Chapter II - A - MA
Chapter 2 - A
Irish literature, during the first half of the twentieth century, had been mainly interested in creating a national identity. Fiction writers of the first generation of this period concentrated on traditional Irish subject matter. Once the Irish individuality was established; the scope widened for more general and universal material. Among the novelists who followed this trend is John Banville, who has tackled non-Irish themes besides the conventional ones.
Banville believed that national literature may not add to the significance of a country’s self esteem. At the same time, he wished to develop and innovate. In other words, to concentrate on the art of writing in itself. Rudiger Imhof states:
From the first, Banville has not been one to tell his stories in an and then - and then fashion. His work is characterised by a predominant concern with shape. 1
He can be considered a writer who utilised various tools to enrich his art of writing such as adaptations, historical touches, experimentation and the renovation of established traditional literary modes. Imhof declares that he can “claim a front rank among the supremecraftsmen”2. Banville advocated a revolutionary method of writing which could dispense with the traditional realism and tend to a certain craft enriched by an artistic shape and order.
Modern themes and subject matters of the twentieth century needed a suitable shape, and this has been Banville’s main concern; which places him among the great novelists such as Henry James, James Joyce and Beckett. These major writers used the power and beauty of language as a media to save man from the confusion and the absurdity of the modern world.
Similarly, Banville:
Is interested in and fascinated by the shape of an idea..... he does not .....have in mind a sequential linear kind of order, but a spatial one, a kind of order relying on multiple planes of relationships. 3.
Apart from his being a craftsman who wishes to create a real form of art, or, in other words, a well shaped work; Banville also seeks novelty in his choice of material. His themes may not be completely new or original subject matter, but he has the skill of reshaping and remoulding the traditional into a fresh and redeeming theory. Joseph McMinn says that he is:
able to select the most suitable literary company for the purpose of his ownaesthetic....... His fiction, at once tragic and playful is largely about the recreation of fictions......he keeps returning to literature itself, a history of the imaginative life, for inspiration. 4.
The disturbed common everyday world needs a form which is characterised by freedom, a wealth of imagination and a liberal style rather than the realistic mode that reflected the chaos and misery again. Traditional realism is like a mirror which drives an ugly person to depression instead of opening a scope for hope and redemption.
Banville’s fiction possesses a distinctive style depending on a certain mythology enjoying a rare source of knowledge and a rich imagination. He always stresses the fact that he belongs to a tradition and to a literary history which requires the use of references, previous texts and quotations. McMinn says:
The rhetorical authority and stylistic grace of Banville’s fiction comes from this balanced tension between a classical design, rich and evocative, and a lonesome elegiac voice. All his narrators look back to their origins and their immediate past for some clue to their sense of tragic and farcical confusion. 5
In spite of his claim that he is detached from the Irish national literature, yet he returns to his cultural inheritance and certain incidents recall the original experience that must make use of the Irish background and location. Yet, this does not impede his close attachment to classical and European culture and literature and his exploiting them and enhancing his experiences and situations through various allusions, symbols, images and metaphorical pictures.
Banville’s fictional aesthetic, while it welcomes the presence and spirit of many great modern writers, has its own distinctive shape and purposeful tone..... His own favourite analogy for the kind of novel he tries to create is that of a poeticised dream, in which a single voice, through a persuasive and coherent tone, controls the chaos of recollection Banville’s fiction is essentially based on this tension between the abstract and the sensuous, between those modes of understanding and perception such as language which conceal reality, and those, like the images of a waking dream which restore humanity to its senses. 6.
Among the various themes tackled by Banville, the most prominent have dealt with the social confusion and the prevalent feeling of unrest. His stories reflect Irish, as well as universal traditions and problems. His early novels covered certain Irish pictures such as the fading of the Big House and the misery of poverty and famine which confronted the illusioned people who were shocked by the change of the whole pattern of village society.
Religious strife and clashes between various sects has also a large share of his interests. Science, history and intellectual activity were prominent features of his work. The main goal, which he achieved was to depict the clash between illusion and reality, the separation between mind and spirit, the due need to discover a meaning or a value to hold on to, a self discovery even if it is sometimes led to a feeling of negation or despair.
In order to clarify his themes and various implication, Banville paid great heed to style and precision in his choice of language and words. He explained that:
the story is very important, providing we know what we mean by and expect from the “story”. But if we employ instead of the word story the term content, then I would say that I consider form far more important. Content, I would maintain is an aspect of form, no more. 7
He used a blend of British and Irish words that resulted in a beautiful poetic mode of expression where “meaning is shaped and directed by patterns immanent in the words themselves”8
Banville has often been considered a difficult novelist, maybe this is due to his complex style that teems with images, metaphors, puns and indirect narration. He, also, shifts from past to present and even to the future in his employing of the stream of consciousness, and his return to the classic work and histories using quotations and references. He moves from illusion to reality in fast abrupt strides, and this is achieved through the use of an outsider or a narrator, and the use of a story within a story in order to recollect certain memories or passing and reflecting moments. Imhof states:
Banville’s mastery of composition combines gracefully with his extraordinary, tenacious storytelling ability........ a woven relationship of form and content to entertain the reader. 9.
