This is my fourth review of Use of Weapons. I've not looked back on any of my previous reviews so there is every possibility I am going to repeat myseThis is my fourth review of Use of Weapons. I've not looked back on any of my previous reviews so there is every possibility I am going to repeat myself, so I apologize if you have read some part of this before, but this book is a fucking wonder.
Cheradenine Zakalwe.
I do not think there is a more fascinating character in the history of science fiction than Cheradenine Zakalwe, nor is there a more challenging. He is a man we slowly discover we should hate, yet he is a man I can't help loving. Has there ever been a rounder character than Zakalwe -- and I am talking in all literature now, not just in Sci-Fi -- with all his growth and folly and guilt and penance and ugliness and beauty? For me the answer is no. He is Macbeth and Caesar; he is Holden Caulfield and Jake Barnes; he is Ed Gein and Genghis Khan; he is Hawkeye Pierce and Jack Burton. He is God ... or, at least, a Messiah. He is everything at once, and I can't help loving him, even though I shouldn't, and that may be Iain M. Banks greatest literary achievement -- making us love Zakalwe. In fact, making Cheradenine Zakalwe likeable is a Herculean task, but that was Banks' goal and Banks' success and Banks' greatest achievement.
Use of Weapons gets better every time I read or listen to it (and Peter Kenny's reading is some of the best vocal acting I have ever heard), so please read it, friends, and tell me what you think. And if you don't agree that it is brilliant, read it again, then take your argument to China Mieville because he agrees with me, and he will do a better job of beating you down than I can.
And P.S. -- don't sit in small white chairs. ...more
So much of what I love about the writing of Iain M. Banks is on display in The Player of Games that it could be my favourite of his novels (if not forSo much of what I love about the writing of Iain M. Banks is on display in The Player of Games that it could be my favourite of his novels (if not for Use of Weapons or The Wasp Factory or Canal Dreams or Inversions and who knows how many of the ones I haven't read yet?).
Maybe I am wrong here, but I have a hard time thinking of other authors who can turn seemingly simple ideas into complex ideas with a burst of imagination that makes the simple idea seem unique and rare -- all without the alienating pretentiousness of the author who knows s/he is great. This ability makes Banks one of the most inviting writers I know, and I savour everything he has written over and over again.
If fact, as I write this, I realize that in the past decade he and China Mieville (perhaps the pretentious one of which I spoke?) are the only two authors I have spent any significant time rereading. The former to visit an old friend, the latter to savour language and be dazzled. I admire, Mieville, but it is definitely Banks I prefer to spend time with.
This time listening to The Player of Games was pure joy. It didn't matter that I knew the outcome of Jernau Morat Gurgeh's great Azad tournament, that I knew the deal with the drone, Mawhrin-Skel, that I knew the ending was going to leave me a little flat. This time I was able to luxuriate in Gurgeh's journey, focusing on the little things rather than the big picture of the plot, letting his sensuality in the games guide me, letting his desire for the perfect game move me like it hasn't before, letting his flaws deepen his attractiveness rather than being fooled into judging him. This time I was able to admire Mawhrin-Skel's arrogance, Special Circumstances manipulation and the Culture's quite brilliant defeat of a dangerous future foe. This time I was able to recognize Gurgeh's warning to the reader that the ending of a great game -- of Azad and The Player of Games -- must be anti-climactic. I recognized it, accepted it, and let the flat ending ease me out of the emotional high I hadn't realized I had been swept up in.
Like Gurgeh missed Azad, I miss Iain M. Banks, and I am going to miss him and The Player of Games until I open another book of his and meet with him again. Even when I run out of new words from Banks, it is nice to know that all his old words get better with each reading. I will never run out of Banks tales to read. And that is comforting. ...more
I must preface my review with my surprise. I just took a look at the responses to this book from my goodreads friends and the star ratings are only faI must preface my review with my surprise. I just took a look at the responses to this book from my goodreads friends and the star ratings are only fair to middling. It makes me wonder if my love for this book is, perhaps, a little misguided. Either that or I am a more discerning reader than everyone else. Yeah ... that's probably it ;) So here's my review:
Iain M. Banks' books are packed with big, way-out-there moments. Grandmas explode, people wake up in rooms full of shit, ships run intentionally aground, hermaphrodites apply to mechanized killing temples to help them make decisions. His work is big and brash and in your face, and extended subtlety is not something Banks often employs. But he can.
Inversions -- his non-Culture Culture novel -- is all subtlety. It is a delicate double tale unlike any other he's told. Two journals, two narratives run parallel in an unnamed world experiencing a sort of Renaissance. A doctor cares for her King. A bodyguard protects his country's Protector. They are two stories that intertwine in only the subtlest ways, providing meditations on the meaning of perspective and how the smallest differences in perspective can alter everything.
The Culture elements that exist in Inversions enrich an already rich story, suggesting a whole universe beyond the confines of the world (only recently discovered to be round instead of flat) and its people, but this time the story doesn't focus on the Culture. Culture’s Contact is at the heart of the novel. It's two main characters are part of the Contact organization, but we don't hear the tale from their perspective, and so Contact remains a subtle thread in a greater tapestry (or a lesser one, depending on one's perspective).
Inversions is about love & hate, revenge & forgiveness, selfishness & selflessness, men & women, illness & health, healing & wounding, peace & violence, and countless other inversions, but none of these pairings are black and white. None are simple. There is no easy judgment between these potential opposites, no good or bad, they simply are, and what one might want to know about them is likely not put into words within the confines of the story. Banks makes us work by making us fill in the blanks. This is the primary tool of his subtlety. But perhaps it is this silence, the silence of the things that are missing, the subtle hints Banks gives us, that say everything that needs to be said.
