What is it with this book, really? 
There are only two reasons, and none of them, oddly enough, have anything whatsoever to do with Freddie Montgomery! The first is that John Banville has written about Freddie and his crimes – invented it all – and cares about them. That is a very good reason. It may even be a sufficient reason. The other reason is that many people who have read the book say it is a great book – they even say things like “a marvelous piece of literary, philosophical, and political fiction”. That’s also a reason; probably, in the big scheme of things, not a good reason, but even so, for me, a reason to read the novel.
So, then, in The Book of Evidence we meet Freddie Montgomery. He is a schizophrenic 38-year-old ex-scientist haunting dingy pubs who, nonetheless, ponders life and his illness via this superb novelized murder trial “confession.” He is on trial for the brutal murder of a female servant who interrupted his plan to steal a painting. Freddie is a wily creature, but also disarming and charming. As a narrator, he cannot be trusted. He is a man with little empathy and a man who is more or less blind to his own numerous weaknesses. And he is so concerned about his own ontological status, his own perceptions and the impressions he makes on others, that it is disturbing and most likely biases his tale in ways almost impossible to account for. He is an existential wreck. Just listen to him:
“How shall I describe it, this sense of myself as something without weight, without moorings, a floating phantom? Other people seemed to have a density, a ‘thereness’, which I lacked. Among them, these big, carefree creatures, I was a child among adults.”
He raises many interesting questions, this Freddie of ours. If his self is such a mess, how do we relate to what he says about himself? In the context of the tale, this same question arises in a somewhat different way: If the self of this man is in some ultimate sense a fiction then how can he possibly be held responsible for his crimes? For Freddie, there isn’t really a crime, there is instead what he calls “a failure of imagination”. What is the punishment for that? What is the crime that is being punished? And, more generally, what in this odd, beautifully, pointed but oh so diffuse, contradictory and at times very implausible story, so lacking of both reference and self-reference, is to be trusted, viewed as correct, or as “probably more correct” than something else?
Well. Hmm. Have I now confused you enough in this review? It is a beautiful book. One I didn’t always enjoy but am very happy to have read. It is a wonderful, extraordinary book that raises important questions. So to you, I can only say: Go and read The Book of Evidence, come to your own conclusions and enjoy! Perhaps, like me, you will feel when you have finished that you have completed a grand, unguided, exhilarating tour of an exciting round-about in a grand mindscape crafted by John Banville, and laugh?
and 
. 