The strongest influence on Banville, as an artist, has been the works of Henry James and Samuel Beckett as well as James Joyce. He considered them masters of aesthetic form and his works reflect their teachings.
“Language should work towards redeeming us from the disaster that is our age.”10.
This chapter will deal with three novels that have been subject to controversy. Some readers and critics have considered them historical, others thought that they, merely, recalled the story of past scientists and the problems they faced. Yet, Banville had a more essential and intensive creative intention. The novels Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter, may give the history of these three famous men, but in a certain pattern that makes the reader discover the void of the present life. Banville stresses the idea rather than the facts of history. He creates this type of novel in an evocative style which has higher quests rather than a mere recollection of the life of previous men of science and mathematics.
The pattern of discovery in... the novels about the great astronomers Dr. Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter could offer us a way of reading Banville..... Their voices belong to modern literature’s sense of outrage and shock at the irrationality of the world. 11.
According to Banville, science has fallen into the same trap as art, it can no longer produce definite results about the world. As a modern man, he believes that a scientist, like men of literature, has to depend on images and use both reason and imagination in the same manner that a novelist uses the plot the narrative, and the words to create a certain pattern of attaining the truth. In other words, a form of reality. The scientists and theologists that he deals with are part of this complex mode since each one tried to find an answer or a solution, they may succeed or they may leave a void which is in itself an achievement. The Irish University review mentions that these novels “betray the hand of a brilliantly proficient craftsman....... They thematise the fact that the world is unknowable and ineffable”12. Besides, they follow the same complex circular structure and mode of style and action.
Doctor Copernicus
The tetralogy gives a clear account of historical and social settings, Doctor Copernicus deals with Nicolas Copernicus, Kepler discusses Johannes Kepler the astronomer, and The Newton Letter is an attempt to throw light on Issac Newton. Banville succeeds in linking between the problems facing novelists who treat contemporary subject matters and the difficulties met by scientists in their search for a discipline. In The Limits of Mimesis; “We are therefore justified in reading the epistemological dilemma of Copernicus as a paradigm of Banville’s own artistic predicament.”12
Doctor Copernicus (1976), can be termed as both a psychological and a historical work. It delves into the mind of a Polish priest who rejected the traditional Aristotelian concept of how the universe operated and tried to replace it by a planetary system. He was torn between his ideas and discoveries and the reaction that would follow. Banville himself remarks that:
What I had Copernicus say at the end of my book was that truth in fact does not exist, that there are only workable versions of the truth which we contract to believe in. 13
The scientist has become closer to an artist who needs both intellect and imagination, besides talent. A man of science or physics tries to use pictures that are similar to the artist or writer’s tools; such as plot, style, colour, and narration modes. In an attempt to cope with reality, these men have added to man’s knowledge and understanding of the universe.
Doctor Copernicus is the first novel in this series. It enjoys a rich social background together with the artist’s struggle to attain reality. The novel portrays many relevant situations such as Copernicus’s graduation, the meeting of the Italian elite to discuss the corruption of the state and church, and the new
middle class and the gradual loss of values. At the same time there are various scenes of violence such as the armed robbery of innocent travellers on the road.
Nicolas Copernicus is the pivot of the whole narration, he is portrayed as the scientist who is in constant conflict between his discoveries and attractions offered by sky gazing and his worldly or rather family obligations. He belonged to an important powerful Polish family, but he had no political interests and was completely absorbed in the secrets of the world.
Nothing that he knew on earth could match the pristine purity he imagined in the heavens, and when he looked up into the limitless blue he saw beyond the uncertainty and the terror on intoxicating; marvellous grave gaiety. 14.
He concentrates on the study of the universe, rejecting the old traditional rules and depending on study and examination not on mere acceptance. He wished to reach the core, the reality not the previously observed facts.
In order to emphasise the character of Copernicus, Banville uses a completely different personality to create an effective contrast. His brother Anderson is drenched in physical pleasures and attractions and is rather a lewd being. Copernicus is disgusted with this type of life, but he cannot always avoid it. He has a few physical experiences; but decides that this is not his style of life, and determines to devote his time to study and discovery. It dawns on him that the Sun and not the Earth is the centre of a vaster universe than anyone believed it to be.
Nicolas Copernicus started his revelation in great trust and confidence, yet he realised that it was not easy to work out a theory and make it feasible to others.
