Ancient Lights by John Banville

John Banville is exactly the sort of author that one thinks of when contemplating the typical Man Booker Prize author.  The quality of his prose is impeccable, almost breathtakingly beautiful.  The pace of the novel is leisurely, the tone is reflective, and it is easy to get swept away in the telling of the story without thinking much about what exactly is happening.

The book centers on Alex Cleave, both his past and his present.  He is preparing for a film about a disgraced academic and reading an account of his downfall.  The process makes him nostalgic about his own past, specifically a scandal that he was at the center of when he was a 15-year old boy.  He had a protracted affair with his best friend's mother, Mrs. Gray.  The man looking back on the boy's affair does not shed adult eyes on the affair--he does not come to terms with what might have been had he not been in a torrid sexual affair with a woman who had problems that he cannot begin to comprehend even when his adult eyes reflect upon her seduction of him, and his obsessive and possessive affair is no more than a sexual maelstrom rather than a turning point in his ability to form adult relationships.  He is able to see the danger and the loss that happened to her when the affair came to light.  He is sorry and sad about that, but is unable to see that her behavior as both whore and mother set him up for a big fall when he entered into relationships with women his own age.  It is very beautiful to read, and yet there are important things missing from Cleave's reflection on his past and what effect it had on his life going forward.