“The Problematics of Authenticity”: John Banville’s Shroud

Abstract

John Banville’s Shroud makes use of certain facts in the lives of Paul de Man and Louis Althusser. The novel focuses on a character who has dissembled all his life; he has never ceased to lie and play roles in order to escape self. He says he has never believed in the self, and yet he appears to seek authenticity. Who can say, though, Alex Vander being the most unreliable of narrators? He sees himself in various guises, most notably that of Christ. Shroud deals with self-effacement and the death of the divine in Man. The account alternates between third-person and first-person, which seems to be one of several aspects it shares with Hypertomachia Poliphili.