The Untouchable (Vintage International)

"Maskell takes his place with John le Carre's Alec Leamas as one of spy fiction'sxa0greatest characters.xa0 Poetic and deeply affecting." — People "[Banville's] books are not only an illuminating read—for they are always packed with information and learning—but a joyful and durable source of aesthetic satisfaction." — The New York Review of Books "Enthralling... Victor Maskell is a thinly disguised Anthony Blunt... Banville has pulled off a marvelous series of tricks." — The Spectator "Banville has the skill, ambition and learning to stand at the end of the great tradition of modernist writers." — Times Literary Supplement "It must by now be an open secret that on this [U.K.] side of the Atlantic, Banville is the most intelligent and stylish novelist at work." — The Observer "Banville's acute characterization and laceratingly witty prose capture perfectly the paradoxically idealistic yet cynical mood of the upper classes in 1930s Britain." — Time Out "An icy detailed portrait of a traitor, and a precise meditation on the nature of belief and betrayal... subtle, sad, and deeply moving work." — Kirkus Reviews "Delectably droll and masterful... The rich fabric of this novel blends the shrewd humor of a comedy of manners with the suspense of a tale of espionage." — Booklist "[Written with] grace and intelligence... His story is so well told that why he spied—and who betrayed him—become secondary." — Library Journal A brilliant, engaging, and highly literate espionage-cum-existential novel, John Banville's The Untouchable concerns the suddenly-exposed double agent Victor Maskell, a character based on the real Cambridge intellectual elites who famously spied on the United Kingdom in the middle of the 20th century. But Maskell--scholar, adventurer, soldier, art curator, and more--respected and still living in England well past his retirement from espionage, looked like he was going to get away with it when suddenly, in his 70s and sick with cancer, he is unmasked. The question of why, and by whom is not as important for Maskell as the larger question of who finally he himself really is, why he spied in the first place, and whether his many-faceted existence adds up to an authentic life. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Inside Flap wenty years after his "retirement, " ex-spy Victor Maskell attempts to come to terms with what has happened to his life by embarking on his memoirs. This is the plot which fuels Banville's stunning new novel--a story that goes beyond the mere facts of espionage to penetrate the intricate heart of the spy. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Library Journal The author of such exemplary works as Athena (LJ 5/1/95), Irishman Banville here takes on the juicy challenge of writing a spy novel and handles the assignment with far more grace and intelligence than even the best of that genre's authors. Double-agent Victor Maskell wakes up one morning to discover that after years of informing on London for Moscow, someone has informed on him. To sort out what has happened, he begins a journal. What follows is the richly detailed account of a man who clearly had convictions but whose behavior remains an enigma throughout. As he recalls his Irish childhood, complete with pastor father, beloved stepmother, and retarded brother; his emotional entanglements with careless golden boy Nick and his sister, Baby, whom Victor quite oddly marries long before he realizes that he is gay; and his relations with a slew of hedonistic, upper-class Englishmen too incisively characterized to be mere types, Victor remains subtle, crusty, and tantalizingly out of reach. His story is so well told that why he spied?and who betrayed him?become secondary. Highly recommended. -?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fourteen previous novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. He has received a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From AudioFile Banville's novel about British spy Victor Maskell is a virtuoso achievement, creating a fascinating protagonist who comes alive in breathtaking complexity. Based on the real-life Anthony Blunt, Maskell is an aesthete homosexual and the curator of the Queen's art collection, whose treachery on behalf of the Soviets is publicly exposed only when he's deep into old age. As written by Banville and beautifully interpreted by Wallis, Maskell is brilliant, sardonic and acerbic, very likely the most fully imagined spy in all of literature. Wallis is a sly and often surprising reader who captures Maskell's chary wit and his surgical perceptions while never straying from the self-loathing Maskell bears as he surveys the hollowness of his long life. Listeners should be forewarned. The Untouchable bears no resemblance to a conventional spy thriller. Instead, it's an extraordinary delineation of a character for whom betrayal is both an instrument and a consequence. M.O. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. One of the most dazzling and adventurous writers now working in English takes on the enigma of the Cambridge spies in a novel of exquisite menace, biting social comedy, and vertiginous moral complexity. The narrator is the elderly Victor Maskell, formerly of British intelligence, for many years art expert to the Queen. Now he has been unmasked as a Russian agent and subjected to a disgrace that is almost a kind of death. But at whose instigation? As Maskell retraces his tortuous path from his recruitment at Cambridge to the airless upper regions of the establishment, we discover a figure of manifold doubleness: Irishman and Englishman; husband, father, and lover of men; betrayer and dupe. Beautifully written, filled with convincing fictional portraits of Maskell's co-conspirators, and vibrant with the mysteries of loyalty and identity, "The Untouchable places John Banville in the select company of both Conrad and le Carre. Winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction "Contemporary fiction gets no better than this... Banville's books teem with life and humor." - Patrick McGrath, "The New York Times Book Review"Victor Maskell is one of the great characters in recent fiction... "The Untouchable is the best work of art in any medium on [its] subject." -"Washington Post Book World"As remarkable a literary voice as any to come out of Ireland; Joyce and Beckett notwithstanding." -"San Francisco Chronicle --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Booklist Banville's lustrous sentences are full of the volatile interplay between memory, observation, and emotion. The story begins just after Victor Maskell--a knighted art historian in his seventies, passionate about both art and crime--has been exposed as one of the Cambridge spies. This catastrophe causes him to reflect on his past, and Banville is off and running with a delectably droll and masterful fictionalization of this infamous World War II and cold war spy ring. He creates a vivid cast of randy, heavy-drinking dissemblers, two of whom, including our hero, are homosexual, a serious criminal offense. So Maskell--art scholar and spy; husband, father, and lover of men--lives more than a double life. But this description can only suggest the hilarity and wisdom worked into the rich fabric of this novel, which blends the shrewd humor of a comedy of manners with the suspense of a tale of espionage. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Kirkus Reviews An icy, detailed portrait of a traitor, and a precise meditation on the nature of belief and betrayal. Banville (Athena, 1995, etc.) tends to allow the shimmering intensity of his prose to overcome plot and character. This time out, though, he keeps matters moving along briskly and his prose, while still vigorous, firmly under control. Sir Victor Maskell, an elderly, much-honored art historian, is revealed in Parliament to have been a spy for the Soviets. Stripped of his knighthood, his various positions and honors, and dying of cancer, Maskell sits down to explain himself. The resulting memoir, ironic, full of lacerating self-knowledge and acidic portraits of his fellow traitors, provides both a lively portrait of art and intelligence circles in Britain from the 1920s to the '70s and a meditation on the forces that inspire treason. Victor is a suitably complex and tormented figure. (Banville, to his credit, is clearly not interested in making him a particularly sympathetic one.) He is a perpetual outsider: An Irish Protestant, far less self-assured than his elegant Cambridge classmates, ambiguous about his sexuality, and more interested in art history than in the contemporary world, he seems to embrace Marxism more to fit in than to assert some firm belief, and to become a traitor more to please his friends than to assert a cause. This is, of course, well-plowed ground: Maskell is in some ways decidedly similar to Anthony Blunt, the art historian/spy, and his circle equally recognizable. Still, Maskell's fierce intelligence, his unblinking consideration of his past, sets this book apart from most fictional explorations of the spy's mentality. There's another reason that Maskell is writing his memoirs: He hopes, by doing so, to uncover who it was that turned him in, and why. He does so, in a bitterly ironic and understated climax. A resonant reworking of a seemingly exhausted genre, and a subtle, sad, and deeply moving work. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more