The Sea

In this section, Max’s increasing rejection of his parents and his snubbing of his former friends shed further light on the role of class insecurities in his highly charged relationship with the Graces. Max’s social and snobbish scrutiny of the others at the Cedars shows that this is a continued anxiety in his life; his judgment of them, often on petty social issues, shows that he still needs to bolster a sense of superiority in lieu of true contentment.

These pages also further develop the theme of Childhood and Coming of Age, as the physical cruelty of the three children is on one level a manifestation of their burgeoning sexuality, a subconscious attempt to gain control against the increasingly problematic relationship they have with their own bodies and physical sensations. The vision of childhood presented in Banville’s novel is increasingly anti-romantic, and this section of the novel leans into the subversion of the potentially idyllic and nostalgic holiday setting. The childhood that Max looks back on is characterized by a brutal, instinctive primitivism rather than the Edenic ideal traditionally associated with childhood holiday recollections, and the contrast between the novel’s darkness and conventional literary expectations exacerbates the discomfort and alienation these passages create. The young Max’s conflicted and immature relationship to physical reality is further illustrated in the sudden switch of his affections from mother to daughter at the moment when he steals an intimate glimpse of Connie.

When Max reflects on the nature of memory, he affirms its power to transcend the passage of time, carrying forward, if not perpetuating, his most profound experiences and encounters. At the same time, the unreliability of memory becomes increasingly apparent in these pages. For example, Max’s bafflement as to the identity of the dog in his recollection of Connie Grace arranging flowers calls into question the veracity of the whole episode. It becomes increasingly apparent that memories are formed through active creation and composition rather than passive receptivity. An art historian, Max tends to arrange his memories as if they were paintings. In his mind, the Graces playing during the picnic conveniently arrange themselves into an allusion to Botticelli’s Primavera. Again, as he watches Connie arranging flowers, Max meticulously arranges and composes the scene as he describes it, having a draft of sunlight fall directly like a spotlight onto Connie and holding the scene suspended in time before he allows it to be interrupted. When he looks at his own reflection in the mirror, Max alludes to self-portraits by Bonnard and Van Gogh, implying that his self-perception is a creative act of portraiture rather than an objective observation; his sense of dislocation from himself leads him to actively seek out an identity in other people. This is also an example of his retreat into intellectualism when his emotions are strongly felt.

The mystery of Miss Vavasour’s place in the narrative increases during this section. It becomes clear in these pages that Miss Vavasour and Max have some shared history and knew each other before Max’s return to the Cedars, but no indication is given as to the nature of this connection. It becomes increasingly apparent that this is part of Max’s unreliability as a narrator, deliberately holding back certain details of his story. The novel suggests that Max is reluctant to disclose Miss Vavasour’s true identity (to the reader or himself), as her narrative is a potential parallel to his own. His narrative has made clear his hostility to others’ perceptions, as they challenge his own carefully constructed views of the past. Indeed, his statement of ownership—over the story and Chloe—that he is now the only person alive who remembers her is patently untrue. Miss Vavasour arguably has a much firmer right to knowledge of Chloe, the Grace family, and the Cedars.

The dream landscape at the end of Part 1, with the mysterious black ship and Max’s longing to disappear into the sea, marks a longing for oblivion— his wish to escape from his physical, temporal self. When he calls “I’m almost there” to an unknown person who calls to him like a “siren” (132), the novel suggests he is calling to both Chloe and Anna and also to death itself. Sirens are figures from Greek mythology: beautiful women whose songs lure sailors to their deaths. This image therefore combines the novel’s motifs of the sea, death, and female allure. Given the continual allusion to Greek mythology, the novel draws on the Greek image of the river Styx, a body of water that separates the world of the living from that of the dead, and also the river Lethe, which washes away memories. The ship can be associated with Charon’s ferry, which carries souls into the underworld, and the image of the sea in the novel is again connected to concepts of death, oblivion, and nothingness.