'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' (Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho). (1) Since the late 1960s John Banville has published thirteen novels, a collection of short stories, three plays, one travelogue and has been involved with writing screenplays for cinema and television, as well as penning hundreds of reviews of all types of books. To be sure, this is ample evidence of a lifetime spent in writing, but evidence also of a lifetime's writing, a substantial body of work that is unique in contemporary Irish literature. A gathering together of essays in critical appraisal of that achievement in writing is wholly appropriate at this juncture, for perhaps it is only now in the present moment, that it becomes truly possible to trace and come to understand the differences and the similarities, the overall developments, within Banville's oeuvre.
