The Singularities: A Novel

Written by John Banville

Narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith

From the revered Booker Prize-winning author comes a playful, multilayered novel of nostalgia, life and death, and quantum theory, which opens with the return of one of his most celebrated characters as he is released from prison.

“A triumphant piece of writing…Prose of such luscious elegance…Exhilarating.” —The New York Times Book Review

A man with a borrowed name steps from a flashy red sports car—also borrowed—onto the estate of his youth. But all is not as it seems. There is a new family living in the drafty old house: the Godleys, descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley, whose theory of existence threw the universe into chaos. And this mystery man, who has just completed a prison sentence, feels as if time has stopped, or was torn, or was opened in new and strange ways. He must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, with their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, with the recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr., and with a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request.

With sparkling intelligence and rapier wit, John Banville revisits some of his career’s most memorable figures, in a novel as mischievous as it is brilliantly conceived. The Singularities occupies a singular space and will surely be one of his most admired works.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9780593627709

John Banville

John Banville (Wexford, Irlanda, 1945) ha trabajado como editor de The Irish Times y es colaborador habitual de The New York Review of Books. Con El libro de las pruebas (Alfaguara, 2014) —integrado más tarde en Trilogía de Freddie Montgomery (Alfaguara, 2020), junto con Fantasmas y Atenea— fue finalista del Premio Booker, que obtuvo en 2005 con El mar (Alfaguara, 2019), consagrada además por el Irish Book Award como mejor novela del año. Entre sus obras publicadas en Alfaguara destacan también El intocable (2015), la Trilogía Cleave —Eclipse(2014), Imposturas (2015) y Antigua luz (2012)—, La guitarra azul (2016), La señora Osmond (2018) y Tetralogía científica (2022), que reúne en un solo volumen las novelas Copérnico (ganadora del James Tait Black Memorial Prize), Kepler (merecedora del Premio de Ficción de The Guardian), La carta de Newton y Mefisto. Bajo el pseudónimo de Benjamin Black, que continúa utilizandoexclusivamente en sus ediciones en español, ha publicado en Alfaguara El lémur (2009), la serie protagonizada por el doctor Quirke —El secreto de Christine (2007, 2023), El otro nombre de Laura (2008), En busca de April (2011), Muerte en verano (2012), Venganza (2013), Órdenes sagradas (2015), Las sombras de Quirke (2017) y Quirke en San Sebastián (2021)—, La rubia de ojos negros (2014), Los lobos de Praga (2019) y Las singularidades (2023). En 2014 le fue otorgado el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras por «su inteligente, honda y original creación novelesca». La alquimia del tiempo (2024) es su última novela y uno de los mejores libros de 2024 según Babelia.

Reviews for The Singularities

[doondeck · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful and imaginative writing, but this was a very confusing story. Switching between the first and third person narrative added to the confusion.

[kjuliff-519887 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Banville at his wicked best.

[Yubiwa70 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's not his best book; at times it seems to steal previous ideas, riding in good prose toward nowhere, like a Thelma without her Louise, heading knowingly towards plunging into nothingness from her drunken and crazy escape, with hands off the wheel, hair tangled and already dirty, without cool sunglasses, half-crying, with remnants of vomit still on the stolen handkerchief that smells old... (Translated from Spanish)

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book even though there isn't much of a discernable plot. The parts are better than the whole. Filled with references, Literary, Biblical and more it rewards the avid reader.

[BernardaLectora · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I know he is a good writer. Very well-known.
But I can't seem to like him. Every so often, I "give myself a chance" and try again. This was my 5th book.
It came with very good reviews, like his masterpiece.
I found it heavy, boring, and repetitive. He got involved in a story with some "alternative scientific" ideas that he couldn't develop and they "were too much".
The only book I liked from him was "Ancient Light". (Translated from Spanish)

[Jopa20q8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I would first read the synopsis of this book and then this comment. I say this to just mention the strange experience I had while reading it. Banville says it was "difficult" to write. You can tell. It is very hard to read. But is it worth it? The answer is yes. It is a "hard" reading test. But it is not a meaningless "literary experiment." The characters, their ways of thinking and acting all at once, are incredible. It's like holding your breath underwater, diving among fantastic tropical coral fish, and then coming up to breathe only to dive back in again, that intense. Recommended. (Translated from Spanish)

[maryreinert · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Just too weird for me although I know the writing is smooth, prosaic, and sometimes even interesting. Several characters come together at a place each bringing some history: an convict recently released, the son of a famous scientist whose theory has changed the world making all math and physics outdated and unproven, his wife, and a man charged with writing the biography of the dead scientist. The book held me for a while - too far to let go, but really, why did I waste my time. Probably just not a smart enough or careful enough reader for this.

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A man calling himself Felix Mordaunt has recently been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. He returns to his former home in the Irish countryside, which is now owned by the Godley family. The family’s patriarch, Adam Godley, now deceased, was a famous scientist. Felix finagles his way into the household. He interacts with the homeowners, household staff, and another stranger who arrives soon afterward. The two interlopers have their own agendas.

The story is told in alternating points of view. The writing is intellectual and is focused on the characters. It is not for anyone looking for a conventional plot. There are elements of revenge, redemption, and quantum theory, a bit of an odd combination. It starts out well enough but gets more scattered and disjointed as it goes along. There are apparently characters from previous of Banville’s books. I am not sure how much it helps to have read them, but I have not. This book contains beautiful prose, but I found it slow and uneven.

[nancyadair-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

He knew it as Coolgrange, but returned to find it was Arden. He thought he could return home, but home was the same and yet not. Released early from life imprisonment for murder, he takes on a new name and returns to the scene of the crime. He is welcomed and given a room, hired on as a driver.

In the house is the son of Adam Godley and his movie star wife, a spinster caretaker, and hidden away, an elderly woman with a habit, lost in her memories. A man is hired to research Adam Godley Sr. and write his biography.

He is as much a cipher to himself as he was and is to them.

from The Singularities by John Banville
The characters are mysteries to each other and to themselves. Was life just “elaborate coincidences,” reality “no more than the jumbled fragments of a shattered frieze behind which an altogether other order of things is serenely and immovably fixed”?

I loved Banville’s writing, his long sentences filled with wit and twists. We are introduced to Freddy Montgomery/Felix Mordaunt with, “The notion of an assumed identity excited him, the poor sap; as if a new name could hide old sins.”

Early on, our narrator tells us, “See how my winged helm gleams in the morning light,” and we realize that it is the god Hermes/Mercury, the god of financial gain, travelers, messages, boundaries, luck, trickery, and thieves, who is telling the story. Greek myth pervades the novel.

The device allows us entry into the heads of different characters. Young Adam Godley’s wife is Helen, (who we know as a legendary beauty in Greek story), who talks about her son, “her Hercules,” named for the Greek hero whose mother was a legendary beauty. When she sees Mordaunt arrive at the gate, she wonders if he was “an Amphitryon back from the wars,” the man who married Hercules’s mother.

A startling theory by Adam Godley, Sr. challenges the nature of reality, the universe, and time. His ‘olympian detachment’ was legendary, and Jaybey has been asked by Adam Jr. to write his biography. He moves into Arden House, only to be enchanted by Helen.

An old associate and flame returns with a startling request for Mordaunt. The past interrelationships between the characters are revealed.

Readers for plot will be disappointed. The characters are sharp and interesting, but it’s the underlying ideas that will either puzzle or intrigue readers. I definitely need a second reading to feel I have conquered this one. But as a stylist, Banville enchants.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.