When I first delved into The Bridge during my late teens, it left an indelible mark on me. The unique fusion of social realism and the science-fiction/fantasy realm of 'The Bridge' was truly unprecedented for me. However, upon revisiting it nearly two decades later, while I still found it an engaging read, its flaws became more evident. It simply wasn't as original or ingenious as my youthful memory had painted it.

The book unfolds two intertwined stories. One follows John Orr, who washes up at the base of a surreal civilization on a colossal bridge, with no recollection of his identity or how he arrived there. The other is about an unnamed man (whom some suggest is Alex Lennox) from a working-class Glaswegian background. He arrives at Edinburgh University in the late 1960s, falls in love with the upper-class Andrea Cramond, and engages in an unconventional menage-a-trois relationship with her over the next eighteen years while building a successful engineering firm. All the while, he struggles with the underlying feeling of betraying his working-class roots. As it turns out, the two characters are one and the same. The 'Bridge' sections occur as he lies in a coma in a hospital bed after a traffic accident. The enjoyment lies in uncovering the connections between the fantasy world and his real life story.

I'm not sure if it's unusual to have multiple long-running narrative fictions in my mind, but reading this book made me reflect on how our imaginations mirror our life experiences. John Orr's world is inevitably constructed from the fragments of Alex Lennox's life. Even in the fantastical world of the Bridge, echoes of the real world persist.
So, why wasn't I as impressed the second time around? Perhaps it's because I've since realized it's not as original as I once thought. After reading works by authors like Haruki Murakami, I see that others can blend the real and the fantastical more interestingly. Also, the phonetic-Scots sections about a barbarian 'swordsman' felt out of place. While the central character is well-portrayed, the other characters seem rather sketchy. I never truly understood what drew him to Andrea. And at times, the 'Bridge' sequences felt like reading someone else's dreams.
Nevertheless, I don't want to be too negative. Maybe the story of an 18-year-old arriving in Edinburgh appealed to me more then than now. There is much to appreciate in the book. The description of Lennox's early years is lyrical, and there are many great one-liners. There are also hidden references and Easter eggs for those who seek them. It's still worth revisiting, even if our perspectives have changed. [I'm not changing the 5-star rating. That's what I thought at the time. And I'd still give it four.]

Boring. I'm not interested in what it presents, nor in how it presents it. Sometimes it's experimental, and at other times it's very literary, quite chaotic at the beginning.

Summing up a lot: completely lacking the slightest interest for me. It seems that the content fails to engage my attention or arouse my curiosity. The way it is presented is either too experimental, making it difficult to understand and follow, or too literary, perhaps overcomplicating things.

The initial chaos doesn't help either. It just makes me feel confused and disinterested. I really can't find anything in it that would make me want to continue reading or exploring further.

In short, it's just a big turn-off for me.

Et zou, once again, a spoiled review, but not as much as the fourth cover (which, by the way, is a disgrace for the publisher, Folio SF) that directly reveals the end of the story. So, you should definitely not read it.

Unfortunately for me, I read it, and I know that in this novel by Iain Banks, reality is not what we believe. It is just a dream from which the hero will wake up at the end. Naturally, the most Dickensian among you will ask me if the awakening leads to reality or to another dream... I don't know! Be that as it may, this novel tells the long wanderings of an amnesiac, a barbarian with a completely delirious writing, and of some other characters that the author will naturally link, one way or another (at least that's what we hope).

Is it science fiction? Well, I would say yes, but it's on the fringe of pathological delirium. It would rather be a delicious alternative history in which an entire world lives on a bridge, a world full of bureaucracy and mysterious regulations. And on this bridge, the hero walks, lounges, tries to cure his amnesia while living an otherwise ordinary life. However, the author's talent is sufficient to keep us hooked on the adventures of this brave Mr Orr, and especially on his dream activity which is simulated or real, but which is just a way of seeing reality in both cases. The interest of this book is that it leaves many questions unanswered, questions that the author will not want to answer in a possible sequel (at least I hope so...): who is the barbarian? How does the bridge disappear? Well, after all, we don't care, we have enough to do to follow the hero, and especially we enjoy it much more than some volumes of the Culture.

This is a novel that truly engages the reader, and it's well worth the effort.

I found myself using mental faculties that I hadn't exercised this vigorously in a long time. The multiple layers of stories within stories within stories demanded my full attention, and it was crucial to note the parallels, joins, and circularities, some of which were separated by perhaps 200 pages.

