The Sea

john Banville, 2005

Giving- his prose ”the kind of densenessand thickness that poetry has," lohnBanville, one of lreland's most acclaimedstylists, has managed to compress in 195pages an extraordinary tribute to thepower of memory. Written as a reflectivejournal, this intense novel won the 2005Man Booker Prize. It tells the story of MaxMorden, a retired art historian, who re-turns to the seaside village where he hadspent a summer as a child and attemptsto come to terms with the deaths of thosehe loved through his musings on his past.Beginning the narration after his wifeAnna's death, his memories flit haphaz—ardly among time spent with the Graces,a wealthy middle class family, time spentwith his wife and the present. '