"Beautiful, heartbreaking." –
The Washington Post
"Banville traces [a] journey of self-discovery in the distinctive language he commands so effortlessly: precise yet evocative, clear-eyed and down-to-earth, yet shimmering with the mutability and mystery of art." –
The Boston Globe
"Eloquent . . . Oliver has some of the wry comic haplessness of a Beckett character . . . enveloping." –
The Wall Street Journal "Banville's sentences shine. The humble becomes memorable." –
Minneapolis Star Tribune "Elegant and affecting." –
The Times Literary Supplement "[Banville] shows himself, once again, as one of contemporary literature's finest and most expert witnesses. . . What enraptures–always–is the writing itself. He holds words up to the light as carefully as any watchmaker or poet." –
The Observer "A literary event to be savored and celebrated. . . . [A] brilliant effort punctuated with words and phrases that make life just a little more enjoyable in the reading. . . . Reading John Banville is truly good for the soul." –
The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg)
"Stirring. . . Densely alliterative and purposely playful prose." –
Financial Times "Banville, the Nabokov of contemporary lit, can turn even a straightforward comeuppance tale into breathtaking literary art. . . . At times, [his] prose seems drunk with the sheer joy of describing a vibrantly strange world in perfectly knit sentences." –
Richmond Times-Dispatch "The best of literature, rich, lush and moving. . . . Every page is jewelled with startlingly evocative images. [Banville's] prose is a feast for all the senses. . . . His first-person narration sweeps like a lighthouse beam from present to past and back again, illuminating the dark with a pitiless glare." –
The Independent on Sunday (London)
"The reader is carried along by [Ollie's] wonderfully narcissistic voice." –
The New Yorker "Ingenious and moving. . . . This engrossing and often beautiful novel is a true work of art that rewards careful reading." –
The Daily Telegraph (London)
"[Banville] is in love with language, eloquent, witty and a master of illuminating description." –
The Post and Courier (Charleston)
"Superb. . . . A remarkable work of literary art: subtle, resonant, whimsical and deeply touching by turns, the work of a great prose stylist with a masterly command of cultural history. . . . [Banville is] the most accomplished stylist writing in English in our time." –
Sydney Morning Herald "Moving, entertaining, edifying and affirmative. . . .
The Blue Guitar is a remarkable achievement: the work of a writer who knows not only about pain and eloquence, but about the consolations of learning how to think, to look and to listen." –
The National (UAE)
"Banville is such a fine architect of sentences–infusing them with wit and yearning–that the plot hardly matters. For what a brilliant navel-gazer Banville is: he creates loop-de-loops of self-absorbed prose that resonate so deeply about the human condition that they never become tiresome. Bon mots fill these pages, every one essential." –
Publishers Weekly (starred)
