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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
From Library Journal
- Kenneth Mintz, formerly with Bayonne P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mesmerizing but too depressing,
This review is from: The Book Of Evidence (Paperback)
A dark disturbing book through and through. It explores, with uncompromising rigour, the horrific landscape of psychopath's mind that is repugnant and mesmerizing at the same time.Freddie, the main character, kills a young woman for no reason other than her turning up in a wrong place in a wrong time. More than the act of murder itself, the state of his mind chilled me completely. His total inability to relate to other people is beyond pathetic and aggravated by childish contempt for and desire to exercise control over them. I wonder if there were at least one lovable personality to save this story from utter bleakness. However, Banville is a perfectionist to the point of being ruthless. Freddie's mother, wife, former girl friend, old family friend, lawyer - anyone and every one is pitilessly portrayed as odd, dull, unhappy and unresponsive. Perhaps this reflects Freddie's inner world but I have found it too depressing.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Dark, Powerful, Obsessive Interior Monologue,
By "botatoe" (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Book of Evidence (Paperback)
"My Lord, when you ask me to tell the court in my own words, this is what I shall say." Thus begins "The Book of Evidence," the sardonic, self-pitying, occasionally witty, and ultimately unreliable narrative of Frederick Charles St. John Vanderveld Montgomery (a/k/a Freddie Montgomery). I say "unreliable" quite consciously, because Freddie Montgomery says as much throughout the novel, another in a long line of remarkable fictions from John Banville, perhaps Ireland's finest living author. As Freddie relates at the end of his tale, "I thought of trying to publish this, my testimony. But no. I have asked Inspector Haslet to put it into my file, with the other, official fictions . . . [H]ow much of it is true? All of it. None of it. Only the shame." And what is Freddie Montgomery's story? An educated and brilliant academic, he married a young woman, Daphne, whom he met while teaching at Berkeley. He left academia for a dissolute life on a Mediterranean island. He became indebted there to apparently dark and unseemly characters, left his wife and young child behind, and returned to his family home in Ireland to obtain enough money to repay his debts. While in Ireland, he committed a brutal and seemingly inexplicable murder, fled the scene of his crime in a kind of "Lost Weekend" of drunken binging and obsession with his dark deed, and, ultimately, is apprehended and imprisoned. He writes the dark, powerful, obsessive interior monologue of "The Book of Evidence" while sitting in prison awaiting his trial. The reader is never quite certain what to make of Freddie Montgomery. He is, indeed, a disturbed and disturbing narrator, someone who kills an innocent woman for no apparent reason, with chilling sang-froid. He bludgeons her with a hammer and then wonders, as if he were the victim: "How could this be happening to me-it was all so unfair. Bitter tears of self-pity squeezed into my eyes." Freddie Montgomery's narrative is lucid, but it's not clear that he is entirely sane. There is complete lack of feeling. He seems a psychopath, or worse. Perhaps he's simply mad. Perhaps he is commenting on himself when he says, "Madmen do not frighten me, or even make me uneasy. Indeed, I find that their ravings soothe me. I think it is because everything, from the explosion of a nova to the fall of dust in a deserted room, is to them of vast and equal significance, and therefore meaningless." There is a cold anomie that pervades Freddie's actions, his reflections, his feelings. It reminds the reader of "Crime and Punishment" or "Notes from Underground". But there is also a dark humor and a sleight of hand working here that is absent from the great Russian master. Perhaps Irish sensibility is creeping in, perhaps just the penumbra of the post-modern. Whatever it is, it works.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Digging a Deeper Hole...,
By Space (Different Planet) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Book of Evidence (Paperback)
Freddie is the best example of a person who does not understand the consequences of his actions. He just keeps on drilling a deeper hole for himself everywhere he goes, and getting more people invloved in his insensitive doings. He has committed an ugly, cold hearted crime for no reason at all. He can't even explain why he did it, and all his confessions show that he does not even find any wrong with what he has done!!!Banville style of writting gives you the best picture of the different personalities involved, the human reaction to panics, and more so how cruel and unappreciative mankind can be. A thrilling story, your always waiting for when the truth is going to be discovered, how far Freddie can go with his cold attitude to such a crime, and what will be his attitude in court.
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