The Untouchable by John Banville
Title: The Untouchable
Author: John Banville
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published in: 1997
Set in: the 1970s, with most of the story made up of flashbacks to the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s
A dying man, retired head of a successful art institute in London and recently exposed double agent, tells his life story to a young woman who wants to write his biography. His real purpose in writing his memoirs is not to justify his actions to the public but to reflect on his life choices and motivations, to get to the bottom of who he really is, an important issue since he has lived a double -- sometimes triple or quadruple -- life for most of his adulthood.
The Untouchable is my favorite type of novel, strong on character development and insight into human nature, with a reasonably engaging plot (and a slight twist at the end). John Banville’s prose is vivid without (usually) being distracting; for example, the telephone is a “mad baby” that may scream for attention at any time. The Untouchable (Banville's eleventh novel, according to the back dust jacket), is a roman a clef, recapitulating the life of an actual historical figure, Anthony Blunt, who was one of the “Cambridge spies” operating during WWII and into the Cold War era. Career-wise, Banville’s Victor Maskell is Blunt’s double, but some of the more fascinating parts of the novel are apparently not based on Blunt’s life.
The twenty-something Maskell is a likeable character: callow and earnest, as ambitions as any of his peers and as eager to have a good time. Somehow - the novel includes details of the first contacts but little explicit indication of motives - he, along with a few of his friends, becomes part of a spy ring passing English secrets to the Russians. Incidentally, he marries the sister of his best friend after one or two conversations with her but later separates from her and their two children, remaining only marginally involved in their lives. His wife, a woman more jaded and coarse than you’d expect someone whose family calls her “Baby” to be, is amused rather than hurt by his “defection” when he becomes involved with a gay lover. As Maskell climbs the ranks of English society, befriending the royal family, being recruited for important and delicate missions abroad, and succeeding immensely in his career as an art historian, he develops an attitude of invincibility. He and his friends do incredibly reckless and dangerous things to get more information for the Communists. When we meet him at the end of his life, looking back on it, he has developed an attitude of arrogance and snobbery that is not so attractive.
Overall, it is a thrilling and action-filled life, one that “Miss V,” Maskell’s biographer, is eager to put into print. But what was most fascinating to me was the account of Maskell’s family and private life. As far as the Irish upbringing and distant relation to the king’s wife, Banville’s character mirrors the background of the historical Anthony Blunt, according to the intensive research that I did (i.e., the Wikipedia article that I read). Elements that are unique to Banville’s character are Maskell’s brother who is mentally retarded and his lover who dies tragically.
Banville does a very good job of portraying the mentally retarded brother, “poor Freddie,” as Victor always calls him, and the feelings that Victor has about him. Freddie is an intrinsic part of his brother’s childhood, growing up with him and their loving stepmother and bishop father but never achieving Victor’s accomplishments and success. Victor’s intense embarrassment when his brother-in-law realizes that the big man with “helplessly flickering eyes” is Victor’s brother says a lot about him and his relationship with his family… as does the “sliding glance” that is Freddie’s only acknowledgment of Victor’s arrival. Years later, in a poignant episode, Victor returns to make arrangements for Freddie after the death of their father. Banville takes great pains in his description of Victor’s visit to let us know that Victor can still read his nonverbal brother’s body language like a book. When Victor leaves Freddie at the “home” for people with special needs, a stark, understaffed place that Freddie hates at sight, he feels intensely guilty, “cowering in the doorway” before his helpless brother. Freddie’s unlikely response is to smile at him and - “surely I imagined it?” - nod affirmingly, as if to forgive him for what he’s had to do.
Freddie’s condition is the subject of a conversation between Maskell and his future mother-in-law when he goes to ask for his wife’s hand. Mrs. Brevoort speaks of “blood” and the ancient values of her Jewish heritage, which all boils down to her reluctance to let her daughter risk bearing a child with disabilities. Maskell, a thoroughly modern man, is flustered and lets the apparently taboo word “womb” slip out in his insistence that Freddie’s condition is not inherited. Mrs. Brevoort’s reasons for bringing up the subject are vague, since she accepts Maskell as a son-in-law without further addressing his flimsy arguments. (Maybe she just didn’t want to appear too eager to have such a successful young man marry her daughter?) In any case, the conversation is a fascinating glimpse into the conflict between modernity and old fashioned values that must have characterized the 1930s.