This book is beautiful. I've described many Banks books in many ways, but beautiful is a new descriptor for me. I want to share the beauty of this book with everyone, but as I learned before writing this review, I may be the only one who sees the beauty of Inversions. That makes me more than a little sad....more
I am glad this collection is out there, and it is an interesting addition to the Culture books, but due to the peak-valleyness of the stories, it probI am glad this collection is out there, and it is an interesting addition to the Culture books, but due to the peak-valleyness of the stories, it probably has to take its place at the back of the queue when it comes to Banks' Culture output.
The title story, The State of the Art, isn't my highest peak, but I imagine it is for most fans because it gives us the tasty return of Diziet Sma (Zakalwe's minder in [books:Use of Weapons]) and her ever arrogant and sarcastic partner, the drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw. Plus, it's set on late-70s Earth: this puts paid to the idea that we Earthers might be the progenitors of the Culture, and it lets Banks have some serious atmospheric fun with a decade he knew and loved well. Not my higheset peak, but still quite lofty.
My highest peak has to be Descendent. It is a man and his conscious, AI spacesuit trying to stay alive after a nasty crash on an unfriendly planet. It's stream-of-consciousness; it's raw; it's sad and thought provoking, and I wish I had written it.
As for the deepest valley: that would have to be the final story, Scratch OR: The Present and Future of Species HS (sic) Considered as The Contents of a Contemporary Popular Record (qv). Report Abstract/Extract Version 4.2 Begins (after this break). Now let me be clear ... Scratch is the lowest valley in this book, but that doesn't make it crap. It is Banks challenging us with something that is simultaneously playful, experimental, existential, aggravating, dense, cryptic and a little insane. It is -- perhaps -- the most perfectly Iain M. Banks of any story in this collection. But it isn't what I think anyone would call a fun or entertaining read. It is, however, vital, and that makes it well worth the time before you close the covers on The State of the Art....more
when all life is violence rooted, bound, inescapable everything is a weapon.
this cannot be overstated.
memory, worship, flesh, love inhibitiode to zakalwe
when all life is violence rooted, bound, inescapable everything is a weapon.
this cannot be overstated.
memory, worship, flesh, love inhibition, action, demand, care shoelace, knife, gun, nuke blood, shame, slinky
the gas chamber kills more than the good books kill more than the chemical weapons kill more than the pamphlet kills more than the meltdown kills more than
no. never more than us, for we are these weapons all.
the mind, our mind, our minds the weapon, our weapon, our weapons death? it's ineluctable
I'm not really sure what to say about Consider Phlebas. It was, quite fittingly, the first Culture book I read, though it was my fourth Banks book (prI'm not really sure what to say about Consider Phlebas. It was, quite fittingly, the first Culture book I read, though it was my fourth Banks book (preceded by The Wasp Factory, Dead Air, & The Bridge respectively). And now it is the third Banks book I've reread (The Wasp Factory twice, and Use of Weapons once).
I like it very much, so I feel a little sad that many friends I respect don't love it as much as I and a good deal of them just think it is mostly okay.
I love that Horza is an unlikable protagonist, but I think that bothers some.
I love that Banks delivers on the promise of his title and epigraph:
IV. DEATH BY WATER
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
But I am certain there are those who find the finish too bleak, and more than a little hopeless.
Many are frustrated by Banks' propensity for long, detailed, action sequences and feel that these scenes disrupt the flow of the plot, whereas I love the cinematic quality of the action.
A few don't like what they see as a choppy narrative -- more linked short stories than one cohesive novel. Again, I love the episodic nature, and I love the way we grow into our knowledge of the characters through these sporadic brushes with their lives. That works for me, and seems real -- sorta like the way I connect with all the friends who don't live with me on a daily basis. We brush by each other in episodes, and all we learn about each other is in our own little short stories of companionship.
Some find Consider Phlebas too brutal. I think it is just brutal enough.
Others can't find any character to relate to and pull for, or are only able to embrace one, but I find myself liking them all, even the most unsavoury, like Fwi-Song and Mr. First (although I wouldn't want to eat dinner with them ;)).
But mostly I love what Banks is whispering in my ear while I read: "Hey, Brad. Heroes don't exist. Violence is our natural state, no matter who or what we are. Death comes to us all, somehow, someway, even seemingly immortal Minds. But that doesn't mean that life isn't beautiful. There is life in death, thus death matters. It makes life sweet, so don't forget to live it." For me, that's a message worth reading again and again.
Yep, it's good to be reminded that my bag of skin is nothing but crude, decaying matter. There's humility in that, a humility that makes me look at the black ant crawling up my leg with brotherhood rather than disdain (and it really is, right now, this second). It reminds me to recognize our shared experience. And so I let him(it?) continue his(its?) walk and don't crush him(it?) between my thumb and forefinger. I simply let him(it?) get on his way. I hope I will always be able to do the same.
(I wrote a review of Pippi Goes On Board just after I finished reading Consider Phlebas. If you've read the latter you may like my review of the former. Check it out.)
April 22, 2017 -- Been a while since I spent some time in Culture space, but I came back for a journey with the Clear Air Turbulence -- except this time I listened. I don't really want to add anything to my feelings about the text. I said it well enough above, but I do want to mention that it was a pleasure to listen to Peter Kenny's narration of the book. I'll be seeking his voice out in the future. ...more
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