Prague Pictures: Portrait Of A City

John Banville

Editions

Review

Since I am interested both in Prague and in John Banville this book represents a promising conjunction for me .  It belongs to the same series as David Leavitt’s book on Florence, Peter Carey’s on Sydney and Edmund White’s on Paris – and it is a gem.  It is not by any means a guidebook to the city.  Rather, Banville uses the city as a kind of mise en scène for some of his own preoccupations.  Thus we are treated to descriptions of people he has met during his visits, a disquisition on Kepler (the subject of one of Banville’s early novels), as well as an idiosyncratic literary tour – Kafka of course, Seifert, Neruda, Joyce, Havel and many more.  The writing, of course, is superb, and he is often surprisingly funny.  The book is subtly illuminating about this shadowy city, and also about its author: it should be read by anyone at all interested in either. - review by Johnny de Falbe