basato su un racconto dell’autore irlandese George Moore, adattato da Glenn Close insieme a John Banville, vincitore del premio Man Booker, e a Gabriella Prekop. NOTE DI PRODUZIONE IL LEGAME DI GLENN CLOSE con il personaggio di Albert Nobbs risale a Quasi 30 anni fa, ai tempi in cui recitò – nel 1982 – nella rappresentazione teatrale di Simone Benmussa, ispirata al racconto breve Albert Nobbs, scritto dall’autore irlandese del XIX secolo, George Moore. “Credo che Albert sia un grande personaggio e la storia, in tutta la sua disarmante semplicità, è molto potente dal punto di vista emotivo”, dichiara Close, la cui apparizione in Quella produzione Off-Broadway le valse critiche eccellenti e un Obie Award. Nonostante i grandi successi che Close ha collezionato nel corso della sua brillante carriera, quel personaggio le è rimasto dentro.
    [Show full text]
  • Albert Nobbs
    Albert Nobbs Albert Nobbs, ALBERT NOBBS, RODRIGO GARCIA, Golden Globe Award, role, characters, film credits, John Banville, John Boorman, Julie Lynn, starring role, television, Simone Benmussa, Brendan Gleeson, Radha Mitchell, Harry Potter, Aaron Johnson, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, George Roy Hill, Kerry Washington, Margarethe Cammermeyer, Mia Wasikowska, Joe Layton, Directors' Fortnight, Neil Jordan, BBC comedy series, Florida Film Festival, European Film Academy, award nomination, Arlene Kelly, Sweet Emma Dear Bobe, Dublin Theatre Festival, television drama, Michael Cristofer, Franco Zeffirelli, Harvey Goldsmith, Winner Locarno Film Festival, Harold Prince, Irish actor, Fountain House, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Richard Pearce, Norma Desmond, Merchant Ivory, Stephen Frears, Jack Hofsiss, Stephen Herek, Royal National Theatre, Tony Awards, Richard Marquand, Fatal Attraction, Feature Film Commission, Christopher Walken, Barbet Schroeder, Joe, MAIN characters, National Association of Theatre Owners, Andrei Konchalovsky, International Mental Health Research Organization, Monica Rawling, Glenn Jordan, Rose Troche, Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee, Julian Morris, Danny Boyle, JOE Aaron Johnson, British independent film, Kristen Scott Thomas, Golden Globe nomination, Simon Wincer, Colin Farrell, RODRIGO GARCIA GABRIELLA PREKOP JOHN BANVILLE GLENN CLOSE, GLENN CLOSE, Bonnie Curtis, John Travolta, Golden Globe, Michael Vartan, John Lennon, Rhys Meyers, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, London Film Critics,
    [Show full text]
  • Banville and Lacan: the Matter of Emotions in the Infinities Banville E Lacan: a Questão Das Emoções Em the Infinities
    ABEI Journal — The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies, v.22, n.1, 2020, p. 147-158 Banville and Lacan: The Matter of Emotions in The Infinities Banville e Lacan: A Questão das Emoções em The Infinities Hedwig Schwall Abstract: Both Banville and Lacan are Freudian interpreters of the postmodern world. Both replace the classic physical-metaphysical dichotomy with a focus on the materiality of communication in an emophysical world. Both chart the ways in which libidinal streams combine parts of the self and link the self with other people and objects. These interactions take place in three bandwidths of perception, which are re-arranged by the uncanny object a. This ‘object’ reawakens the affects of the unconscious which infuse the identity formations with new energy. In this article we look briefly at how the object a is realised in The Book of Evidence, Ghosts and Eclipse to focus on how it works in The Infinities, especially in the relations between Adam Godley junior and senior, Helen and Hermes. Keywords: Banville and Lacan; emotions; The Infinities; Object a; Scopic drive; the libidinal Real Resumo: Banville e Lacan são intérpretes freudianos do mundo pós-moderno. Ambos substituem a dicotomia físico-metafísica clássica pelo foco na materialidade da comunicação em um mundo emofísico. Ambos traçam a diferentes maneiras pelas quais os fluxos libidinais combinam partes do eu e vinculam o eu a outras pessoas e objetos. Essas interações ocorrem em três larguras de banda da percepção, que são reorganizadas pelo objeto misterioso a. Esse “objeto” desperta os afetos do inconsciente que infundem as formações identitárias com nova energia.
    [Show full text]
  • Postmodern Love, Postmodern Death and God-Like Authors in Irish Fiction: the Case of John Banville
    Postmodern Love, Postmodern Death and God-like Authors in Irish Fiction: The Case of John Banville Roberta Gefter Wondrich University of Trieste Abstract This article aims at exploring the crucial correlation between love (erosldesire) and writing, death and writing and God-like authorial strategies as a relevant feature of postmodernist fiction mainly as it unfolds in the work of Ireland's most important (postmodernist) novelist, John Banville. This issue is highly relevant in the context of postmodernism as, according to Brian McHale, postmodern fiction has thoroughly exploited both love and death not only as topics but essentially as formally relevant features of the novel, by systematically foregrounding the relation existing between author, characters and reader, al1 entangled in a web of love, seduction and deferred annihilation, and by transgressing the related ontological boundaries. In this regard, then, Banville's novels (notably the 'tetralogy of art', narnely The Book ofEvidence (1989), Ghosts (1993), Athena (1995) and The Untouchable (1998)) thoroughly explore and foregromd-probably for the first time in Irish writing-both the notion of love and desire as a creative activity, of textual narrative as necessarily seductive and, finally, the time-hoiioured equation of life with discourse/narration, thus recalling the problematic motif of the impossibility and necessity of discourse. In the context of Irish fiction, postmodernist literary strategies have not been practised too extensively in the last decades, while it is by now widely acknowledged that a great many of the main features of postmodernist writing had already been inaugurated by the titans of the protean Irish 'modernism': 1 am obviously thinking of Joyce-especially in Finnegan S Wake-and Flann O'Brien.
    [Show full text]