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Writer and the City
Prague Pictures: A Portrait of the City
The fourth book in Bloomsbury's Writer and the City series.
From one of the foremost chroniclers of the modern European experience, a panoramic view of a city that has seduced and bewitched visitors for centuries.
Prague is the magic capital of Europe. Since the days of Emperor Rudolf II, "devotee of the stars and cultivator of the spagyric art", who in the late 1500s summoned alchemists and magicians from all over the world to his castle on Hradcany hill, it has been a place of mystery and intrigue. Wars, revolutions, floods, the imposition of Soviet communism, and even the depredations of the tourist boom after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 could not destroy the unique atmosphere of this beautiful, proud, and melancholy city on the Vltava. John Banville traces Prague's often tragic history and portrays the people who made it: the emperors and princes, geniuses and charlatans, heroes and scoundrels. He also paints a portrait of the Prague of today, reveling in its newfound freedoms, eager to join the European Community and at the same time suspicious of what many Praguers see as yet another totalitarian takeover. He writes of his first visit to the city, in the depths of the Cold War, and of subsequent trips there, of the people he met, the friends he made, the places he came to know.
From one of the foremost chroniclers of the modern European experience, a panoramic view of a city that has seduced and bewitched visitors for centuries.
Prague is the magic capital of Europe. Since the days of Emperor Rudolf II, "devotee of the stars and cultivator of the spagyric art", who in the late 1500s summoned alchemists and magicians from all over the world to his castle on Hradcany hill, it has been a place of mystery and intrigue. Wars, revolutions, floods, the imposition of Soviet communism, and even the depredations of the tourist boom after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 could not destroy the unique atmosphere of this beautiful, proud, and melancholy city on the Vltava. John Banville traces Prague's often tragic history and portrays the people who made it: the emperors and princes, geniuses and charlatans, heroes and scoundrels. He also paints a portrait of the Prague of today, reveling in its newfound freedoms, eager to join the European Community and at the same time suspicious of what many Praguers see as yet another totalitarian takeover. He writes of his first visit to the city, in the depths of the Cold War, and of subsequent trips there, of the people he met, the friends he made, the places he came to know.
244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
16 people are currently reading
573 people want to read
About the author
John Banville
133 books2,386 followersWilliam John Banville is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W.B. Yeats and Henry James are the two real influences on his work.
Banville has won the 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2003 International Nonino Prize, the 2005 Booker Prize, the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. Italy made him a Cavaliere of the Ordine della Stella d'Italia (essentially a knighthood) in 2017. He is a former member of Aosdána, having voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer.
Banville was born and grew up in Wexford town in south-east Ireland. He published his first novel, Nightspawn, in 1971. A second, Birchwood, followed two years later. "The Revolutions Trilogy", published between 1976 and 1982, comprises three works, each named in reference to a renowned scientist: Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter. His next work, Mefisto, had a mathematical theme. His 1989 novel The Book of Evidence, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of that year's Guinness Peat Aviation award, heralded a second trilogy, three works which deal in common with the work of art. "The Frames Trilogy" is completed by Ghosts and Athena, both published during the 1990s. Banville's thirteenth novel, The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005. In addition, he publishes crime novels as Benjamin Black — most of these feature the character of Quirke, an Irish pathologist based in Dublin.
Banville is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Dublin.
Banville has won the 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2003 International Nonino Prize, the 2005 Booker Prize, the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. Italy made him a Cavaliere of the Ordine della Stella d'Italia (essentially a knighthood) in 2017. He is a former member of Aosdána, having voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer.
Banville was born and grew up in Wexford town in south-east Ireland. He published his first novel, Nightspawn, in 1971. A second, Birchwood, followed two years later. "The Revolutions Trilogy", published between 1976 and 1982, comprises three works, each named in reference to a renowned scientist: Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter. His next work, Mefisto, had a mathematical theme. His 1989 novel The Book of Evidence, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of that year's Guinness Peat Aviation award, heralded a second trilogy, three works which deal in common with the work of art. "The Frames Trilogy" is completed by Ghosts and Athena, both published during the 1990s. Banville's thirteenth novel, The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005. In addition, he publishes crime novels as Benjamin Black — most of these feature the character of Quirke, an Irish pathologist based in Dublin.
