Mefisto - by John Banville (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"A novel of virtuosic scope."--The New York Times

A Faustian fever dream of numbers, knowledge, and the darkness that lurks beyond comprehension.

Gabriel Swan is a math prodigy obsessed with the idea of order. He sees the world not in words, but in numbers. Compelled to find the elusive code behind life itself, he plunges into a search for absolute meaning. But when he meets Felix--a charismatic, otherworldly stranger who seems to hold the answers--Gabriel's journey takes a darker turn.

He becomes involved with a mesmerizing trio formed by sad, obese Mr. Kasperl, who is like someone "from a country where no one else lived"; lovely, mute Sophie; and the Mephistophelian Felix, whose appearances always foretoken disaster. In an abandoned mansion, their changing relations, and Gabriel's quest for a "formula that will reduce the disorder of common things
to an equation," slowly and inevitably land him in his own private season in Hell.

Inspired by the legend of Faust, Mefisto is a dazzling, philosophical novel about genius, obsession, and the limits of rationality. With his trademark prose--elegant, luminous, and hypnotic--Banville transforms myth into a haunting study of human fragility and the borders of reality.

Review Quotes

"Banville fuses intellect and myth into something dazzling and disquieting."
-- Washington Post

"A dark and glittering parable of ambition and ruin."
--The Guardian

"A richly imagined tale of brilliance, madness, and metaphysical hunger."
--The Irish Times

"Intense, cerebral, linguistically inventive."

--The Cleveland Plain Dealer

About the Author

John Banville is the internationally celebrated author of many novels including The Sea, April in Spain, and The Drowned. He has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He lives in Dublin.