The Untouchable - Hardcover

Banville, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330339311 ISBN 13: 9780330339315

Publisher: Picador, 1997

Synopsis

Examines the lives of the Cambridge spies, and in particular Anthony Blunt. The story is told by Blunt, in the form of a journal which starts on the "first day of the new life". The author uses the "secret life" as a way to explore the darker realms of the 20th century and its hidden minds.

About this title

Review:

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 unexpectedly, in his 70s and sick with cancer, he is unmasked. The question of why, and by whom assumes less importance for Maskell than the soul-searching questions of who, ultimately, he really is, why he spied in the first place, and whether his many-faceted existence adds up to an authentic life.

Review:

No novel burrowed deeper beneath my skin than The Untouchable . . . Prose of great elegance, applied to a sardonic narrative, created an atmosphere at once austere, chilling and utterly believable. (John Coldstream Daily Telegraph)

Banville is the most intelligent and stylish novelist currently at work in English . . . the mien is austere and Victorian; the awareness, the ironic readings of the contemporary are razor-sharp. (George Steiner Observer)

Brilliant displays of power and control . . . magnificently written and, in its exploration of inhumanity, startlingly humane. (Alex Clark Guardian)

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0330339311
• ISBN 13: 9780330339315
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352