Maskell’s short time with his lover, Patrick, seems to be the period of his life when he is most happy. Their relationship is well-defined. Maskell is the cultured gentleman with money and connections and Patrick is his cook, housekeeper, and companion whom he met working behind a counter. (Class distinctions are obviously alive and well for the characters in this novel.) Culturally ignorant Patrick brings naivete and frivolity into Maskell’s life at a time when he has been taking himself very seriously. Disconcertingly to Maskell, Patrick laughs when Maskell confides in him about his spy activities. Maskell wonders later if it was his intrigues and risky activities that got Patrick killed, and it seems to be the major regret of his life.
Maskell’s stated reason for re-visiting the events of his past is to restore his soul from the “varnish” on it, put there by decades of living so disingenuously. He has spent his entire life doing things he doesn’t want to do or things for which his motives are unclear: pursuing art history rather than mathematics, getting married to a woman he doesn’t know very well, passing on information to the Russians (and going against the law and social norms to get his hands on more and more valuable information), taking a male lover but staying married to his wife, putting his brother in an institution. His explanations, if they exist, always have something to do with his espousal of Stoic philosophy; i.e., his determination not to let emotions color his judgment or influence his actions. Now, at the end of his life, he seems to be trying out a new credo, one that is gentler and more forgiving. There is no practicality in his choice of Miss V to write his biography; he chooses her because she reminds him of his daughter and his wife. In the plot twist I mentioned in the first paragraph of this review, his failure as a Stoic reaches a climax. In the end, the only remnant of Maskell’s Stoicism is his long-cherished painting, Death of Seneca.
This was an enjoyable book to read but a difficult one to analyze. In retrospect, I’m not sure that I ever understood the main character’s motives for anything he did. It is pretty clear in the end that he has failed as a Stoic, but the incident that conveys this most strongly is a major plot spoiler, so I won’t go into any more detail than that. I hadn’t read anything else by John Banville or even heard of him before being assigned this book, but I would like to read more of his work.
Author: John Banville
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published in: 1997
Set in: the 1970s, with most of the story made up of flashbacks to the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s
A dying man, retired head of a successful art institute in London and recently exposed double agent, tells his life story to a young woman who wants to write his biography. His real purpose in writing his memoirs is not to justify his actions to the public but to reflect on his life choices and motivations, to get to the bottom of who he really is, an important issue since he has lived a double -- sometimes triple or quadruple -- life for most of his adulthood.
The Untouchable is my favorite type of novel, strong on character development and insight into human nature, with a reasonably engaging plot (and a slight twist at the end). John Banville’s prose is vivid without (usually) being distracting; for example, the telephone is a “mad baby” that may scream for attention at any time. The Untouchable (Banville's eleventh novel, according to the back dust jacket), is a roman a clef, recapitulating the life of an actual historical figure, Anthony Blunt, who was one of the “Cambridge spies” operating during WWII and into the Cold War era. Career-wise, Banville’s Victor Maskell is Blunt’s double, but some of the more fascinating parts of the novel are apparently not based on Blunt’s life.
The twenty-something Maskell is a likeable character: callow and earnest, as ambitions as any of his peers and as eager to have a good time. Somehow - the novel includes details of the first contacts but little explicit indication of motives - he, along with a few of his friends, becomes part of a spy ring passing English secrets to the Russians. Incidentally, he marries the sister of his best friend after one or two conversations with her but later separates from her and their two children, remaining only marginally involved in their lives. His wife, a woman more jaded and coarse than you’d expect someone whose family calls her “Baby” to be, is amused rather than hurt by his “defection” when he becomes involved with a gay lover. As Maskell climbs the ranks of English society, befriending the royal family, being recruited for important and delicate missions abroad, and succeeding immensely in his career as an art historian, he develops an attitude of invincibility. He and his friends do incredibly reckless and dangerous things to get more information for the Communists. When we meet him at the end of his life, looking back on it, he has developed an attitude of arrogance and snobbery that is not so attractive.
