Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Gordimer, Nadine (Vol. 17) - John Banville (essay date 1991)

Gordimer, Nadine (Vol. 17) - John Banville (essay date 1991)

John Banville (essay date 1991)

SOURCE: "Winners," in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 19, November 21, 1991, pp. 27-9.

[Banville is an Irish novelist and short story writer. In the following negative assessment of Jump, and Other Stories, he derides Gordimer's reportorial voice and contends that the short story medium is unsuited for her style of writing.]

In the 1970s I had lunch one memorable day with the French novelist Nathalie Sarraute. It was a year or two after Samuel Beckett had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I knew that Mme. Sarraute had known Beckett since before the war, and I brought up his name in the not very honorable hope of hearing some gossip about the great man. When I mentioned the prize, Mme. Sarraute said, Yes, in Paris we say he deserved it. Though her English is fluent, I assumed this somewhat peculiar phrase was a Gallicism, and I merely nodded solemnly in agreement. What I did not know,...

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