I caught local author Iain Banks, on Tuesday (14) at the Edinburgh Book Festival. I've never seen Banks, now 53 years old, in the flesh and I kind of expected him to be like the character in The Bridge, with a
big bald spot. The development of the central character over many years in The Bridge was so intimate that I was sure that it was a close fiction of the author himself. But, no, Banks is a hirsute fellow, with beard and full head of
hair (which he flicks from time to time).
Based on my hazy recollection of The Bridge, there seem to be other parallels between the Bridge character and Banks the author - the love of music, technology and cars - which were used so effectively to mark time passing in the novel. Then there was the setting of The Bridge itself, obviously close to the author's own home at South Queensferry.
Having not read any of Banks writing since Complicity ("one
of the easy ones," he joked, after a member of the audience said she
struggled to keep all the detail in the book in her head) it
was interesting to hear Banks came back to the
Bridge quite a few times declaring it the one book he has yet to top.
But this event was primarily to promote his latest book The Steep Approach to Garbadale, which tells the story of a family business that has built up over generations selling a Victorian board game called Empire!
In a spirit of playfulness Banks asked the audience to choose between a passage of the book based in Paris or one based in Glasgow. Glasgow won convincingly. Reading over the thrumming of the rain in
theatre number one, he played the part of two old aunts with a high-pitched falsetto. The tone of the passage was lighthearted comedy.
It was a wide-ranging conversation. Banks talked about his fascination with board games and how he used to thrash his friends in post-pub games of Risk, although he confesses it was probably because he as designated driver was the sober one.
He admitted that he still pounds away at the keyboard with two fingers extremely rapidly.
His upbringing as an only child probably contributed to his decision to become an author at an early age.
Perhaps because Banks has a large, loyal following, he can afford to be
candid about his shortcomings. Equally possible is that it's an important quality to nurture as a successful writer lest you become too cocksure. Still, when he suggested that if there was any weakness in his new book it was
that the Americans are stereotypes, an American stuck up his
hand and said actually he didn't think they were stereotypes.
Banks was also keen to revise previous statements that he only works three months of the year and is off driving cars, or sailing boats for the rest of the year. He suggested that those months are in fact an important time for his books to gestate. He may be riding his motorbike, but he's actually working, forging away inside.
Banks, famous for his love of cars, told us in lavish detail about his recent affairs with his two Porsches, a Land Rover, and a BMW. But now he is weaning himself onto fuel-efficient smaller cars. The motorbike will be downsized soon.
He worries about the environment. He flies less too, but that's also because of the security, having famously torn up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street in anger over the restrictions passed for the "War on Terror."
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