What a breathtakingly perfect piece of work this is!

Flawless writing and exceptional performance. Such a beautiful description and interpretation of this languid, spoilt, entitled and thoroughly unpleasant character.

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3 people found this helpful

Excellent match of narrator and text

Bill Wallis deserves every praise and thanks for his narration of The Untouchable.

His Victor Maskill is simply far more interesting than the Victor Maskill I encountered when reading the book alone; Wallis conveys beautifully the humour, snobbery and tragedy in this most engaging of characters.

If you are a fan of Banville, then I would recommend this without hesitation.

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12 people found this helpful

fantastic novel, beautifully read

Simply the best book i have listened to in 5yrs. John Banville’s prose flows with beauty, energy, comedy and is visually perfect. It’s like a wonderful sensitive screenplay. And it is enhanced by the thoughtful nuance and narration by Bill Wallis. This is an absolute gem of a novel.

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3 people found this helpful

Spying

A fictionalised Anthony Blunt is fabulously drawn by Banville’s dark poetic pen.
Beautiful prose, searing insight, I was heartbroken to finish, so I started all over again, easily. Perfect narration also.

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4 people found this helpful

Soothing writing about an alien world

The book seemed familiar to me, as if I’d read it before, although I know I haven’t. Gentlemen spies, Cold War, Oxbridge - the mannered shabby existence of people who don’t really have to worry about impoverishment because they are so well connected to power.

It was written in 2009, which doesn’t seem that long ago, and yet it seemed like writing of another time that is now gone.

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Well told story

Well written story, superb style but rather detached: in the end I wasn’t to bothered at what happened to these people - more of a report than a novel.
Bill Fraser was VERY good with subtle shifts distinguishing the many characters: believable accents and never a caricature.

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The Cambridge Set

A remarkable fiction based on true events in the fifties involving the network of British agents spying for Russia, based in London. It is beautifully, lyrically written but nevertheless I found it distasteful. The characters, masterfully drawn , are repellent in their treachery, their callous, cold-blooded, sneering attitude to others, their constant drunkenness and depravity. While it is a compelling read, it did seem overly long, perhaps because there was so little to admire about these blighted souls. That said, I would read anything else by this author.


Bill Wallis’s performance is a triumph in the art of bringing a book to life. What a happy gift!

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6 people found this helpful

Dull

I usually enjoy Banville books but I’ve struggled with this one. It’s well narrated, well written but I just can’t engage with any of the characters or the plot. I realise it’s woven around fact and Blunt, but it’s dull.

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Lonely for Socialism

Here’s another new writer to me that, having read this really enjoyable book, I’m at a complete loss as to why he’s been lost to me. I read the earlier reviews and claims to Henry James, with some scepticism, but I was quickly disavowed of this and from the first settled into a really well written first person narrative that was sustained throughout the huge landscape of near historical London.

Anthony Blunt has always been a fascinating character - at the heart of Establishment and at the same time a betrayer who stayed true to the cause of Marxism. The clé to this romanà gets about as close as it would seem possible to get without actually transforming into a memoir - and I’d be interest to have a look at Blunt’s own work - but what fascinating source material.

The motivation - and peculiarly English - lack of a zealous driving force behind the perceived actions of treason and treachery provide the underlying motor for this portrait. The writing is rich, deep, well researched, authorative and kind. There are wonderful epithets and stand alone sketches along the way that I hugely enjoyed and will look for more Banville to fill up the months ahead.

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16 people found this helpful

Remarkable

A wry, tender, devastatingly honest and witty account of an extraordinary life. Beautifully read. Brilliant.

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2 people found this helpful