When he ventured out in the frail bark of his thoughts he was at one with those crazed mariners on their green sea of darkness, and the visions that haunted him on his return from ‘terra incognito’ were no less luminous and fantastic than theirs. 15.
This dilemma and sense of failure haunt him for some time, he tries to escape into political interests. His book was not really understood or accepted by the public and he discovers that “all that could be said was the saying. His book was not about the world, but about itself”16.
Copernicus’s attempt to reach the truth and to reveal it, is in itself a term of discovery, a pattern to self knowledge. He tries to create a compromise between scientific research and literary perception. McMinn comments on the novel. It is not just a literary version of a scientific career; it is also an assertion of the primacy of imagination in all forms of thought. 17.
Banville tries to reshape certain historical facts in Copernicus’s career and he reveals the political and religious conditions of the age. Copernicus was afraid to publish his works as it might create chaos and disturb the traditional authority. His struggle for knowledge was a journey of long suffering and apprehension. In other words he tried to come to terms with and to accept what he already knew. To reach such self-knowledge, he needed a complete surrender, a yielding to facts that were already available.
This ordeal was not just a personal strife, but it involved family, society and nation. Banville probed into the public life as well as the mental realm of Copernicus.
It is a story about the terrible loneliness of such intellectual obsession and pride, but one which also strives for consoling redemptive knowledge. 18.
Copernicus wished to show the futility of the traditional Ptolemy theories that were mere words that missed the real concept of the movement of the planets. The young scientist wishes to explain and not merely to name facts, he is in-keeping with Banville’s pattern of creating. The study of astronomy will be a tool to reach the true not the possible. This intellectual separation between the aim and the mode cannot be achieved. When he starts this experience the whole system proves a failure.
He miserably realises that he is isolated from the real world that he was supposed to unravel. His research and mathematical procedures have an entity of their own and he falls into his own trap where things cannot be explained but remain blazing in his brain.
It was barbarism on a grand scale. Mathematical edifices of heart rending frailty and delicacy were shattered at a stroke...........Only vaguely did he understand the nature of his plight. 19.
There seemed to be a lack of some essential connection, “the universe of dancing planets was out there, and he was here between the two spheres mere words and figures on paper could not mediate”2.
Banville is able to cope with the social as well as psychological problems of his protagonist. In his attempt to reach the truth or the reality, Copernicus realises that he is lost, which increases his isolation and plunges him into the astronomical symbols which are not easy to decipher. McMinn comments;
To his horror Copernicus sees that his research takes on a life of its own, like his own personability, increasingly remote from the real world he was supported to explain. 21.
The astronomical system which he believed that he can control and yield to the realisation of his theory has become a ruling master. His research has turned into something personal which cannot be a benefit to anyone, “His book was not about the world, but about itself”22. Copernicus fails to apply the process of change in astronomy to a similar theory of change and alteration in life. His concept faces the main obstacle of the unbridgeable gap between an intellectual revolutionary method and an imaginative urge. There is a lack of human contact between the real and the visionary.
This idea is clarified by the sharp contrast between him and his brother Andreas. The former is concerned with the sky and the heavens, while the latter tries to bring him down to earth and to reveal the call of the flesh and the evil side of the real physical world. While Copernicus shuns politics and sex in an attempt to seclude himself in a realm of study and observation, Andreas immerses himself in the physical and political traps. He echoes the tempting devilish tone of despair, doubt, deception in a futile world; but he avoids any emotional or sentimental reaction. Thus he is never liable to redemption, but goes on heedless and reckless of any reaction or consequence. Copernicus is greatly shocked and stunned by the sickness and pain his sick brother suffers. The brother’s physical decay is set in contrast to his own absorption in the ideal picture of the stars. Andreas looked horrifying on his sick bed, with
His upper lip was all eaten away on one side......One of his ears was a mess of crumbled white meat, while the other was untouched, a pinikish shell. 23.
The extreme practical pain is a way to a concrete wisdom, a mortal knowledge attained by Andreas against the limited world of symbols and numbers. The relationship that binds the completely different characters adds to the dimensions of Banville’s views; it reveals the discrepancy between the actual and the abstract.
The life of Andreas is the exact opposite of Copernicus’s existence. His low depraved life does not change his belief that life is something that we must enjoy, whenever we have a chance. He rejects the ideal pure attitude of deprivation and the shunning of actual flesh-like experiences. Banville uses Andreas as an exterior urge drawing the astronomer’s attention to another real world under the soaring skies. Even after his death, he returns in the form of a ghost nagging at his brother “the angel of redemption”24. He states that there is no need to search for the truth which is already there, “we are the truth. The world and ourselves, this is the truth”25. When Copernicus defends himself by declaring that he was only saving his soul in pursuing knowledge and research, and discarding the worldly desires, Andreas tells him:
Ah, but you did sell it to the highest bidder............science? the quest for the truth? transcendent knowledge? Vanity, all vanity,........ but you tried to discard the commonplace truths for the transcendent ideas, and so failed. 26.
