{"id":825,"date":"2013-04-04T14:39:36","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T14:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/?p=825"},"modified":"2014-09-16T14:56:23","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T14:56:23","slug":"iain-banks-and-deferred-pleasures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/iain-banks-and-deferred-pleasures\/","title":{"rendered":"Iain Banks and deferred pleasures"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first Iain Banks book I read was The Wasp Factory<\/strong>. I knew I was going to enjoy it, so I put it aside as a reward for finishing my finals at University. It sat on my shelf, a deferred pleasure.<\/p>\n

I remember the circumstances of reading it vividly – I had been to our graduation ball and, unable to sleep after a very drunken, flirty evening, I collapsed on my bed and picked up the book. I didn’t sleep that night at all. I devoured that story and, still awake at 6am, I went for a walk in the early morning mists, my head swimming with excitement about my future, and the strange, dislocated sense of formless dread that Banks had conjured in me.<\/p>\n

“Come outside,” the book seemed to say, “the world is far, far weirder than you could possibly imagine…”<\/p>\n

Looking back on that moment of transition, it feels almost as if it was Banks himself who ushered me out of adolescence into the wider world with a warm but slightly ghoulish grin of amused invitation.<\/p>\n

I read The Crow Road<\/strong> in one sitting, too, in an attic bedsit in Brussels where I hid from the menagerie of freaks who shared the house with me – the mad, snaggle-toothed landlady, her grotesquely fat son who read books about nineteenth century post codes, the alcoholic Aussie tennis coach, and the Irish girl across the hall, who I loved with a fervent, unrequited passion – they swim in and out of Gallanach in my muddled memories, no more real than Uncle Rory, Prentice, Ashley and the rest.<\/p>\n

Two years later Whit<\/strong> kept me company as I languished at home with flu, feverish and delirious, bedridden for a month, living on soup and stories. I recall little of what happens in the book – I just retain an impression of vivid, formless colour and a girl brandishing a water pistol filled with tobasco, laughing wildly.<\/p>\n

Complicity<\/strong> held my hand and whispered dark revenge fantasies into my ear as I hid in another attic, this time of a private school in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by children of all ages, playing at being adult much as Cameron does.<\/p>\n

I picked up The Business<\/strong> immediately after hanging up the phone to reject a very generous job offer from a large company who really wanted me to work for them. I had initially accepted the job, but upon being presented with the contract, I noticed they had a dress code and, instinctively rebelling, I retracted my acceptance to the utter, outraged astonishment of the recruitment agent. Torn between\u00a0exhilaration\u00a0at my defiance and fear that I had made a terrible mistake, I sought solace in Banks’s corporate fantasy, and was immediately reassured that I had done the right thing.<\/p>\n

I can’t recall where and when I read the other books, but I devoured them all, many more than once. The shock of Use of Weapons<\/strong>‘ double twist was so profound that I remember exactly how it made me feel, but all attendant detail was washed away by the brilliance of the\u00a0denouement\u00a0– that memory sits in splendid isolation.<\/p>\n

But the one Iain Banks book I have never read is The Bridge<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Banks says it’s his best. I take his word for it so, much as I saved The Wasp Factory for the last day of my adolescence, I’ve been saving The Bridge for the last day of my adult life -the plan has always been to keep it safe for the day I am diagnosed terminal.<\/p>\n

Seriously, that’s always been at the back of my mind. Accidents notwithstanding, we all get that bad news sooner or later, and I have The Bridge set aside for that day, sitting\u00a0on my shelf, a deferred pleasure.<\/p>\n

In his heartbreaking, dignified, funny statement yesterday, Banks said he and his wife will be spending his final months ‘seeing friends… that have meant a lot to us’. I’ve always though that I would want to do the same when the time comes, and he is one of the friends I plan to spend that time with, reading the book he considers his best. That way, as I face another transition, Banksy will be there, grinning wolfishly, ushering me through another door – a companion, a guide, a mentor I’ve never met, but who’s been one of the best and wisest friends a man could wish for.<\/p>\n

I will miss him terribly, but I know he’ll be there for me at the end, in the pages of a book, as he has been so many times before. And for that I am more grateful to him than I can adequately express.<\/p>\n

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The first Iain Banks book I read was The Wasp Factory. I knew I was going to enjoy it, so I put it aside as a reward for finishing my finals at University. It sat on my shelf, a deferred pleasure. I remember the circumstances of reading it vividly – I had been to our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkandrews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}