July09_1

Iain Banks is one of my favourites. I love that he writes in two voices: brilliant sci fi and left-field literature. His sci fi is literary, his literature is often fantastic, but when you choose an Iain Banks you choose one or the other. I had read 'The Business', from the liyterary camp, twice actually, and loved it's wry wit and cynicism. But this one, 'The Bridge', didn't work for me at all. The protagonist is in a coma following an accident. He travels his unconscious to The Bridge, a swarming quasi-Victorian world built on and within a seemingly endless and architecturally eccentric bridge. He's the amnesiac patient of a ambitious Doctor, then falls from his position of privilege and heads off on a journey which maps his return to consciousness. In this clever clever structure I have no clear recollection of the main character, Orr (clever clever name) and Banks doesn't offer any opportunity to connect with the secondary characters of the novel at all. It's beautifully written, of course. Maybe in my current mode it simply failed for lack of vampires?