Another character, exploited by Banville to stress the dilemma which upsets Copernicus, is Rhetricus the astronomer’s former student. He was supposed to have written Copernicus’s biography but his presence in part III of the novel is a portrayal of his resentment and desire for revenge, because he was neglected and not given his real due. All the other scientists and researchers were mentioned in the doctor’s book, but Rhetricus was completely forgotten. He was so furious and could hardly wait to take concrete steps to verify his significance and prove his rights. He tries to correct some errors in Copernicus’s books and he even refutes certain theories ascertaining that he is the greater astronomer. When Copernicus’s hopes are shatteredand he suffers ill health, he tries to get rid of Rhetricus, who, in his turn, comes to realise that the truth cannot be attained in such a world of disorder and ends up in seclusion and fear.
The greatest shock that really hit Copernicus as well as his student was that the preface of his book written by a theologian Andreas Osiander, explained that that the whole work was a fiction depending on mere fantasy. Copernicus becomes well aware of the fact that there has been a great error in their work; trying to apply the private to the general public view, the confined to the universal;
You imagine that my book is a kind of mirror in which the real world is reflected; but you are mistaken........our lives are lived in such a tiny, confined space, and in such disorder....... There is no contact,....... between the universe and the place in which we live. 27.
Besides the scientific disappointment of both Dr. Copernicus and Rhetricus another power adds to their misery and failure; politics and religious beliefs. They intrude their academic tower and refute any personal achievement, “Ultimately power insists on its supremacy over idealism”28. Copernicus’s theory that placed the sun as the centre of the universe has upset all views and caused his own loss. Rhetricus claimsthat this has been the inspiration of the devil. The sorrow and repentance experienced by Copernicus turn into a different reaction by Rhetricus, who makes a detour to transcendal views perceiving a constantly blue sky, a blossoming earth which is the pivot and axis of every thing.
Both Andreas and Rhetricus draw the attention to the dire need for a unity of spirit and matter, the beautiful and the concrete as the only form of security. Nature and art must mingle, since nature is the only long-lasting stable entity.
As an astronomer, he strove to create an order, a system depending on terms and internal symbols. Yet, this motto proved to be a false goal. Words and signs come second in order, since reality and art come first. There is a return to simple daily perception. Copernicus’s quest is a strenuous task as long as he is searching for a unifying pattern, a whole comprehensive scheme in a chaotic strange universe. He has always asserted that the best theories and traditional research could not explain the heavenly mysteries and have failed to reach man. The old known astronomy has;
not been able to discern or deduce the principle thing, namely the shape of the universe and the changing symmetry of its parts...... to discern the principle thing, is irredeemably doomed to failure. 29.
He moves on from extreme zest and enthusiasm at the very beginning to fear, doubt, and gradual deterioration, to final disappointment and despair, since all search is in vain, as long as man cannot really comprehend it. The nobility of Copernicus lies in the fact that from the start he pin-pointed that scientist’s or in other words the astronomer’s target:- the responsibility to investigate to strive and to combat in order to reach the truth, the essence, the kernel in spite of fears and doubts; this is the noble, the sublime aim.
The supreme pattern here depends on the way the astronomer shuns all society in order to attain the truth or solve a cosmic mystery, in other words to achieve a new creation. His moment of discovery or recognition of a new fact, resembles the creation of a world of art, a poem, a statue, a novel, or any production of fine taste, not a mere dry scientific realisation.
The wind was high. Rain beat upon the window...... . Clouds were breaking to the east over a sullen waterscape. Calmly then it came, the solution, like the magnificent great slow golden bird alighting in his head with a thrumming of vast wings. 3.
The whole process was an ordeal but worth the struggle and this placed scientists on the same level as great artists and authors of supreme fictions. As Imhof explains;
He treats the solution as if he were an artist, sculptor, marvelling at the beauty of his finished work and deriving an immense aesthetic pleasure from it. 31.
Consequently, this road to discovery or pattern of existence demanded a sacrifice of human connections, and a detachment from social influences, which paradoxically lead to failure. Copernicus moves through his astronomical feat till the very end when he fully realises that “The world, and ourselves, this is the truth. There is no other.....”32.
In order to convey the complicated theme of the scientific quest and the realisation of the mysterious world, Banville needed an adequate technique or a suitable pattern of exposition. Dr. Copernicus includes the main ideas that are depicted by “the hand of a brilliantly proficient craftsman”33. Both the structure and the language of the novel are clear assets to the themes, and reveal the difficulty of the subject matter handled by a skilful author.
