My friends tell me I must stop saying in public that I ‘hat… - John Banville

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My friends tell me I must stop saying in public that I ‘hate all my novels’. What I mean is that I am profoundly dissatisfied with everything I have done simply because it is not good enough by my standards. But my standard is perfection, and as we know, perfection is not allowed to such as us. On the other hand, I begin every new book in the complete conviction that this time, this time I shall get it right. Rationally I know this will not be so, but art has its reasons.

John Banville

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About John Banville

John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist and journalist. He is recognised for his precise, cold, forensic prose style, Nabokovian inventiveness, and for the dark humour of his generally arch narrators. His stated ambition is to give his prose "the kind of denseness and thickness that poetry has".

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Alternative Names: Benjamin Black • William John Banville

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Robertson Davies Martin Amis Grace Paley Caitlín R. Kiernan Nadine Gordimer

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My friends tell me I must stop saying in public that I ‘hate all my novels’. What I mean is that I am profoundly dissatisfied with everything I have … - John Banville

About John Banville

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