Banville is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Dublin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
November 8, 2020
2.5 "occasionally magical, mostly tedious" stars !!!
3rd Most Disappointing Read of 2017 Award
I have been reading this for months. Dipping into it, being entranced for a few moments and then bored to tears for much longer. I kept asking myself this book cannot be about Prague. I adore Prague and this does not reflect her. I have been there on four occasions albeit not for the past twenty years. One time I was there for several weeks and grew to love her confusing, schizophrenegenic way whereas on the shorter visits I was simply enchanted. Prague feels old but not ancient. Prague is beautiful but heavily wrinkled. Prague is intelligent but deeply biased. Prague is refined but also haughty and deeply impoverished.
Prague is a perpetual twilight in Purgatory.
This book was mostly about Mr. Banville and his glimpses of Prague and his interactions with mostly "important" people rather than the average. His research facts although interesting were presented in a plodding pedantic way that I found tedious and times even odious. Does he love Prague ? I am uncertain and I read this book for months.
Perhaps Prague is one of those mysterious places that act as a distortive mirror and anyone who looks there sees an aspect of themselves that they never knew existed.
This was not a poor read but an inconsistent and frustrating one.
I wholeheartedly recommend visiting Prague with or without reading this book.
I will definitely go back to Prague someday and I will also consider reading one of Mr. Banville's novels as I understand he is excellent !!
3rd Most Disappointing Read of 2017 Award
I have been reading this for months. Dipping into it, being entranced for a few moments and then bored to tears for much longer. I kept asking myself this book cannot be about Prague. I adore Prague and this does not reflect her. I have been there on four occasions albeit not for the past twenty years. One time I was there for several weeks and grew to love her confusing, schizophrenegenic way whereas on the shorter visits I was simply enchanted. Prague feels old but not ancient. Prague is beautiful but heavily wrinkled. Prague is intelligent but deeply biased. Prague is refined but also haughty and deeply impoverished.
Prague is a perpetual twilight in Purgatory.
This book was mostly about Mr. Banville and his glimpses of Prague and his interactions with mostly "important" people rather than the average. His research facts although interesting were presented in a plodding pedantic way that I found tedious and times even odious. Does he love Prague ? I am uncertain and I read this book for months.
Perhaps Prague is one of those mysterious places that act as a distortive mirror and anyone who looks there sees an aspect of themselves that they never knew existed.
This was not a poor read but an inconsistent and frustrating one.
I wholeheartedly recommend visiting Prague with or without reading this book.
I will definitely go back to Prague someday and I will also consider reading one of Mr. Banville's novels as I understand he is excellent !!
December 23, 2011
Just wonderful. Inspired me to visit, which I did a couple of months ago. The book is atmospheric and surprising - there's a remarkable tale of Banville smuggling some of Josef Sudek's photographs out of the country. It's also funny (which I didn't expect from Banville, actually). This passage on Czech cuisine rings comically true -
‘Lunch. Ah. Perhaps this is the place to say a word about Czech cuisine; a word, and then on to more appetizing topics. My Czech friends, whom I value dearly and would not wish to offend, should skip smartly the next two paragraphs - you have been warned. I have eaten badly in many parts of the world. There is a certain plate of macaroni studded with gobbets of cow’s kidney that was served to me by a resentful cook - her name was Miss Grub, honestly, it was - at a friend’s house in London many years ago which I shall never forget. At a hostelry in a pleasant little town not far from Budapest I have been confronted by a steaming platter of sliced goose, mashed potato, and sauerkraut, three shades of glistening grey. And what about the inoffensive-looking green salad which I ate without a second thought in a little lunch place off the tourist trail one glorious autumn afternoon in Oaxaca, which infiltrated into my digestive system a bacillus, busy as a Mexican jumping bean, which was to cling to the inner lining of my intestines for three long, queasy, and intermittently galvanized months? I do not say that my culinary adventures in Prague were as awful as these. Indeed, I have had some fine meals there over the years. In general, however, it must be said, and I must say it, that the Czech cuisine is, well, no better than that of Bavaria, which statement is, as anyone who knows Bavaria well will confirm, a ringing denunciation. Both the Czechs and the Bavarians, close neighbors that they are, have in common an inexplicable but almost universal enthusiasm for… dumplings. These delicacies can be anything from the size of a stout marble - what in my childhood we called a knuckler - to that of a worn-out, soggy tennis ball, with which they share something of the same texture, and possibly of their taste. The Czech species comes in a broad variety of strains, from the very common houskové knedliky or bread dumplings, through the bramborové knedliky, potato dumplings, often temptingly served alongside a smoking midden of white sauerkraut, to the relatively rare - rare in my experience, anyway - ovocné knedliky, or fruit dumplings.