I suspect the word "virtuosity" is often associated with The Bridge, as it seems like a high-wire act for the author as well. It's as if he wasn't entirely certain that it would all come together in the end. (A thought occurred to me as I tried to avoid using the same metaphors for the author, reader, and character - perhaps this desperate attempt to hold onto things as they slip through the mind's fingers is meant to mimic the character's struggle for mental cohesion and identity. It's a bit book-clubbish, but still plausible.)

The blurb gives away the basic idea of the story, so it's not a spoiler to say that it takes place entirely within the brain of a man in a coma after a car crash.

It probably is a spoiler to say that the book jumps among "Real" world memories, the Bridge World that the character finds himself in as an amnesiac immediately after, and the stories and dreams of the character (christened "John Orr") in the Bridge World, who is also maybe a character (or merged characters) from within one particular story - the one involving a Glaswegian barbarian in the swords-and-sorcery vein.

(There are probably more moebius connections that I missed just after finishing. Maybe a 24-hour check-in will reveal more if I'm so inclined.)

Some other reviews seem to have disliked the barbarian sections because they are partly written in dialect. Maybe it's because I've been a fan of Glaswegian dialect approximations since reading the McAuslan books by George MacDonald Fraser, and maybe it's because I was reading in my own room rather than in public and could do them (quietly) out loud to myself, but for me these were possibly the most enjoyable bits. They provided a necessary relief from the rest of the "realities" with their relatively cheerful lack of introspection.

I'm not going to go into detail about the rest of the plot, partly because it feels like it would be better with some sort of flow diagram, and partly because I just finished and am still processing it. But I will say that among all of the virtuoso structure-y stuff, there's a really sweet story about love and having another person as part of your life, even in an unconventional way.

Stray Thoughts

- It's a great loss to the world that Banks died so soon.

- I wonder if Iain Banks saw the Life on Mars TV show and what he thought? Certainly, it's hard to read this without thinking of that show (the UK original, not the US remake), which also features a man in a coma in a dreamworld and has some of the same tropes, like the "using TV set to show'reality'". Sometimes that was helpful in reading, sometimes it just added to the confusion.

- I really want to go and see the Forth Bridge in reality now.

- Man, there are a lot of specifics about cars and car types! It's clear they're meant to signify something about the character (in the "real world") and where he is in his life, but I don't know enough about cars from the 1980s and their classiness/expense to decode it, so I just glossed over them. Plus, I'm not a guy, and the car as a possession/political symbol is clearly very important to the main character (see: cause of coma - car crash) in a way that seems very male. Then again, there are so many hyperspecific references here (not just cars, but also music, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, political protests, poetry, clothing...), and some are so firmly rooted in the time and place of Scotland in the 1970s to 1980s, that I doubt any reader could be well-versed in all of them. More importantly, Banks is a deliberate enough author, deliberately demanding a lot from the reader, that I have faith he undoubtedly considered this and factored in a safe amount of signifier redundancy into the system (another satisfying metaphorical parallel between the author and the character - an engineer), so I don't feel I've missed much that matters.

Overall

Overall, this is an amazing romance-fantasy-sci-fi-war-literary novel. One of the other reviews I skimmed said Banks (presumably without the "M.") considered this his top novel, and while I haven't read enough to agree or disagree, I can certainly see why he'd be very proud of it. The Bridge is almost superfluously difficult and intricate: Banks is playing with structure in a way that works for the book, but also to show off and to challenge. I think this book fits the literal, old definition of a "masterpiece": Banks is a craftsman demonstrating the upper limits of his skill and the sure control of his tools, to show the other experts (authors? critics?) that he's worthy of membership in the Guild - even though it's likely that he could make a decent living never doing anything this involved, and half the paying customers won't even appreciate it!

That makes it sound like I don't think it's good to read, but that's not true. It's good to read in part because it's difficult. Banks could have - and this is blatantly clear, a defiant "Are you hard enough, jimmy?" to the reader - written a more straightforward book about the mental landscape of a man in a coma, one that leaned more towards fantasy or literary-modern, and that fit a bit more neatly into the easy order of layering and "oh, that bit is related to that event" revelation. But he didn't. The complexity of the book is a challenge, but it's also a gift, because it makes you slow down to process (maybe the same with the dialect), and that gives you the space to think in unfamiliar ways about the big ideas at play here - reality, dreams (both sleeping and aspiring), faith and love, identity as minds and bodies and dreams change and are touched by others.

O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

(E.A.Poe)

If this book could be read as a response to Poe's poem, then Banks is indeed telling us that this is all just a dream. We must not overlook the fragility and ephemerality of dream life. We have to ask ourselves whether anything in our dreams has a lasting or real impact. Dreams are delicate and vulnerable, so we should tread softly while in them.

