Mrs. Osmond: A novel
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Review “Banville’s ability to channel James’s style and prose rhythms is astonishing. I can’t imagine anyone who could have done it better.” —Jeffrey Eugenides, The New York Times Book Review“As impressive an act of stylistic channeling as anything I’ve read. . . . Like its source text, Mrs. Osmond investigates what happens when liberty runs up against those forces that would constrain it: personal history, secret plots, money, evil itself.” —Anthony Domestico, The Boston Globe“A novel that is at once an epochal act of imitation, salutation and imagination.” —NPR   “A brilliant and beguiling novel on its own, and a reminder to us that not only does great literature endure, it engenders.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune   “Something like a jazz improvisation on a classic song, or a new orchestration of earlier tunes and disharmonies.” —London Review of Books  “Banville is one of the best novelists in English. . . . Mrs Osmond is both a remarkable novel in its own right and a superb pastiche.” —Edmund White, The Guardian   “[A] modern classic . . . a striking imagined follow-up to Portrait of a Lady.” —Entertainment Weekly   “A brilliant feat of literary ventriloquism. . . . Richly enjoyable and enthralling, this exercise in creative empathy is a sequel of very high finish.” —The Sunday Times (London)   “An audacious sequel.” —O, The Oprah Magazine   “Fusing the essence of James’s style with his own signature wit and irony, Banville crafts a story that will delight and inspire classicists.” —Harper’s Bazaar   “Less a sequel to Portrait than a kind of recapitulation of it, a filtering of its events through a different novelistic consciousness. . . . There’s something inherently fun about being reintroduced, in a changed context, to all these half-familiar characters.” —Financial Times   “Banville does an impeccable job of re-creating James’ prose style and moving his characters forward in believable ways. As Mrs. Osmond progresses, his wicked sense of humor emerges more, and he adds twists to the plot James would have cloaked in reticence.” —Tampa Bay Times   “[Written] with wit, daring, vivid description and a sense of fun.” —The Irish Times   “[An] act of literary ventriloquism and imagination.” —The Independent   “A great storyteller. [Banville’s] book is not only an impressive recreation of James’s atmospheres and pacing, but also full of minor cliffhangers and page-turning suspenses that keep you guessing.” —The Observer   “[Banville] pulls off [Mrs. Osmond] with vigor and style. It’s hard to say no to a second helping of Isabel Archer.”  —The Seattle Times   “So successful it felt like discovering a new Henry James novel.” —Lara Feigel, The Guardian   “Banville’s ventriloquism is word-perfect.” —Vulture Read more About the Author JOHN BANVILLE, the author of sixteen novels, has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, and a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. He lives in Dublin. Read more See all Editorial Reviews
S**I
The denouement is the best part
Having just re-read Portrait of a Lady, with relish, I couldn't wait to find out what would become of Isabel! So I closed Portrait and opened Mrs. Osmond, almost on the same day, and began reading with happy anticipation. But...12% in (on a Kindle), I began to suspect that finding out the fate of our heroine was going to be a lot of work, involving detours and convolutions, each given its several pages. At 50%, our heroine was still traveling between England and Rome. At 69%, I began to skim, watching for quotation marks that might signal a forwarding of the plot. At 80%, every word got my attention, and Mrs.Osmond became a good story at last.
C**R
Terrific, but...
I enjoyed this book enormously. Banville captures James’s early style in a way that can’t help to bring a smile to the lips of James aficionados (though I admit I couldn’t help but think of it as “James-lite”). The story is engaging and has more suspense in some ways than Portrait itself. The ending has several interesting twists, but also is the reason I couldn’t give the book a 5th star. Somehow it’s just not believable or satisfying, especially the Pansy “turn.” Still, for anyone who loves Portrait, as I do, I would strongly recommend it.
L**N
BANVILLE AIMS HIGH AND HITS THE MARK
First let it be said that John Banville is a great writer. This latest novel is slightly flawed by a few passages that read as precious or strained; however, one must keep in mind that the author has taken on a highly daring and difficult work of imagination---writing a sequel to one of the greatest and best loved novels of Henry James: THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. I felt at every moment that I was absolutely and authentically in the company of Isabel Archer Osmond. The settings and mood are perfectly Jamesian. Best of all, Banville gives us the resolution we long for with regard to the sterile and monstrously selfish Gilbert Osmond as well as that cunning Medusa, Madame Serena Merle. We even have a satisfying resolution for the long-suffering Pansy Osmond. Moreover, we believe that the beautiful, wealthy, brilliant, still young and thoroughly good Isabel may actually have happiness in her future. Banville does it all without a trace of sentimentality. This is an immensely enjoyable book---even for the Henry James purist.