The novelist relies on the use of memory in a return to the past, metaphors, historical and scientific references, repetitions and the use of a complex style of comparisons and contrasts between characters.
Dr. Copernicus’s revolution refuted other’s beliefs that concepts are abstractions that cannot be used to define phenomenon that we cannot observe, and that the laws of the universe are not comprehensible. He attempted whole heartedly to explain the scientific or astronomical phenomenon.
Banville’s Copernicus.......is set on exploring the true dimension of the universe and on revealing the eternal truth about the Heavenly Spheres. 34.
In spite of his sincere quest and constant efforts, he is bound to fail. He goes through stages of doubt and fear till he reaches complete despair.
Language is one main obstacle since it cannot convey the natural reality of the world itself. It may add to the complication and falsify the actual thing to be perceived. Another hindrance was his star-gazing instead of facing the concrete real world. Finally, he has to admit that the worldly phenomena is inexplicable and without any clear discipline, and it has to be accepted as it is.
The main feature of the novel’s structure is that it has a circular movement; ending where he began after a heart rending obstinate journey of a keen traveller who ends in nothing, a mere nada. “structurally Doctor Copernicus works through chains of echoes and repetitions”35.
The novel is divided into four parts. The opening book relates his childhood and education, the second deals with the strange contrast and relationship between him and his brother. The third is narrated by his student Rhetricus, who describes Copernicus’s subjectivity and manages to publish his book ‘Doctor Revolutionibus. The fourth part is, again in the third person and focuses on his disappointment, sickness and mental turmoil. This pattern of narration supplies the reader with a complete picture of the protagonist and his surroundings, as well as the grave circumstances that he has to confront,
Banville uses such a detached form of narrative, removed yet sympathetic in order to dramatize the thoughts and feelings of his central character. 36.
The complex pattern reveals the confusion of the man who attained self-knowledge through pain and conflicts.
One element of Banville’s style is his merging of past and present, there is always a return to memories of childhood, to previous knowledge and experiences. McMinn says, “the tricks and illusions of memory are an important theme in this narrative”37. The final paragraph in the novel is a clear memory of the early childhood. It is a return to the cries of children, the leaves of the linden, church bells, barking dogs, in other words the early facts and reality that should never have been doubted.
The circular pattern makes a full sweeping movement when the young boy Nicolas Copernicus is called away by, “a voice as a huge dark liquidly faintly frightening rushing in the darkness that was left not heard. All called, called him to sleep”38. While at the end, the final paragraph shows him lying down, “straining to catch that melody...... . All called and called to him, and called, calling him away”39.
In comparing between past and present we can also mention the significant use of contrast when dealing with the two brothers Copernicus and Andreas.
Andreas wallows in earthiness, while, “his brother seeks to remain uncontaminated”4. The final revelation affects Copernicus on his dying bed, as the ghost of Andreas stresses the need for the concrete, the real as well as the imaginative. Truth relies on inspiration not mere explanation. Andreas was described as handsome yet, at the end all his beauty is destroyed since he plunges into a world rejected by his brother but unavoidable. “Andreas, however, the slimy, rat-like essence of the every day world...., is in the end triumphant”41.
The final dialogue between Nicolas Copernicus and the redeeming spirit of his brother is a masterpiece which links places, all the ideas together, and brings Copernicus back to earth,
The imaginary dialogue with Andreas is most convincing at such moments, where the full extent of the human poignancy in Copernicus’s story is given expression. 42.
The complex structure of the novel calls for a rich texture to match it. The language used by Banville is full of implication to convey the meaning. He insists on not confusing words with the mystery behind them. He is completely aware of the fact that, “By acknowledging the poverty of words a renewed sense of their proper value is achieved”43. Every word and every sentence must clarify and bear on the meaning through hints, allusions, references and clues. Banville subordinated the idea to the mode of expression. He is able to dramatise the whole process of Copernicus’s initiation through the use of language. There is almost a lyrical poetic touch in his prose style, especially when he reveals the need for and importance of the imagination. “The burden of language becomes a revitalized means of knowledge”44.
The novel is enriched by metaphors mostly from the birds’ realm which may allude to the protagonist’s sky-gazing. There are various shining birds, “hawk-like monsters, a black monster dragging its damaged wings”45, a steely shinning bird all haunt him especially when Andreas’s spirit converses with him at the end.
A huge steely shining bird soaring on motionless outstretched great wings, terrible........ and yet magnificent carrying in its fearsome beak a fragment of blinding fire. 46.
Later on as he goes on conversing with Andreas and feels more exhausted and lost, he views,
the great steel bird trailing flames in its wake..... no longer alone, but flying before a flock of others of its kind, all aflame, all gleaming and terrible and magnificent. 47.
