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The Blue Guitar

by John Banville
The Blue Guitar - Thryft
The Blue Guitar - Thryft

Betrayal, theft, and adultery—Oliver Orme's story.

The Blue Guitar could be a great read for someone who enjoys dark, introspective novels about characters on a road to redemption. Banville's prose is lyrical and his characters are flawed yet compelling. The novel explores themes of betrayal, loss, and the enduring power of art. Despite its heavy subject matter, it is shot through with humor and wit. The Blue Guitar will leave you thinking long after you've finished reading.

  • Dublin Literary Award Nominee (2017)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

The Blue Guitar

by John Banville
Condition guide

Book Condition Guide

Books in Like New Condition

This book may contain very minor cosmetic defects, but it is in pristine condition. There should be no yellowing, no foxing, no water damage, and no annotations of any kind on the cover and the pages. For paperbacks, there should not be any crease marks on the spine. This book is good as new — lucky you!

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

Books in Very Good Condition

This book has been used, but it is still in a clean condition. There should be no foxing or annotations of any kind on the inner pages, but a sparse amount may be present on the cover, title pages, or outside edges of the book. There should be no water damage of any kind. For paperbacks, there may be light crease marks on the spine.

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

Books in Good Condition

We do our best to ensure the quality of our books, but there is no escaping the wear and tear that comes with time. Slight foxing and some annotations may be present on the pages and the cover. There should be no water damage of any kind. For paperbacks, there may be several crease marks on the spine.

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

Books in Well Read Condition

This is a well-read book, which means that the previous owner probably really enjoyed it! The cover and pages may include moderate foxing and annotations, but the text is not obscured and still readable. Moderate cosmetic defects and minor water damage may be present on the edges of the book. For paperbacks, there may be multiple crease marks on the spine.

*Books may be missing bundle media (e.g. CD, e-book code), if included.

 

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ISBN: 9780241004326
Authors: John Banville
Publisher: Viking
Date of Publication: 2015-01-01
Format: Hardcover
Related Collections: Romance, Literary Fiction, Contemporary
Related Topics: Literature
Goodreads rating: 3.35
(rated by 1625 readers)

Description

From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel--at once trenchant, witty, and shattering--about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another, and to hold on to ourselves.Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown, and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught. But he's pushing fifty, feels like a hundred, and things have not been going so well lately. Having recognized the "man-killing crevasse" that exists between what he sees and any representation he might make of it--any attempt to make what he sees his own--he's stopped painting. And his last purloined possession--aquired the last time he felt the "secret shiver of bliss" in thievery--has been discovered. The fact that it was the wife of the man who was, perhaps, his best friend, has compelled him to run away: from his mistress, his home, his wife, from whatever remains of his impulse to paint and from the tragedy that haunts him, and to sequester himself in the house where he was born, trying to uncover in himself the answer to how and why things have turned out as they did. Excavating memories of family, of places he's called home, and of the way he has apprehended the world around him ("no matter what else is going on, one of my eyes is always swivelling towards the world beyond"), Ollie reveals the very essence of a man who, in some way, has always been waiting to be rescued from himself.
 

Betrayal, theft, and adultery—Oliver Orme's story.

The Blue Guitar could be a great read for someone who enjoys dark, introspective novels about characters on a road to redemption. Banville's prose is lyrical and his characters are flawed yet compelling. The novel explores themes of betrayal, loss, and the enduring power of art. Despite its heavy subject matter, it is shot through with humor and wit. The Blue Guitar will leave you thinking long after you've finished reading.

  • Dublin Literary Award Nominee (2017)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.