Perhaps the dumpling’s most striking characteristic is its extreme viscosity. It sits there on the plate, pale, tumorous, and hot, daring you to take your knife to it, and when you do, clinging to the steel with a kind of gummy amorousness, the wound making a sucking, smacking sound and closing on itself as soon as the blade has passed through. Dumplings can be served as an accompaniment to anything, whether the lowly párky, or hot dogs, or the mighty slab of svíckova, boiled fillet of beef.
That day at the Golden Tiger, if that is where it was, we stuck to simple fare: plates of only slightly worrying klóbasy - grilled sausages - and dark bread, heavy but good, washed down with bubbling beakers of glorious Czech beer, which tastes of hayfields baking in summer heat. But there would be other mealtimes, oh, there would, from which memory averts its gaze.’
From John Banville’s Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City.
‘Lunch. Ah. Perhaps this is the place to say a word about Czech cuisine; a word, and then on to more appetizing topics. My Czech friends, whom I value dearly and would not wish to offend, should skip smartly the next two paragraphs - you have been warned. I have eaten badly in many parts of the world. There is a certain plate of macaroni studded with gobbets of cow’s kidney that was served to me by a resentful cook - her name was Miss Grub, honestly, it was - at a friend’s house in London many years ago which I shall never forget. At a hostelry in a pleasant little town not far from Budapest I have been confronted by a steaming platter of sliced goose, mashed potato, and sauerkraut, three shades of glistening grey. And what about the inoffensive-looking green salad which I ate without a second thought in a little lunch place off the tourist trail one glorious autumn afternoon in Oaxaca, which infiltrated into my digestive system a bacillus, busy as a Mexican jumping bean, which was to cling to the inner lining of my intestines for three long, queasy, and intermittently galvanized months? I do not say that my culinary adventures in Prague were as awful as these. Indeed, I have had some fine meals there over the years. In general, however, it must be said, and I must say it, that the Czech cuisine is, well, no better than that of Bavaria, which statement is, as anyone who knows Bavaria well will confirm, a ringing denunciation. Both the Czechs and the Bavarians, close neighbors that they are, have in common an inexplicable but almost universal enthusiasm for… dumplings. These delicacies can be anything from the size of a stout marble - what in my childhood we called a knuckler - to that of a worn-out, soggy tennis ball, with which they share something of the same texture, and possibly of their taste. The Czech species comes in a broad variety of strains, from the very common houskové knedliky or bread dumplings, through the bramborové knedliky, potato dumplings, often temptingly served alongside a smoking midden of white sauerkraut, to the relatively rare - rare in my experience, anyway - ovocné knedliky, or fruit dumplings.
Perhaps the dumpling’s most striking characteristic is its extreme viscosity. It sits there on the plate, pale, tumorous, and hot, daring you to take your knife to it, and when you do, clinging to the steel with a kind of gummy amorousness, the wound making a sucking, smacking sound and closing on itself as soon as the blade has passed through. Dumplings can be served as an accompaniment to anything, whether the lowly párky, or hot dogs, or the mighty slab of svíckova, boiled fillet of beef.
That day at the Golden Tiger, if that is where it was, we stuck to simple fare: plates of only slightly worrying klóbasy - grilled sausages - and dark bread, heavy but good, washed down with bubbling beakers of glorious Czech beer, which tastes of hayfields baking in summer heat. But there would be other mealtimes, oh, there would, from which memory averts its gaze.’
From John Banville’s Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City.