These pictures seem like fever hallucinations, but in fact the hawk-like monsters signify the worldly attacks which the young astronomer tries to avoid. The birds become shinning and beautiful when he realises the importance of the natural real life, which he had misunderstood throughout his researches. The lovely creatures hold in their beaks the fragments of the truth. Copernicus achieves a version of the truth only “when dying of a haemorrhage of the brain”48.
The whole action of the novel is an upward direction as the astronomer concentrates on the heavenly planets and avoids the earthly interests. He soars up into a blue happiness, and only at the end of the book is he pulled down again and taught to revel in and comprehend the earthly chaos. The whole theme rotates round the dilemma of man in search for the truth or at least attempting to attain a pattern of existence and acceptance of the real,
....the outstanding thematic concern of all of Banville’s books is with the fragility of existence and the precarious nature of human happiness. 49.
Any realisation or comprehension is in itself an achievement, a cherished discovery.
Kepler
It is the second novel, (1981) in the series of scientist’s narratives and is considered as “Banville finest novel......it is Banville’s artistically most accomplished piece of fiction”5. It shows the best example of a complete blend between form and content.
The novel is a continuation of the theme of Doctor Copernicus to reach a certain harmony or order, he followed the theory of a sun centred universe. But, Kepler depended more on mathematics and especially geometry, he formed new laws of physical astronomy and was a productive writer. He published five scientific works and the chapters of Banville’s novel are entitled like them.
The first paragraphs of the novel show how much Banville is influenced by Henry James art of fiction and fine aesthetic taste. They reveal the main theme as well as the style used by the narrator. The book will deal with the two aspects of Kepler’s character, the astronomer as well as the human being and the close link between them.
Concerning the astronomer, the reader delves into all the troubles, the wrong avenues, the financial difficulties and the experiences and how this will lead him to the discoveries and the publishing of his theories.
Kepler’s personal life was also full of trials due to religious clashes and many attempts to curb his ambition. Besides he suffered from an unhappy marriage, a domineering father in law, and the death of a dear son. His character is well discerned in the first paragraph and we await the rest of the novel to have a comprehensive view of what is already expected,
Johannes Kepler asleep in his ruff has dreamed the solution to the cosmic mystery. He holds it cupped in his mind as in his hands he would a precious something of unearthly frailty and splendour. O do not wake! But he will. Mistress Barbara with a grain of grim satisfaction, shook him by his ill-shid foot, and at once the fabulous egg burst, leaving only a bit of glare and a few cordinates of broken shell. 51.
This concise paragraph implies both, Kepler’s occupation and family relationship. He did not really reach a solution to the mystery of the universe but he merely dreamt. This pattern of a dream is held till the end of the novel when before dying he dreams again and this clarifies the observation of the interplay between the theme and the structure. The pattern of discovery here is enhanced by both thematic and stylistic assets,
the dream motif, which thus opens and closes the narrative, lends a ring-like compositional pattern to it. Kepler is dreaming the solution to the cosmic mystery. 52.
Kepler was mystified with the universe and in particular with the planets and the harmony of heavens, yet the solution came to him by chance, and he stated that the universe is arranged around the five Platonic solids.
Like his predecessor Copernicus, he depended on Divine Providence, where mistakes may usually cause disaster; but luckily they reached a correct conclusion through the simple reactions of a dreamer. His pattern of discovery, although demanding strenuous efforts and constant hard work; yet,
When the solution came, it came, as always, through the back door of the mind, hesitating shyly, an announcing angel dazed by the immensity of his journey. 53.
Kepler’s desire was to create a cosmic harmony, a colossal order, but he had a constant fear that his knowledge of science, geometry and mathematics may not succeed.
He was after the eternal laws that govern the harmony of the world. Through awful thickest, in darkest night he stalked his fabulous prey. 54.
But with the worldly and social demands as well as the inversion of life into his realm of study, he feared that “he grossly armed with the blunderbuss of his defective mathematics, what chance had he”55. Besides the stress on theme, the first paragraph also excels in the use of language such as the use of the word ‘cup’ which may reveal the shape of the human mind within the skull or it may refer to the spheres of the planet revering all the other planets close to the sun.
Kepler’s family life is also revealed in this paragraph, as his wife wakes him up as if she enjoys disturbing him, “in grim satisfaction”56. He conveys the lack of understanding between them. Kepler finds no encouragement from his whole family, wife, mother, and brother. As for the words ‘fabulous egg burst’, this refers to Kepler’s interest in the orbit of the planet Mars, he realised that it was not a circle, but it had an oval curve. He went through numerous complex steps and analysis till he reached the theory that the Martian orbit is an ellipse with a radius of a certain measure ‘0.00429’. this number is mentioned at the end of the first paragraph and then picked up again in the second paragraph.
