The Failure of Imagination and its Redemption: John Banville‘s The Book of Evidence

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on John Banville’s The Book of Evidence in which art serves as an intrinsic thematic concern for the narrating character Freddie Montgomery who becomes captivated by a 17th century Dutch portrait, tries to steal it, and savagely kills the servant who interrupts him. Besides offering a story of crime and punishment, the confessional monologic form inexorably establishes a particular ekphrastic narration, showing a fascination for the rhetorical and imaginative possibilities of art. While the novel has been frequently noted for its invigorations of self and authenticity, little attention has been given to redemptive power of art evoking ethical questions with a focus on the other. Banville oscillates between an aesthetic and an ethical framework through which framing the portrait as a source of inspiration, he deploys a further layer of ekphrasis which is found in W. J. T. Mitchell’s picture theory situating ekphrasis in three crucial steps; the ekphrastic indifference, hope and fear denoting emulations between the visual and verbal representations.