February 25, 2016
a fascinating book..!
May 11, 2011
And now, from the man who doesn't know how to write a bad sentence, a travel book that isn't a travel book at all, but rather an elegant and witty appreciation of a city with many pasts. Banville's own past, both personal and literary--viz, his art-historical sort-of-trilogy BOOK OF EVIDENCE, GHOSTS, and ATHENA; his novel on Kepler--is woven through the fabric of Prague's history. The narrative is composed as a set of brief (nonfiction) stories and moves fluidly across time. I kept wondering as I read how it could be that someone who can write and think this well is wasting his time fooling around with mystery novels.
I would add PRAGUE PICTURES to the relatively short list of books that truly evoke a city rather than simply report its features and suggest how the reader might kill time there. I'm talking about books such as Joseph Roth's WHAT I SAW: REPORTS FROM BERLIN and Colm Toibin's HOMAGE TO BARCELONA. The book is part of the Bloomsbury series "The Writer and the City," which features notable authors treating favorite places, among them Peter Carey on Sydney and Edmund White on Paris. I look forward to seeing what they'll bring out next.
I would add PRAGUE PICTURES to the relatively short list of books that truly evoke a city rather than simply report its features and suggest how the reader might kill time there. I'm talking about books such as Joseph Roth's WHAT I SAW: REPORTS FROM BERLIN and Colm Toibin's HOMAGE TO BARCELONA. The book is part of the Bloomsbury series "The Writer and the City," which features notable authors treating favorite places, among them Peter Carey on Sydney and Edmund White on Paris. I look forward to seeing what they'll bring out next.
April 23, 2012
I have a friend who wrote his PhD thesis on Banville, so I tried reading his novel The Sea and failed utterly.
Then another friend found this book in the library. This friend grew up in Prague and she read the book in a single sitting.
I now begin to understand why he enjoys such a high reputation. This is my kind of travel book: serious, personal, lots of information and very well written. My only reservation is that the long chapter about 16th century astronomy doesn't really fit with the rest of the book.
And yes, it does make me want to visit Prague.
Then another friend found this book in the library. This friend grew up in Prague and she read the book in a single sitting.
I now begin to understand why he enjoys such a high reputation. This is my kind of travel book: serious, personal, lots of information and very well written. My only reservation is that the long chapter about 16th century astronomy doesn't really fit with the rest of the book.
And yes, it does make me want to visit Prague.
March 6, 2014
John Rogan reads from John Banville's book on Prague, which features architecture, street life, political reminiscence and some fruit dumplings at a 'literary pub'.
Broadcast on:
BBC Radio 3, 7:55pm Thursday 26th November 2009
Banville was not keen on the dumplings but loved the beer; he also hated churches which house terror and "the hush of past sacrifices".
Broadcast on:
BBC Radio 3, 7:55pm Thursday 26th November 2009
Banville was not keen on the dumplings but loved the beer; he also hated churches which house terror and "the hush of past sacrifices".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2024
yay literally just finished this at the airport en route to prague!! this was exactly what i wanted and i can’t believe it exists… thank you bloomsbury thank you john banville 🤓🙏 read on my kindle /libby
October 15, 2024
Magnífico retrato de Praga, con una escritura finísima, nabokoviana, siempre certera. No es cinco estrellas porque flojea -paradójicamente- en la doble semblanza Brahe/Kepler, y tal vez en algún apunte más propio de guía turística. Ay, Praga, ay.
July 27, 2011
Oh what a pompous wandering 'recounting' this is...ugh. I read this before and DURING my visit to Prague. The BEST thing I brought way from it was an introduction to Sudek, the photographer...although Prague doesn't think much of him except to capitalize on his photos of the St. Vitus Cathderal - which ARE wonderful...
This was, I guess, just too melodramatic for me and so very personal to Banville. It was NOT, in my opinion, a 'portrait' but rather a vague, 'mystical' wandering which may or may not be Prague.
...the reader IS warned in advance that this is NOT a travelogue but I have absolutely enjoyed the memories of other places from those who one expects to write well about their experiences. This one seemed too cliched to be true.
