Researchers find it difficult to put John Banville down

NEWTONS' OPTIC:LITERARY EXPERIMENTS involving John Banville are cruel and pointless, according to the National Authors Rights Association.

Students have been dissecting John Banville for years, usually while researching cures for insomnia. Academics regularly cut him to pieces on the letters page of this newspaper, which clearly makes them feel better.

But there is disagreement over how useful John Banville is when modelling human complexity. Some experts think he provides unique insights which could not be obtained by alternative means. Others think identical results could be produced by a computer program, a single-celled organism or a dish of mould.

Sentiment undoubtedly plays a major role in this debate. Many people have a John Banville at home. Well, not many people. But some people. When these people think of their own dog-eared John Banville, they find the treatment of John Banville in universities quite distressing.

Campaigners say they have witnessed dreadful scenes of neglect inside English departments and research libraries, with John Banville kept in appallingly musty conditions. Rumours of a deliberately broken spine are thought to be exaggerated. However, John Banville did have most of his fluff shaved off to produce The Sea. American journal Publishers' Weeklycalled this "Banville's breakthrough" but others denounced it as putting lipstick on a rabbit.

John Banville was also reportedly "split in two" to create the pseudonymous crime writer Benjamin Black. He was then stitched back together again to receive an Irish Book Award. Some critics described this as "Frankenstein literature", although not all would describe Frankensteinas literature.

Objectors claim that John Banville is an intelligent creature with feelings, citing several recent papers on the subject. Among the published conclusions were: "I'm not an expert but I feel very strongly about this", and "my position on the matter is not open to discussion". These results do at least confirm that John Banville has feelings.

Objectors further claim that universities use John Banville because he is "the cheaper option". Universities strongly dispute this, although John Banville can often be bought for €3.99 within months of publication.

Academics say they are constantly seeking humane alternatives to John Banville and students only use him when they are fully anaesthetised. Staff often become so attached to John Banville that they find it difficult to put him down. However, the uncomfortable semiotic fact is that some experiments do require a live author to be textually valid.

The dispute between pro- and anti-Banville sectionists is a fluid and subtly shaded argument of the type one might expect a Booker Prize-winning author to appreciate inside and out, instead of just rattling his cage.

John Banville himself has said: "All works of art are scar tissue." Apparently, he does not believe the opposite to be the case. John Banville has also said that he aspires to the "denseness and thickness" of poetry. Alas, under certain laboratory conditions, he may simply aspire to denseness and thickness.

Nobody wants to see a harmless specimen suffer. So while development continues on the computer programs, single-celled organisms and dishes of mould, it is to be hoped that our universities will find some alternative source of baroque metaphysical fiction.

How about an infinite number of monkeys?