Mr. Banville and Mr. Black

According to the Wikipedia entry on John Banville, “He writes only about a hundred words a day for his literary novels, versus several thousand words a day for his Benjamin Black crime fiction.”

Not long ago I read Banville’s novel about the Cambridge spies, The Untouchable, and noted some of the more dazzling passages.

Public disgrace is a strange thing. Fluttery feeling in the region of the diaphragm and a sort of racing sensation all over, as of the blood like mercury slithering along heavily just under the skin.

I shall miss old Skryne…. He was hardly the popular image of an interrogator. Hardy little fellow with a narrow head and miniature features and a neat thatch of very dry, stone-coloured hair. He reminds me of the fierce father of the madcap bride in those Hollywood comedies of the thirties.

In the hall I handed him his hat. He had a way of putting it on, fitting it carefully to his head with rotating motions, using both hands and crouching forward a little, that seemed as if he were screwing the lid on to a container of some precious, volatile stuff.

Then I turned to Christine Falls, the first of the crime novels Banville published as Benjamin Black. The style was more straightforward, but every once in a while there was something like this—an astonishing performance for someone producing a few thousand words in a day. The protagonist, a man named Quirke, has had his kneecap shattered by a couple of thugs after inquiring into matters best left alone.

He had noticed that his damaged knee inside its cast seemed to have taken on the task of alerting him at moments of surprise or alarm, moments which he in the narcotic haze in which he was still afloat could not register with sufficient force or instantaneity, so that the pinned-up joint of his leg must bring them to his attention by way of a twinge, a sort of pinch, such as a sadistically jolly uncle might give, meant to be playful but leaving a bruise.