This was, I guess, just too melodramatic for me and so very personal to Banville. It was NOT, in my opinion, a 'portrait' but rather a vague, 'mystical' wandering which may or may not be Prague.
...the reader IS warned in advance that this is NOT a travelogue but I have absolutely enjoyed the memories of other places from those who one expects to write well about their experiences. This one seemed too cliched to be true.
April 3, 2016
A lovely little tour around some of my favorite old stomping grounds of Prague. Reading this I realized that the relationship between Tycho Brahe and Johan Kepler was reminiscent of Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange, which brought in a lot of new levels for me. At times Banville can be a little pretentious, but it's a trap a lot of expat and travel writers fall into that may be unavoidable. Everyone has such a unique experience of a place, especially when being a foreigner, and his times in Prague were very different from mine.
Highly recommend for people who've lived in Prague. Beautiful walk down memory lane, and then some.
Highly recommend for people who've lived in Prague. Beautiful walk down memory lane, and then some.
December 22, 2017
Banville informs greatly in long passages of history, mostly 16th century during the reign of mad emperor Rudolph II. He also gives a glimpse of pre 1989 in current times and of Prague in the 90s and after the flood of 2002. So he covers the long history of Prague in a very short book yet leaves me with a sense of the city that I visited recently to add to my impressions. As always he writes beautifully.
September 18, 2013
Banville's quirky view of Prague - his limited visits during the cold war 80's, a later visit after the fall of communism, a skewed history of the city, a chapter on Tycho Brahe and Kepler, ....
Entertaining and saved me from visiting Prague.
Entertaining and saved me from visiting Prague.
January 1, 2012
Read Ripellino.
August 10, 2017
A beautiful book about Prague but it appears the author is a raving misogynist. No thanks.
September 29, 2017
There are plenty of books of stories about Prague. In most of them, you don't have to suffer Banville's condescending, turgid prose.
January 29, 2019
I read this book the first time in 2007, after visiting Prague for the second time. Both times I stayed there for 9 days and could have happily spent longer in this great city.
I have now reread and enjoyed Banville's book as much as the first time. The way he portrays the professor in the first chapter when he meets him for the first time is superb. His pondering about the little things he remembers, when he thinks about the city and the 16th-century astronomers he brings back to life will make me look at the city in a different light when I visit again. His prose is beautiful and this book is a little gem. Some people don't seem to understand the concept of the writer and the city, but that's okay. Just don't expect a travel guide.
I have now reread and enjoyed Banville's book as much as the first time. The way he portrays the professor in the first chapter when he meets him for the first time is superb. His pondering about the little things he remembers, when he thinks about the city and the 16th-century astronomers he brings back to life will make me look at the city in a different light when I visit again. His prose is beautiful and this book is a little gem. Some people don't seem to understand the concept of the writer and the city, but that's okay. Just don't expect a travel guide.
April 21, 2019
I found this little book in a local Op-Shop, and as someone who likes John Banville and who has been to Prague, I thought that I was onto a winner, especially for just $2. I was not disappointed. I spent five days in Prague in the winter of 1990. It was still undeveloped for the tourist and so was perfect to absorb some of the stories and legends. And that is what this little book does, gives you a hint at the many, many stories that lurk in the city streets. There are too many myths and histories to do justice to in any book, so it would be wrong to try. What Banville does is to mix some history with the memories of his own visits, providing some personal vignettes to balance against, among others, the histories of the Emperor Rudolf, Tycho Brahe and the wonderfully disreputable Englishman, Edward Kelly. It is a city of too many stories, but it is lovely to be given a few which leave you wanting more.
The stories in this book are not all about centuries old historical figures. I particularly enjoyed learning about Josef Sudek, the one-armed photographer, whose atmospheric black and white photographs of Prague are so beautiful. He lost an arm in the First World War, but was resilient enough to want to study to become a photographer, and carried around a huge camera and tripod, together with a black sack which was large enough to accommodate photographer and camera and into which he would dive to change the film in his camera. The fact that he mixed his own developing fluids was to me a nod towards the city itself, which was always full of alchemists of one sort or another.
