This is simply a stunningly beautiful book. It focuses on a family which is gathered together because the father, Adam Godley, a brilliant theoretical mathematician, is on his deathbed. He is attended by his second wife, his son Adam (and Adam's wife Helen), and his daughter Petra. Petra's "young man" visits, although his interest in Petra is not clear. There are a few others stopping by the Godley home as well. The narrator of the novel is Hermes, the Greek god (aka Mercury), and Zeus and Pan play key roles as well. Bringing in the gods to accompany a family facing the death of one of its members is Banville's genius: who better to opine on the end of life than the immortals, whose lives have no ends. The gods also play other roles in the lives of several members of this family; to be more detailed than that would spoil. Suffice it to say that Banville handles all this with brilliance.
Whether we are inside a god's head as narrator ("Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works.") or the head of the dying man ("When the time comes, and it cannot be very long now, I want to die into the light, like an old tree feeding its last upon the radiance of the world") or seeing what family members are thinking and feeling, we are always in the presence of a knowing mind, a mind that understands exactly how we think and feel.
It is not for nothing that this is Banville's fifteenth novel; no young writer could be so wise or translate that wisdom in words so well. Every page is jeweled, studded with insight beautifully presented. I do not want to forget what is here.
