J P O'Malley

Interview with a writer: John Banville

The salubrious surroundings of the Waldorf Hotel seem like a very apt setting to interview a master of style and sophistication. When I arrive in the lobby, John Banville is nowhere to be seen. Peeping into the bar, I notice a grey haired man with a moustache, wearing a tuxedo, softly playing a grand piano. Taking a seat, this strikes me as the kind of place that Alex Cleave would enjoy a drink.

Alex is a semi-retired actor, and the central protagonist and narrator of Ancient Light; a novel that recalls a passionate love affair that took place over fifty years ago. The object of Alex’s desire was Mrs Gray, his best friend’s mother, who was 35, when he was a naïve 15-year-old boy.

When Banville finally turns up, I begin by asking him if this tale is based from any wild sexual escapades he might have experienced in his own teenage years? ‘I wish I’d had a Mrs Gray when I was 15, I certainly didn’t,’ he says with a wry smile.

As an adolescent growing up in Wexford — on the south east coast of Ireland — in the early 1960s, Banville says casual sex, as portrayed in his book, was a very rare commodity.

‘We were very innocent sexually. There was very little sex, particularly any serious, penetrative sex. But I feel I had quite a sexually active adolescence. Kissing was just amazing: two people of the opposite sex, putting their mouths together, it was extraordinary. I suppose I never got over that.’

Banville attended St Peters College in Wexford, an institution that seems to have made little impact on him, intellectually or otherwise.

‘The place was supposed to have been a hot bed of pedophilia, and homosexuality, and I suppose it was. But we just thought it was funny. But the priests I dealt with, most of them were good, decent men.’

Soon Banville is lambasting the Catholic Church, whose methods of obtaining power, he says, worked through ‘inculcating fear and terror in the young.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in