In one of his asides, Banville says this about the Emperor Rudolf:
“Jealous, paranoid, hypochondriacal, incurably melancholic, obsessed with the passage of time and terrified at the prospect of death, Rudolf was a compulsive collector, filling room after room of Prague Castle with talismanic objects meant to stave off mortality and be a barrier against the world, all sorts of rubbish and kitsch tumbling together with exquisite objects d’art. As is so often the case with weak men who inherit vast power, he was obsessed with things in miniature, hiring entire schools of craftsmen to carve and emboss and inlay the tiniest surfaces, of pearls, nut shells, cherry pits, flakes of amber, bird’s eggs, sharks’ teeth, gall stones. No expense was spared, no effort was thought too great. He purchased a painting in Venice, Das Rosenkranzfest, by one of his favourite artists, Albrecht Dürer, and had it carried on foot across the Alps by four stout men, one at each corner.”
I had not realised, until I saw it on the back cover, that this was part of a series of books published by Bloomsbury, about cities around the world. I already own the volume by Edmund White about being a flâneur in Paris, but there are others about New York, Florence, Oxford and Sydney. Let’s see what I can find in the next Op-Shop.
The stories in this book are not all about centuries old historical figures. I particularly enjoyed learning about Josef Sudek, the one-armed photographer, whose atmospheric black and white photographs of Prague are so beautiful. He lost an arm in the First World War, but was resilient enough to want to study to become a photographer, and carried around a huge camera and tripod, together with a black sack which was large enough to accommodate photographer and camera and into which he would dive to change the film in his camera. The fact that he mixed his own developing fluids was to me a nod towards the city itself, which was always full of alchemists of one sort or another.
In one of his asides, Banville says this about the Emperor Rudolf:
“Jealous, paranoid, hypochondriacal, incurably melancholic, obsessed with the passage of time and terrified at the prospect of death, Rudolf was a compulsive collector, filling room after room of Prague Castle with talismanic objects meant to stave off mortality and be a barrier against the world, all sorts of rubbish and kitsch tumbling together with exquisite objects d’art. As is so often the case with weak men who inherit vast power, he was obsessed with things in miniature, hiring entire schools of craftsmen to carve and emboss and inlay the tiniest surfaces, of pearls, nut shells, cherry pits, flakes of amber, bird’s eggs, sharks’ teeth, gall stones. No expense was spared, no effort was thought too great. He purchased a painting in Venice, Das Rosenkranzfest, by one of his favourite artists, Albrecht Dürer, and had it carried on foot across the Alps by four stout men, one at each corner.”
I had not realised, until I saw it on the back cover, that this was part of a series of books published by Bloomsbury, about cities around the world. I already own the volume by Edmund White about being a flâneur in Paris, but there are others about New York, Florence, Oxford and Sydney. Let’s see what I can find in the next Op-Shop.
Read
September 21, 2012 From
Here is the latest installment in Bloomsbury's fascinating Writer in the City series, which matches well-known writers with cities with which they are intimately familiar. Banville has not written a guidebook but rather, in his own words, "a handful of recollections, variations on a theme"--snapshots, if you like, of the city's past and present. The book begins with the author's first visit to Prague, during the cold war, but as we go deeper into the book, we also go deeper into the city's history. Banville flicks so effortlessly between past and present that Prague soon appears as a collage, effectively lifting the city's rich and visible past out of time and bringing it to life once again, as the author visits the birthplace of Franz Kafka or steps inside a cathedral whose construction was begun in 1344. While most travel memoirs clearly distinguish between the way a place is today and the way it used to be, Banville's perspective is somewhat different. This, he says, is Prague, past and present, the way it has always been. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
"As remarkable a literary voice as any to come out of Ireland, Joyce and Beckettt notwithstanding." -- ,San Francisco Chronicle,
"Ireland's finest contemporary novelist." -- ,The Economist,
"Mr. Banville is that rare writer who can pack all five senses into one declarattive sentence." -- ,Wall Street Journal,
"What is unusual-defiantly and therefore perhaps gloriously so-about Banville.iss the prose: poetic, sensuous, revelatory." -- ,New York Review of Books,
Praise for John Banville:
"Ireland's finest contemporary novelist."-_The Economist_
"Mr. Banville is that rare writer who can pack all five senses into one declarative sentence."
