The Sea cover art

The Sea

winner of the Booker Prize, a haunting literary novel of childhood and seaside secrets

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The Sea

By: John Banville
Narrated by: Jim Norton
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Summary

‘A masterly study of grief, memory and love recollected’ Professor John Sutherland, Chair of Judges, Man Booker Prize 2005

The Sea is John Banville's Man Booker prize-winning exploration of memory, childhood and loss.

When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins Myles and Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately, and what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything that was to follow.

 Coming of Age Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
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Critic reviews

A novel in which all of his remarkable gifts come together to produce a real work of art, disquieting, beautiful, intelligent, and in the end, surprisingly, offering consolation. (Allan Massie)
You can smell and feel and see his world with extraordinary clarity. It is a work of art, and I’ll bet it will still be read and admired in seventy-five years. (Rick Gekoski)
Poetry seems to come easily to Banville. There is so much to applaud in this book that it deserves more than one reading.
A brilliant, sensuous, discombobulating novel.
All stars
Most relevant
I found me in the Sea and realised the brokenness in all of us, the futility of self help and the glory of faith which shone through in its absense.

Finding me in the Sea

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I found the writing in this one incredibly over-wrought and florid, almost laughably so at some points. You are left with the impression of the narrator as being a pompous prat - which may well be the intention but it makes it a bit hard to stick with. The last hour or so is stunning, however.

Okay but not great

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A glorious way to spend 6.5 hrs. Everything about this audio book is perfect. The source text is rich, sad and vainglorious; the narration perfectly matched.

Stunning

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John Banville is incredible - I loved other books, this one did not work for me on Audible. And I just could not get into it. Maybe I'll give it a go in hard copy.

Loved other J Banville books...

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This is my third time to enjoy this book.
I will indeed savour it again & again.
Every word is soothing to my ear

Everything stood out

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