THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE by John Banville

Published 1898 by Picador

220 pages; ISBN: 978-0330-37187-2

Grade 5/5

Genre: crime, confession of a thief and a killer,  

Will I read more from this author: yes

Usually in crime fiction you get to know the victim and engage in the intellectual exercise of discovering the clues that lead to the discovery of who did what, how and why. In the classical who-done-it mystery books there is a number of ‘usual’ reasons behind a murder: revenge, money, sex, cover-up. But in this book, The Book of Evidence, it is the story of the criminal as he writes it up for the judge after he has been caught; that is, we get to know the murderer, and he is not a nice person at all.

First sentence: My Lord, when you ask me to tell the court in my own words, this is was I shall say.

The book is divided into two parts before and after he is caught; the ‘he’ in the book is ‘I’ who tells the story.

His name is Frederick Charles St John Vanderveld Montgomey, the only child to his parents; there was money enough for a good education; he chose “science in order to make the lack of certainty more manageable. It helped to be without convictions as to the nature of reality, truth, ethics all those big things – indeed, I discovered in science a vision of an unpredictable, seething world that was eerily familiar to me,”.

To be without convictions as to reality and truth, means I do not believe a word he wrote, completely unreliable.

He went to Berkley University in California, USA, there he met his wife Daphne, who was from ‘home’. They got married had a son, Van.  Daphne he described as beautiful but not nice and not good, morally lazy, neglecting their son because his needs did not interest her. The father was not much better in caring for the son. “We understood each other, yes, but that did not mean we knew each other, or wanted to.”

After leaving his studies he and Daphne travelled around the Mediterranean for years without purpose, drifting without signposts to follow. He has not seen his mother for ten years; she has not seen her grandson. He blackmailed an American for money; when he needed to repay the ‘loan’, Van and Daphne were held hostages by drug smugglers; he realized he'll need to go home and sell his father’s paintings to get the money to release them. But his elderly mother had sold the paintings and there is no money.

On his mother he said,” when it comes to the subject of mothers, simplicity is not permitted” (page 41); I have only to stand before her and instantly the irritation and resentment begin to seethe in my breast (P42).  On the other hand, the lawyer encouraged him to say he wanted to kill his father, to marry his mother (p30); a reference to Freud, but the two statements are contradictory, again he is completely unreliable. Also, how he mentions he needs to tell about his dreams and his moods.

In USA he met Daphne trough a neighbor from home, Anna Behrens, whom Freddie admired perhaps even loved, since being a child, but he married Daphne not that he loved her, but he loved her ways.

He used a dictionary to find his words: What I say was never exactly what I felt, what I felt was never what it seemed I should feel though the feelings were what felt genuine, and right and inescapable (p 124).

He has problems trying to find a neutral word for badness, - does not exist at all, if these strangely vague and imprecise words are only a kind of ruse, a kind of elaborate cover for the fact that nothing is there. Or perhaps, the words are an attempt to make it there? Or, again perhaps there is something, but the words invented it? (p55).

English is my second language but I find the language in the book beautiful and at a high level – I even learned some new words; but comparing the beauty of the language to the horrors of the crime, is a sharp contrast not aligned.

Another thing he tried to do was to invent a second personality: Bunter – the only Bunter I know is Lord Peter Wimsey’s friend and butler, who was very loyal and law abiding, always doing the right thing- the absolute opposite of this criminal. The literature probably has other “Bunters” but this is the one I know.  

Another behavior I found strange, he stole the painting, killed the maid (all the time gets her name wrong, as he does all the other women names mentioned in the book except Anna’s!) and then he goes to hang out with Charlie, the family friend, being mostly drunk. He does not care to help his wife and child, just hang around awaiting to be arrested.

He is egoistic, narcissistic, does not care about anybody but himself, irresponsible, morally corrupt; not somebody I would not like to know. He killed because he could, which in my eyes makes him a terrorist.

The book is catching and difficult to put down and after I finished it has stayed with me and made it difficult to start another book; that is why a wrote this.

The book was shortlisted for the Booker prize.

Words I had to look up:

Inviolable: 1.not to be violated; not to be profaned or injured; 2. That cannot be violated; indestructible

Fulvous: reddish yellow; tawny

Invigilator: a person who watches people, while they are taking an exam

Arcanum: a great secrets or mysteries; either of two groups of cards in a tarot pack