The rest of the second paragraph deals with his financial problems and lack of means as he needed to fund his work and print his books and theories. The thought of making a journey to the Emperor Ferdinand who owed him money; yet this trip was fatal and never completed as he caught a fever and died.
The third paragraph describes his being sent away from Craz due to his religious and political principles. “Kepler had to suffer on account of his religious beliefs and of the political turmoil that formed the backdrops to his restless life”57.
In keeping with Henry James’s aesthetic pattern, the three paragraphs include the main themes, the two-fold character of Kepler, the style, and the construction, in other words, they reveal the thematic as well as the technical significance of the novel.
When Banville is exiled from Craz due to religious and political principles, he goes to Brahe’s Castle of Benatek just outside Prague. He expected to be welcomed and to find a rich place full of grandeur and greetings, but instead of, “gold rooms and spontaneous applause, the attention of magnificent serious people”58; he was shocked and disappointed to confront, “this grey, these deformities the clamour and confusion of the other lives this familiar - O familiar - disorder”59.
He was met by a strange dwarf instead of the host himself. Kepler felt that he was fated to live disturbed and in chaos and that any bright instant of inspiration came at the most unusual situation: One of the characteristics of his character was, “Kepler’s weary familiarity with being tricked by hope remains a basic conviction of his character”6.
Banville drew the reader’s attention to Kepler’s life as a human being first not as an astronomer or mathematician. He belonged to a poor family and was a constant traveller all over Europe searching for a permanent career and security. This type of wandering life made him feel like an outcast without roots and without access to any outstanding people of society, in spite of his relationship with Brahe and his contact with Galileo.
In his narration of Copernicus’s life, Banville separated between the private and the public, but with Kepler the drama becomes more intense; as he is constantly involved with family problems. He suffers from an unhappy marriage, a nagging sick brother, and a mother who is accused and imprisoned of witchcraft and magic.
...disorder had been the condition of his life from the beginning...... . In the spring his heart full of hope, he had set himself again to the great task of formulating the laws of world harmony. 61.
When he pays a visit to his mother he remembers all the past frustrations and Banville excels in his technique of a return from past to present in a stream of thoughts, “The past struck him again a soft glancing blow. Out there he had dawdled and dreamed, lusting for the future”62.
He remembered the crowded house-hold with the host of family members children, aunts and weird strange relatives. He suffered from tints and bad eye-sight, “a souvenir left him by the frequent boxings which every innate of the house inflicted on him”63. The only one he loved was his brother Henrich, who had been to war and returned a shattered, foolish, wild and sick character, after the hard experience. The only memory of his late father was that of a harsh severe drunken hand hitting him. Every memory in fact in every sight and sound was familiar comforting, and homely, and yet overflowing with panic and pain. “Happiness? Where in all that would happiness have found a place?”64.
The tragedy of Kepler lies in his attempt to confront personal strife and at the same time to reach scientific truths and conclusions,
Banville wants to represent a personalised version of chaos which is as instructive as the larger chaos in Kepler’s struggle with the heavenly order. 65.
The only solace in his life is his step daughter Regine who is a beautiful loving young girl symbolising the absent harmony. This fondness of Regine increases, especially after the death of his favourite son Fredrich at the age of six, “Grief such as this is like nothing else in the world”66. Yet, even Regine fails him at the end, when she gets married after her mother’s death, and her husband nags and hounds him for her mother’s inheritance.
The second part of Kepler’s character is the one of the scientist, or in other words the intellectual struggle, which is often tinted by the imaginative and emotional. His first discovery was that the universe is based on five geometric forms. Then while teaching at school he wonders why there are only six planets. His revelation and discovery comes most unexpectedly as he suddenly realises that geometry is the only solution to discern the form of the physical universe. This theory of geometrical symmetry as the core of a harmonious celestial order is a satisfactory discovery but he cannot prove it mathematically. It is his first step towards a whole pattern of knowledge and he tries to pursue it. McMinn says,
The path from fiction to fact is the real imaginative miracle of the novel. The story of Kepler’s career demonstrates, above all, the primary truths of imagination and the intellect’s slow return to what imagination originally reveals. 67.
Kepler reaches the conclusion that the law is simple and pure, he humbly admits the close link between the imagination and facts, between the human and the celestial. The divine power is also there to crown and illuminate every thing, the reality of God’s design overrules and creates a spiritual discovery or realisation. There is a certain design of knowledge and a mode of discovery.
The tribute to God is also tribute to human perception capable of seeing His reflection. Man, in this special sense, is the centre of Kepler’s universe. Kepler’s joy is the result of his human discovery, his recognition of the divine with the earthly. All his work has led him back to a sense of simple, intuitive and original harmony. 68.
