Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir (Hardcover)

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Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir By John Banville Cover Image
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Staff Reviews


 

Time Pieces is a beautiful telling of an old man's relationship to a city he met when life seemed quite new. The mundane glories--the evening's life upon brick, the wit of old storytellers--were miraculous to the boy, bathetic to the young man, and now treasured by the old author who strives to rediscover childlike wonder. More than just a memoir, it is a plaintive reflection on time. What is the past? Banville writes, "If the present is where we live, the past is where we dream."

 

Matthew

— From Time Pieces

Description


From the internationally acclaimed Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea comes "a delicious memoir" (New York Times) that unfolds around the author's recollections, experiences, and imaginings of Dublin.

As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived. And though, when he came of age and took up residence there, and the city became a frequent backdrop for his dissatisfactions (not playing an identifiable role in his work until the Quirke mystery series, penned as Benjamin Black), it remained in some part of his memory as fascinating as it had been to his seven-year-old self. And as he guides us around the city, delighting in its cultural, architectural, political, and social history, he interweaves the memories that are attached to particular places and moments. The result is both a wonderfully idiosyncratic tour of Dublin, and a tender yet powerful ode to a formative time and place for the artist as a young man.

About the Author


John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He has been the recipient of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1976), the Guardian Fiction Prize (1981), the Guinness Peat Aviation Book Award (1989), and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction (1997). He has been both shortlisted for the Booker Prize (1989) and awarded the Man Booker Prize (2005) as well as nominated for the Man Booker International Prize (2007). Other awards include the Franz Kafka Prize (2011), the Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2013), and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature (2014). He lives in Dublin.

Praise For…


“A delicious memoir … Like the more thoughtful Romantics, Banville sees into the life of things…. [His] soarings, like a hawk’s, are both wild and comprehensive, taking in everything and imagining more.” —The New York Times


Product Details
ISBN: 9781524732837
ISBN-10: 1524732834
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: February 27th, 2018
Pages: 224
Language: English