John Banville: “The only thing that makes the world bearable and possible is creation”

John Banville (Wexford, Ireland, 1945) assures that he is not the one who writes his novels. That panic grips him every morning when he starts writing and gets up with coffee else, the one who writes. With a career spanning more than half a century and almost every major literary award in his bag, including the Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras he won in 2014 and waiting to receive a more than deserved Nobel, Banville has just announced singularities (Alfaguara), a novel that summarizes his entire literary career. He devoted six years to her, and the great Irish writer says she will be “the last”.

He doesn’t feel strong enough to tackle another narrative project as ambitious and demanding as this one, bringing together many of his most famous characters to discuss life, death, nostalgia and desire. Of course, he will continue with the black novels that he signs under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, a literary alias that he will keep only in his editions in Spanish.

“This book can be presented as a summary of my work. It seems pompous, but it’s true. My head isn’t what it used to be and I doubt I can tackle another book like it. I write before the words stop coming to my mind,” he says smiling at the headquarters of his Spanish publishing house, enjoying a glass of white wine in the morning. Save Freddie Montgomery, the killer evidence book, now a misanthropic and brutal ex-convict hiding behind a false name; to the patriarch of the Godleys from infinity, despises the valuable being and brilliant mathematician who revolutionized the understanding of space-time; his son, the despondent Adam Jr., and his wife, the beautiful and tormented Helen, and Jaybey, who reluctantly agrees to write a biography of Godley Sr.

prophets with armies

An avowed atheist born in an ultra-Catholic country, Banville assures that “religions have done much more harm to humanity than atheism.” He believes that “real demons are prophets with armies, and unfortunately we have few of them left today”. “The invention of monotheism is one of the greatest disasters in history,” he says.

“In the pagan world there were dozens of gods and we identified with good and bad deities, like us, created in our image. But Jews, Christians and Muslims invented this crazy god who tells us from heaven that he will destroy us forever if we do not love him enough and submit to his rules. How could we invent something so terrible? Let’s go back to paganism. That is my slogan – says the writer.

Despite everything, you don’t consider yourself a defeatist, are you an optimist? “Optimist and pessimist are two words that should be thrown out of the dictionary: they mean nothing,” Banville said. “The world is what it is: a horrible place and an absolute mystery” that the writer loves and hates at the same time. “We have to move on and enjoy what life has to offer. There is the war in Ukraine and the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria with tens of thousands dead, but also solidarity. There is nuclear fission, which might give us clean energy, but also clean atomic bombs that can destroy us,” he retorts.

“My friend George Steiner, a great critic, used to say that the most terrible exists with the most noble in this world. That in the Nazi extermination camps Beethoven was listened to and Goethe was read, so that art is not exactly the most civilized, although it comforts us, yes».

Imagination

For Banville, the great treasure of the human being is imagination. “And what we have to do is use it. It is our most powerful ability, and although flawed, it is synonymous with freedom. The only thing that makes the world tolerable and possible is creation,” adds the writer, whose main goal of literature and art is to be “a source of joy and satisfaction.”

“No book changes the world or makes people better. Poetry does not change anything; it neither helps you live nor will it bring peace to the world, so that’s not the reason for art,” says Banville, who swears he will never read reviews of his books and will settle for short slogans and happy phrases on advertisements. banners « which are always positive.

“I’m not losing sleep over the possibility of winning the Nobel,” he says with a mischievous smile and takes another sip of white wine. “I was the victim of a very bad prank and was made to believe I got it by faking a call from Stockholm. My daughter let me know that I was being played. More than the prize, I’m interested in the money. Give me the money and keep the prize, I would tell those at the Academy,” he concludes.