Banville has formed a romantic picture of the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual astronomer. He was a sky gazer; but at the same time he had to fight religious and political plots and obstacles. Kepler combined both fascination and intellectual achievement. He was a strong character, whose miserable social and personal life of disasters enhanced the dream of harmony and beauty.
The novel is most brilliant in capturing the multifarious paradoxes inherent in Kepler’s personality..... . Kepler was as much a dreamer as he was a clear headed meticulous scientist. 69.
He was calm and tolerant as regards to religious conflicts and disturbances, and he was very careful and alert to any error or alteration of scientific traditional laws. Kepler combined between solid objects as the raw material of the universe and the harmony of the fine structure which makes the whole world ‘a perfect work of art’. According to Banville, the scientific discoveryand its rendering or careful production is equal to any creative art. Both the scientist and the artist give shape to certain facts or material in a perfect harmonious structure which makes sense besides emanating a sense of beauty. 70.
Kepler faced failure, sorrow, frustration, and family as well as health problem, yet his solace and pleasure relied on the use of his intellect, the artistic talent of the imagination and the power of endurance and a strong belief in God.
The vision of the harmony of the world is always before me calling more on, God will not abandon me I shall survive..... one must live facing into the future, indifferent to terrors and yet undeceived by foolish hopes...... At the final moment, we shall at last perceive the secret and essential form.... of all our actions and thoughts...... Death is the perfecting medium. It is the only answer that makes sense of these disasters and pains these betrayals. 71.
Banville’s success in his thematic approach to Kepler owes a great deal to his style, language and the construction of the novel. It reveals the influence of both Henry James and James Joyce, since he follows the aesthetic creed of a beautiful creative art as well as the use of a certain language full of images, symbols, metaphors, time shifts and interpretation,
The realist, ..... takes the world as given: it is mountains and emotions, it is art and it is us. The artist’s job therefore, is not to say the thing itself, but to speak about it. 72.
Banville manages to set the main theme from the very beginning of his novel and then proceeds with the story in a circular shape. He exploits his senses, his intellect and his memory to reach the truth in a well knit style.
The novel is divided into five parts similar to the five planetary intervals, while the number of chapters corresponds to the Platonic solids, which are placed within these intervals. The whole story follows a circular frame, with the planetary system included in the sphere of the stable fixed stars. The last chapter, the fifth, has many recurrences of the first chapter. First he begins as a dreamer from the start, where his revelations of a harmonious model emanate from the dreamer’s mind. “Johannes Kepler, asleep in his ruff has dreamed the solution to the cosmic mystery”73. Meanwhile, the novel concludes with Kepler in a feverish state uttering, “Such a dream I had.... Such a dream - Ah my friend, such dreams”74. Second, his financial need and misery is apparent on the very first page and then it is clearly repeated in the last chapter where he reveals how he has been waiting for his money. Third, his religious strife is mentioned in the first chapter and also stressed in part five.
Another aspect of Kepler’s technique is its unique time plan. It can be divided into two sections, the dramatic time which deals with the consequent events and the narrated time which may refer to side events or past memories. For example, in part one, the dramatic time treats a number of hours while the narrated deals with seven years. In part two and four they are identical, while in part three the dramatic time is a few hours and the narrated refers to Kepler’s early childhood. Part five which is the most dramatic refers to a few hours besides the memory of events throughout the last eighteen years.
This time scheme adds to the theory of the circular structure,
The narrative movement describes a circle.... there are a few flash-backs to childhood and student years.... and then moves forward to the same, or nearly the same moment. 75.
The incident of his visiting his home and seeing his mother and brother is a very clear example of the time pattern. The present is emphasised by past memories, and at the same time it is enlightened or rather brightened up by a look forward into the future, the memories besides the reflections “combine into an illuminating stock taking by Kepler of his life and earthly happiness”76.
This family visit takes place in chapter five, part three, he falls asleep in his mother’s house, and this enables him to recede as far back as he can to infancy and memories.
Banville also excels in his use of letters in part four, where he addresses twenty letters to friends and colleagues during the span of one year. They are set in such an order that the second half is an exact reflection of the first, in other words it is like a curve where each letter establishes its counter letters, one and twenty, two and nineteen, .... etc. The letters start in (1605) up till (1612) then return to (1605) again. They start and conclude with the same feeling of sorrow. This mode clarifies the geometric picture of the narrative and reveals the main goal which is the close relationship between the material and the spiritual. McMinn says, “Progress according to this pattern is an inexorable form of recollection”77. The technical achievement of Kepler helps the reader to accept the universal chaos with a sense of peace since he receives an aesthetic satiation of a fine work of art.