Review: 'The Singularities,' by John Banville

John Banville's novels come and go but not all of his characters depart with them. Some remain in limbo and then return with a new lease on life in a sequel or next installment in a series. In his latest novel, "The Singularities," the Booker winner tries something more ambitious by bringing back diverse characters from disparate books and letting them intermingle. As they do so, they find themselves navigating a warped reality made up of various possibilities and blasts from the past.

A "mystery man" calling himself Felix Mordaunt is released from prison after doing 25 years for murder. It becomes clear that he is really Freddie Montgomery, who first showed his face in Banville's 1989 novel "The Book of Evidence." Keen to make a new start but also to reconnect with his childhood, he turns up at the door of the Irish country house he grew up in — only to discover it is in new hands and has a new name. Felix ingratiates himself with the present owners, the Godleys (from Banville's 2009 book, "The Infinities"), who give him a job and a roof over his head.

The novel expands to take in the occupants of Arden House. There is Helen Godley, a former actress who is bored of provincial life, scarred by the death of her children, and both intrigued by and suspicious of her new lodger. There is her husband, Adam, son of the renowned Adam Godley, the late great mathematician who proved the existence of parallel universes. And there is Godley's widow, Ursula, who, with failing health and fading memories, lies in a bed at the top of the house sifting broken recollections and communing with the ghost of her dearly departed daughter, Petra.

The household also includes a professor called William Jaybey. Adam has commissioned him to write a biography of his illustrious father. Unbeknownst to the family, Jaybey detested Godley and plans to settle old scores by dishing dirt and tarnishing his reputation. He is also deeply smitten with Helen.

Soon Banville's narrative is thick with all manner of secrets and lies, spying and scheming. Things get murkier when one of Felix's old flames reveals a death wish. Things turn strange when the characters begin to inhabit alternative realities.

"The Singularities" is Banville at his most inventive. People exhibit, and indeed examine, various selves. Places are reimagined (Jaybey travels by vacuum train to "recently renamed New Amsterdam"). Part of the proceedings is narrated by an all-seeing, all-punning "mischievous godlet." Regular readers of Banville will know not to expect much in the way of plot (something which is only really prioritized by his crime-writing alter ego, Benjamin Black) and on this occasion, story plays second fiddle to style.

But what style. "Don't you love the incorrigible trickiness of words?" Jaybey asks. Banville does: His verbal dexterity and poetic flourishes keep us absorbed throughout what is a complex, sometimes maddening yet ultimately rewarding work.

Malcolm Forbes has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Singularities

By: John Banville.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 320 pages, $30.