P**K
According to John Banville, women cannot be trusted and should not be allowed to inherit, as British law once declared.
I don't understand why the highly regarded author, John Banville, would choose to virtually rewrite the novel, Portrait of a Lady, by an author as revered as Henry James??? I understand that Banville presumably extended the story of central character, Isabel Archer, for several weeks after James' version ended, but why isn't this plagiarism?In his version, Banville defines female honor as preserving marriage, and James' (previously invented) Isabel resigns herself to that dead end. But Banville's Isabel firmly rejects her marriage, thereby presumably leading to her lack of honor, for which the author punishes her by leaving her without any purpose in life. Although Banville won many honors for his literary skill, the elaborate text of this book is the very definition of "overwriting."Regarding story line, Banville demonstrates Isabel's independence by her ability to withdraw a large sum of (inherited) money from a bank, then allows her to lose it through most of the story until she unenthusiastically donates it thereafter. I must say that Banville certainly doesn't think highly of women in general and his borrowed heroine in particular..
A**R
Waste of opportunity and talent
I'm a John Banville fan.I've read most of his major fiction (including his books written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black) with the exception of the Copernicus trilogy, which is on my list. When I think of Banville, I think of electrifying imagery and arresting metaphors. It's the language, not the plot, of which there's sometimes very little.Needless to say, when "Mrs. Osmond" was published, I knew I'd have to read it. Problem: That meant having to plow through James's "The Portrait of a Lady" (TPOAL) first. I worried that I might not be up to wading through that tome. I'm too old to do homework!But a funny thing happened. I actually quite enjoyed TPOAL. But was unhappy with "Mrs. Osmond"!Of course after the abrupt ending of TPOAL, everyone would like to know "how it all turns out". What a wonderful opportunity to give us a peek at one way the situation might have developed. Banville had my interest before I'd read the first word. Sigh, it was not to be sustained.Near the end of my 1882 version of TPOAL, the narrator says, "She [Isabel Archer] had not known where to turn; but she knew now. There was a very straight path."That is not how Banville's sequel begins. Isabel takes a meandering route on her return trip to her home in Rome. She's anything but a "woman on a mission". Indeed, she seems to have regressed in age, seeming almost adolescent again. For a while I thought a more apt title might have been "The Portrait of a Girl".But let's get to my real complaint. Where are the Banville flashes of brilliance, language-wise? The prose isn't what I would call "Jamesian" (after having read just the one tome); it's far more efficient, to-the-point, digestible, and, well, intelligible. I've been surprised to read reviews by people claiming Banville captures James's style, or that he FAILS to capture James's style (as though it's clear that he's TRYING to write in that style).I don't need it to be like James. However:If the plot isn't riveting (I was fairly unhappy with it), AND it isn't in James's style, then it has to be in Banville's style!For me, it's not. So with sadness, I give it two stars. With most other authors it would have been three, because, come on, Banville can't write a BAD book. But with him, I have higher expectations.P.S. Here are two examples, from "Mrs. Osmond", where I did see the Banville of old shining through, albeit somewhat more weakly than in his finest works ("The Book of Evidence", "The Sea", "Eclipse", etc.):1. "She had traveled via Turin and Paris, and the Channel crossing had been so sweetly calm that the sea, under a moonless sky, might have been a dark mirror on which an infinitesimally thin film of oil had been poured out." [p. 347 of my paperback copy]2. [Isabel is in Aunt Lydia Touchette's home in Florence] "At home, by which we mean Albany and its environs, since for her there was nowhere else now that merited the appellation, she had loved the twilight hour, invested as it was for her with a sense of vague, melancholy and yet always exciting promise; here in the south, each day was brought to a brusque, unceremonious close, the darkness falling almost with a clatter, like the grille in front of a shopkeeper's stall." [p. 310 in my paperback copy]Can't you just hear that stall grille come clattering down as darkness plummets? That's what I'm talking about -- images/metaphors/similes that just stop you dead in your tracks, searing an impression or image on your brain, giving you a new way to experience or perceive something you thought you knew all about. For me, Banville at his best turns out one after another after another, each page dense with them.
S**T
Pompous
I've never come across such over blown prose in any book. The author seems to be showing off with his command of the English language injecting words which may be contemporary to the time of the story but which leave this reader lost. The plodding pace of the story, which goes nowhere in even the first 100 pages is enough to send you to sleep. I gave up after 150 pages; just couldn't take any more of Mrs Osbourne's misery.
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