The Infinities (2010)

John Banville's first novel under his own name since winning the Man Booker Prize in 2005 takes place in an alternate universe in which classical Greek deities flit about English manors playing gleeful and lustful tricks on the inhabitants. But despite its mythological 
trappings, the central story of The Infinities is a down-to-earth one: As patriarch Adam Godley lies dying upstairs, the other family members, quarreling and cranky, stew 
in their desperation below. The messenger god Hermes acts as a bemused commentator on these events. But 
 Banville's lush, stylized language — which usually has a sort of self-puncturing pomposity — here feels overinflated and downright purple. B

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