-_Wall Street Journal_
"As remarkable a literary voice as any to come out of Ireland, Joyce and Beckett notwithstanding."-_San Francisco Chronicle_
"What is unusual-defiantly and therefore perhaps gloriously so-about Banville...is the prose: poetic, sensuous, revelatory."-_New York Review of Books_
-- Review
June 13, 2015
The concept of ‘armchair travel’ seems a bit antiquated in these days of discount world-wide travel, but happily this small series, “The Writer and the City” from Bloomsbury Press will do much to revive this neglected literary genre. “Caveat Emptor…[begins the preface]. This is not a guidebook, nor was it meant to be. As to what it is, that is harder to say. A handful of recollections, variations on a theme. An effort to conjure a place be a mingled effort of memory and imagination…” Conjure, he does, as Banville brings Prague to life first through his own 1980s cold war visit where he engaged in a ‘spot of art smuggling’, to a look at the city in the 1500s through the lens of Tycho Brahe and scientist Johannes Kepler. The complex history of the city comes alive in this section and is contrasted with its diminution in the 1950s. Banville concludes the book with his own return visit in the 1990s when he finds himself convening a session, much to his dismay, on east-west influences in Czech literature. You would expect the writers in this series to be famous literary denizens of their assigned metropolis. Not in this case. Banville is an Irish writer, noted most recently as the winner of the Man Booker Prize for his 2005 novel, The Sea. He is clearly passionate about Prague and brings both its history and residents, common or famous, to life. A gem.
May 5, 2017
3.5 stars. You won't learn much if you're already familiar with Prague's history, but Banville does an excellent job at capturing the magic the city exudes. My favorite section is about Josef Sudek, whose photographs I have always admired but whose personal life I knew little of. It strikes me as unusual that as a fan I wouldn't know the man was an amputee, but there you have it. I greatly appreciated Banville's descriptions of the subtleties of the city, for example its inhabitants' tendency to remove or cover the dust jackets of books, a residual habit of the communist era. Banville wrote the book in 2003, but Praguers were still hiding their literary selections from potential informers in 2016 when I was living there. Prague Pictures is also good for sparking sweet, fleeting memories for anyone who has spent a decent amount of time in the Czech capital; at the mention of Slezska Avenue where Banville attends a small party, my heart skipped a beat as I recalled the flat I shared with three wonderful women on that same street and the wonderful birthday party of my roommate Vojtys at which I was introduced to Slovak "Tequila." Overall very enjoyable, though I could have done without the self-referential footnotes and the chapter on Kepler and Brahe for whom Banville seems to have an irrepressible boner.
January 3, 2013
Banville writes by way of a semi-apology that this is not a travel guide. It is rather his reminiscences and impressions of a city he visited both before and after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989 (as well as more recently). The luscious thing about the book is Banville's familiar voice: irreverent, self-deprecating, erudite and subversively humorous.
It is with sadness that I must now sit and wait for the next Banville book to be published. I've read all his novels, his single short story collection, the detective fiction published under the semi-pseudonym Benjamin Black and even the privately-printed children's book The Ark (which I copied out in long hand during a visit to the nation Library of Ireland last autumn—all of forty-six mostly illustrated pages). Of course there are numerous periodical pieces which I search out, and still a first-edition of those short stories which contain additional selections deleted in the edition I own. I guess there's always the opportunity to reread some of my favourites.
It is with sadness that I must now sit and wait for the next Banville book to be published. I've read all his novels, his single short story collection, the detective fiction published under the semi-pseudonym Benjamin Black and even the privately-printed children's book The Ark (which I copied out in long hand during a visit to the nation Library of Ireland last autumn—all of forty-six mostly illustrated pages). Of course there are numerous periodical pieces which I search out, and still a first-edition of those short stories which contain additional selections deleted in the edition I own. I guess there's always the opportunity to reread some of my favourites.
