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You can sense the volumes of Joyce, Beckett and Nabokov on Banville's shelves.
--
Tibor Fischer

 

John Banville

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I can remember Bertrand Russell telling me of a horrible dream. He was in the top floor of the University Library, about A.D. 2100. A library assistant was going round the shelves carrying an enormous bucket, taking down books, glancing at them, restoring them to the shelves or dumping them into the bucket. At last he came to three large volumes which Russell could recognize as the last surviving copy of Principia Mathematica. He took down one of the volumes, turned over a few pages, seemed puzzled for a moment by the curious symbolism, closed the volume, balanced it in his hand and hesitated....

 

Bertrand Russell

 

Beckett was his real name. He had a brother named Brecht and a sister named Joyce. His parents had been fifties bohemians: now they were both Labour Party officials. He lived in Caulfield with a mob of ex-punkers, most of whom worked on Saturdays at the racecourse. Beckett, however, had a real job as a computer technician. He asked me, 'So what do you do, Caitlin?'

 

Leonie Stevens

 

Your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

 

Charles Lamb

 

I write in what we call Hiberno-English, and it would be disastrous to lose my literary accent, as both Joyce and Beckett began to do in exile. In their case the unique tone of voice they each unwittingly adopted only made for a deeper poetic intensity; I suspect if I were to undergo a similar loss the result would not be so productive.

 

John Banville

 

I met Beckett at my brother’s place (the painter Geer van Velde, fh). That was a Big meeting, in capital letters. It was before war started, life was still normal. That time I was very lonely. We saw each other often. Before the war he had published already something, but his fame came in 1953. We never spoke about his work. He was a taciturn man. Sometimes a word escaped from his mouth. Sure, a word you would never forget. It would stick in your head.. ..This friendship with Beckett is the most important experience in my life. He was fully alive for my way of working. What he could express in words, I did with my paintings. (1977, about his contact with Beckett, in Paris before and during the War, fh)

 

Bram van Velde