Ten years on: Iain M. Banks (1954-2013)

Two great Scottish authors died on 9th June 2013. One, Iain Banks attracted a deluge of controversy with his debut, The Wasp Factory in 1984, following it up with fourteen other novels amongst them The Bridge, The Crow Road, Complicity and The Quarry.

The other, Iain M. Banks produced a similar number of volumes of science fiction. These included his series of novels about the Culture who have been described as “a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced super-intelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats spread across the Milky Way.”

Edgar Wright’s 2006 film, Hot Fuzz (2006) includes a scene in which two policemen, played by the comedian, Bill Bailey, who are subsequently revealed to be identical twins read books by the two authors.

Of course, both writers – Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks, were the same man.

Saving Mr Banks

Banks died, much too young, ten years ago. By a tragic coincidence, he was close to finishing the novel which would turn out to be his last, The Quarry, a book which features a character dying of cancer, when he learned he had terminal gallbladder cancer himself. He finished the book and quickly married his long term partner, Adele Hartley at the end of March after asking her, if “you would do me the honour of becoming my widow.” Publication dates for The Quarry were pushed forward to the middle of June. This was still too late for Banks who died on June 9th 2013, at the fifty-nine.

In The Quarry, Banks describes cancer like this: “Cancer makes bits of you grow that are supposed to have stopped growing after a certain point, crowding out the bits you need to keep on living, if you’re unlucky, if the treatments don’t work.” 

He would not actually be very old even if he was still alive: his 70th birthday would have been next February. Selfishly, I cannot help but mourn the seven or eight books which he would probably written over the course of the last decade had he lived, books which will now remain forever unwritten and forever unread.

Culture wars

He would doubtless have had much to say about the events of the last ten years too. He would have been disappointed to see that the Conservatives are still in power after thirteen years of a dismal lack of achievement. “I’m not arguing there are no decent people in the Tory party,” he once wrote, “but they’re like sweetcorn in a turd; technically they kept their integrity but they’re still embedded in shit.” He would have been horrified and angered by Brexit and by the rise of Johnson and Trump. “Look me in the eye, you twat, and tell me you weren’t tempted to vote for him (Boris Johnson),” argues one character. in his final book “You’re more of a Blairite than that lying, war-mongering scumbag is himself.”

I don’t know for sure what Iain Banks would have written about any of the events of the last turbulent decade. However, I am quite certain it would be funnier and more insightful and wittier than anything I could come up with myself. As both an author and a social commentator, his presence has been sorely missed.

Memory Banks

A selection of quotations from his works…

“Looking at me, you’d never guess I’d killed three people. It isn’t fair…I haven’t killed anybody for years, and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.” The Wasp Factory (1984).

“This is the story of a man who went far away for a long time, just to play a game. The man is a game-player called “Gurgeh.” The story starts with a battle that is not a battle, and ends with a game that is not a game.” The Player of Games (1987).

“There’s this sloth in the jungle walking from one tree to another, and it’s mugged by a gang of snails, and when the police ask the sloth if it could identify any of its attackers, it says, ‘I don’t know; it all happened so quickly…” Espedair Street (1987).

“We are what we do, not what we think.” The Player of Games (1987).

“The way to a man’s heart is through his chest!” Use of Weapons (1990).

“Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.” The State of the Art (1991).

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.” The Crow Road (1992). Opening line.

“When in Rome; burn it.” The State of the Art (1991).

“People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots… in fact I think they have to be… a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.” The Crow Road (1992).

“Collective responsibility. Also known as sharing the blame.” Excession (1996).

“Political correctness is what right-wing bigots call what everybody else calls being polite.” Dead Air (2001).

“Libertarianism. A simple-minded right-wing ideology ideally suited to those unable or unwilling to see past their own sociopathic self-regard.” Transition (2009).

“He knew all the answers. Everybody did. Everybody knew everything and everybody knew all the answers. It was just that the enemy seemed to know better ones.” Surface Detail (2010).

“One should never regret one’s excesses, only one’s failures of nerve.” The Hydrogen Sonata (2012).

“After doing extensive research, I can definitely tell you that single malt whiskies are good to drink.” Raw Spirit (2003).

“Well, we’re all young once, Prentice, and those that are lucky get to be old.” The Crow Road (1992).