January 2, 2016
Irish novelist and Booker winner Banville's short book seeks to conjure Magical Prague. a lengthy excursus on Johannes Kepler recalls not only the Rudolfine Prague of adepts, alchemists and astrologers but also Banville's own 1981 novel of Kepler's life. Remarkably, the author had not visited the Bohemian capital before he evoked its 17th century spirit. Many of his subsequent visits were while the Communist regime persisted, and the book is a meditation on survival as well as on memory. Not a travelogue or a guide, Prague nevertheless convinces in tracing why this phenomenal city is inescapably marked in the memories of those who've visited, and how it calls us to return.
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February 21, 2017A question on what a city means to someone. Is it the physical entity, person's living on it, its place in history, or something else. Banville's foreword summarized the book perfectly. It's Banville's letter to the city as his forgotten love. It's Banville's Prague like every woman (or man) is her lover's version of it. I'll re-read it more carefully next time, it does have parts that dragged a bit. The footnotes are perfect as a running commentary.
four stars
(looks like a Prague reading binge is on horizon...)
four stars
(looks like a Prague reading binge is on horizon...)
December 27, 2015
I adored this book, given to me this summer by a dear friend who knows of my 4 years living in Prague and bits of my time there. Now, 2 years post-Prague, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It felt as if while reading that John Banville and I sat side by side in many of the same cafes, observing the same people, falling in love with a city with a soul which can never be completely captured, whether by legendary Sudek photographs or by beautiful and observant Banville words. Prague is a mystery, captivating to the core. This is a perfect book for those under Prague's spell. I loved it deeply.
February 22, 2016
Belo livro. Um passeio por uma cidade mágica e histórica. Incrível como o escritor John Banville condensa muito bem as suas experiências ao longo dos anos, antes e após a queda do comunismo e a história de grandes astrónomos que ficaram ligados a esta cidade no século XVI.
Lê-se muito bem e gosto muito dos apartes do autor que gosta de ironizar um pouco sobre aspectos absurdos. As imagens da capa são estranhas mas explicadas no livro.
Fiquei com vontade de conhecer a cidade onde foi filmado o "Amadeus" em 1985 em lugar de Viena.
Um lugar mágico.
Lê-se muito bem e gosto muito dos apartes do autor que gosta de ironizar um pouco sobre aspectos absurdos. As imagens da capa são estranhas mas explicadas no livro.
Fiquei com vontade de conhecer a cidade onde foi filmado o "Amadeus" em 1985 em lugar de Viena.
Um lugar mágico.
February 15, 2016
This is a love story not about a women but a city. It is a great example of a travel book not with practical information for the tourist, but the vibe and personality of a place. Banville provides a history of Prague through a few key historical figures and overlays his own travels. The history is a jumble which is his intent. I often read this type of travelogue and been frustrated as it is more about the author than the place. This has the right balance of interesting facts, personal observations, and funny anecdotes. Banville's writing makes it a joy to read
June 29, 2008
Banville did an excellent job at capturing my own feelings toward Prague. Even though it's been years since I was there, it's a city that has firmly lodged itself in my mind and just won't leave.
This book is a series of portraits of a city, both modern and historical. Some of them are based on Banville's own visits to and experiences in Prague, while others are based on historical research into various famous inhabitants.
This book is a series of portraits of a city, both modern and historical. Some of them are based on Banville's own visits to and experiences in Prague, while others are based on historical research into various famous inhabitants.
February 12, 2011
Banville's reflections make for very interesting reading when viewed from the perspective of another Irish writer mixing it up in the Golden City. I had no idea this Booker-prize winning Wexford man had such a connection with the Czech capital, but his historical and literary-themed ponderings are a treat for any thinking person based here in CZ. What a great idea for a series of books on The Writer and the City too, more please!
March 26, 2012
Banville is poetic but gets locked into his own personal obsessions--e.g., a long section on the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and his disciple the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, servants of the Emperor in Prague in the late 16th C--for long digressions. Well, these are just "pictures," not a comprehensive picture.
October 21, 2016
Muito bom ler Banville descrever Praga através de histórias por ele vividas com personagens locais, muitas vezes relatando a história de algumas...subindo pela árvore genealógica acima. Ainda...histórias de personagens históricas, grande vidas, que envolveram Praga. Se eu já gostava de Praga, após a leitura desta bela obra, fiquei com a curiosidade aguçada para nova(s) visita(s)!
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