The central mystery in this novel by Benjamin Black (John Banville) was not too hard to figure out. I am not usually good at these kinds of things, but here I knew the ending on page 62 (of 340), although there were more surprises in store that I did not foresee. The page cite is no spoiler. There is no "clue" there; it just became instantly clear to me then what was going on. The story is a good one, although a bit long-winded.
But what struck me more than anything in this book was the use of the verb "frown." As in: frown, frowned, frowning, frowningly (an adverb no less!). I wish I had a way to search the text for instances of "frown" and its variants; if there are fewer than 50 I would be shocked. I've noticed the overuse of this word in other writers from England and Ireland, for example William Nicholson (whom I admire). The problem is, "frown" is a lousy, vague verb, and using it repeatedly is lazy and ineffective and annoying to the reader. What is a frown? The first thing that comes to mind is a smile turned upside down, maybe with the lower lip pushed out. Surely the characters aren't making that exaggerated gesture. A subtle frown might be a clenching of the jaw, tightening of the mouth, or pursing of the lips; why not say that? A good writer should be able to find multiple ways of describing a character's discomfort. Instead, we have in Christine Falls a parade of frowns. It's just bad writing. One or two frowns in a book, sure; but dozens and dozens? It reminds me of Richard Price's Lush Life, to my mind a bad novel, in which he uses the formulation "he tilted his chin at (someone)" four times in the first 130 pages. (And besides, I don't even have a picture of what "tilting his chin" looks like; it's something made up parading as an idiom.)
I'll move on to book two of the Quirke series, but I hope it doesn't leave me frowning.
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