Bon mot of the day

I was reading John Banville's novel 'The Book of Evidence' while travelling this summer, and particularly enjoyed this line. I shared it at the time with several friends via e-mail or SMS, but it bears repeating......

"Pity is merely the acceptable form of an urge to give weak things a good, hard slap."

Banville, I suspect, will win the Nobel Prize one day; but he is, for me, a writer to be admired more than enjoyed. (One of the blurbs on the jacket of this novel said, "Banville must get tired of being told how well he writes." NO! No-one ever gets tired of hearing that.) His work is wonderfully dense, like an extended prose poem - but rather lacking in story. In the words of a Canadian friend of mine: "All syrup, and no pancakes!" And the relentless accumulation of metaphors - however brilliant some of them undoubtedly are - becomes irksome in itself: I find my attention being caught more by the few that somehow just don't work, than by the many that do.

Ah, but what wouldn't I give to be able to wield language like that!