John Banville, Kepler, space, repetitions, vision
This chapter explores John Banville’s Kepler (1981) as a spatial form. First considering the book as a physical volume of significant shapes and areas, the chapter then analyses how the text further structures its space by disrupting its linear order. Finally, it discusses how the space is perceived, asking how the reader can ever achieve a complete vision of the space of this or any text. It also wonders about the reason for this structure and concludes that the text, by creating form from the chaos of Kepler’s life through repetition and coincidence, succeeds in producing a truer representation of the space through which Kepler believed he moved.