Overall, it is a thrilling and action-filled life, one that “Miss V,” Maskell’s biographer, is eager to put into print. But what was most fascinating to me was the account of Maskell’s family and private life. As far as the Irish upbringing and distant relation to the king’s wife, Banville’s character mirrors the background of the historical Anthony Blunt, according to the intensive research that I did (i.e., the Wikipedia article that I read). Elements that are unique to Banville’s character are Maskell’s brother who is mentally retarded and his lover who dies tragically.
Banville does a very good job of portraying the mentally retarded brother, “poor Freddie,” as Victor always calls him, and the feelings that Victor has about him. Freddie is an intrinsic part of his brother’s childhood, growing up with him and their loving stepmother and bishop father but never achieving Victor’s accomplishments and success. Victor’s intense embarrassment when his brother-in-law realizes that the big man with “helplessly flickering eyes” is Victor’s brother says a lot about him and his relationship with his family… as does the “sliding glance” that is Freddie’s only acknowledgment of Victor’s arrival. Years later, in a poignant episode, Victor returns to make arrangements for Freddie after the death of their father. Banville takes great pains in his description of Victor’s visit to let us know that Victor can still read his nonverbal brother’s body language like a book. When Victor leaves Freddie at the “home” for people with special needs, a stark, understaffed place that Freddie hates at sight, he feels intensely guilty, “cowering in the doorway” before his helpless brother. Freddie’s unlikely response is to smile at him and - “surely I imagined it?” - nod affirmingly, as if to forgive him for what he’s had to do.
Freddie’s condition is the subject of a conversation between Maskell and his future mother-in-law when he goes to ask for his wife’s hand. Mrs. Brevoort speaks of “blood” and the ancient values of her Jewish heritage, which all boils down to her reluctance to let her daughter risk bearing a child with disabilities. Maskell, a thoroughly modern man, is flustered and lets the apparently taboo word “womb” slip out in his insistence that Freddie’s condition is not inherited. Mrs. Brevoort’s reasons for bringing up the subject are vague, since she accepts Maskell as a son-in-law without further addressing his flimsy arguments. (Maybe she just didn’t want to appear too eager to have such a successful young man marry her daughter?) In any case, the conversation is a fascinating glimpse into the conflict between modernity and old fashioned values that must have characterized the 1930s.
Maskell’s short time with his lover, Patrick, seems to be the period of his life when he is most happy. Their relationship is well-defined. Maskell is the cultured gentleman with money and connections and Patrick is his cook, housekeeper, and companion whom he met working behind a counter. (Class distinctions are obviously alive and well for the characters in this novel.) Culturally ignorant Patrick brings naivete and frivolity into Maskell’s life at a time when he has been taking himself very seriously. Disconcertingly to Maskell, Patrick laughs when Maskell confides in him about his spy activities. Maskell wonders later if it was his intrigues and risky activities that got Patrick killed, and it seems to be the major regret of his life.
Maskell’s stated reason for re-visiting the events of his past is to restore his soul from the “varnish” on it, put there by decades of living so disingenuously. He has spent his entire life doing things he doesn’t want to do or things for which his motives are unclear: pursuing art history rather than mathematics, getting married to a woman he doesn’t know very well, passing on information to the Russians (and going against the law and social norms to get his hands on more and more valuable information), taking a male lover but staying married to his wife, putting his brother in an institution. His explanations, if they exist, always have something to do with his espousal of Stoic philosophy; i.e., his determination not to let emotions color his judgment or influence his actions. Now, at the end of his life, he seems to be trying out a new credo, one that is gentler and more forgiving. There is no practicality in his choice of Miss V to write his biography; he chooses her because she reminds him of his daughter and his wife. In the plot twist I mentioned in the first paragraph of this review, his failure as a Stoic reaches a climax. In the end, the only remnant of Maskell’s Stoicism is his long-cherished painting, Death of Seneca.
This was an enjoyable book to read but a difficult one to analyze. In retrospect, I’m not sure that I ever understood the main character’s motives for anything he did. It is pretty clear in the end that he has failed as a Stoic, but the incident that conveys this most strongly is a major plot spoiler, so I won’t go into any more detail than that. I hadn’t read anything else by John Banville or even heard of him before being assigned this book, but I would like to read more of his work.