As Iain Banks (known for his "conventional" mainstream novels) or Iain M Banks (famous for his SciFi Space Opera - "The Culture Universe"), this Scottish writer constantly surprises me.

According to Freud, dreams are the manifestation of an unfulfilled wish or a repressed impulse. When night descends and we close our eyes, we enter the fog of the subconscious and embark on another life, sometimes more vivid than the one we consider real. Dreams are born from the embers of our waking life, triggering repressed unconscious desires with their limited connections or revealing unresolved conflicts, sometimes incoherently but at other times clearly and sharply.

Iain Banks was perhaps deeply dreaming while awake, and "The Bridge" is the outcome of that dream. It is a dystopian dream with dreams within dreams, rich in imagination and symbolism while firmly rooted in the reality of ordinary life. It is also a story that hovers between life and death, and we don't realize this until we reach the last third of the book, despite the several hints that make us wonder as we progress.

The story unfolds in that hazy region in the upper echelons of dreams just before we wake up and lose the fragile Ariadne thread that links our dreams to reality. Here, the trinity of the protagonist's psyche (one bleak and political, another laid-back and casual, and an explosive primal barbarian) feels like a whole, realistic person, attempting to complete tasks that are impossible due to their monumental nature, but especially because he is hindered at every turn by the sinister and blinding bureaucracy in which he finds himself trapped by his own misrecognized reluctance to uncover the truth about himself and his situation. It's as if Josef K from Kafka's "The Trial" has been thrust into a strange steampunk dream.

The story is told with a warped reality, creative enthusiasm, and inventiveness full of symbolic imagery, yet also with a great deal of humor. The references to the music of the late 70s and early 80s are entertaining (Chrissy Hind, Annie Lenox, Deep Purple, etc...); the outbursts against the Thatcher/Reagan electoral victory from an independentist with a socialist inclination set the Utopia dream in motion; the symbolism runs deep throughout the story, where we search for a mythical library as the key to Life and its meaning; we witness warplanes leaving braille messages in the sky; and we are presented with a redefinition of an "open relationship" (certainly not for everyone).

Some sections were challenging for me as a non-English speaker. When Banks used a thick Scottish dialect, I had to slow down to "translate" what I was reading, like: Got bak doon tae whare Karen wiz waiting in the oarry boat, aw tall dark and ugly an still wi his erms crossd an lookin ded hotty an dissdanefool.

The bridge itself (inspired by the "Forth Bridge" near Edinburgh) described in the book is a remarkable creation of one of the wildest imaginations I have ever encountered in literature. It is a structure without end or beginning, inhabited by billions organized in a mysterious class system, with a hidden history, secrets, mysteries, and dead ends worthy of the most delirious conceptions of Borges. It is a "world" with infinite levels and corridors filled with private clubs, furnished elevators the size of rooms, luxurious apartments overlooking an endless sea without beaches.

Its description is so detailed that when reading it, we can envision the images projected by the words as if we were reading a graphic novel. I found the setting to be the most captivating aspect of the book.

This book, if we take the title literally, is a "bridge" to "cross" as we traverse life, to reach "the other side" and return to attempt to understand love, death, and the purpose of being.

To me, in literary terms, this novel is a masterpiece. Sadly, Iain Banks passed away far too soon. But he left us numerous books and many dreams for all of us to share and gain from. However, I wouldn't be surprised if he were remembered most for this complex, alluring dream he called The Bridge.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
(Langston Hughes)

I was so frustrated that I actually threw this book across the room in anger. I had to force myself with great difficulty to finish it for the book club.

It was truly a book that had a plot twist which was - "I WOKE UP AND IT WAS A DREAM". That is not a legitimate twist. It is a really bad and lazy way of writing, especially when the author is supposed to be good and capable of creating imaginative and creative worlds. GAH!

I just couldn't believe how disappointing this book was. I had high expectations, but it completely failed to deliver. The whole "it was a dream" ending felt like a cop-out and didn't add any depth or excitement to the story. I was really looking forward to a great read, but instead, I was left feeling cheated and annoyed.

I hope the next book we read for the book club is much better than this one.

This book initially had a really powerful start for me. There was a mysterious and captivating series of chapters where it was not completely evident what was real and what was not. It created an air of intrigue that kept me hooked.

And it concluded on a high note as well. The final chapter was truly beautiful, delving into the progression of a relationship over the course of decades. It had an earnest and emotional payoff that left a lasting impression.

However, much of the middle part of the book caused me to lose interest. There was a succession of dream sequences that I simply couldn't bring myself to care about. It felt as if Banks was more preoccupied with being clever and showing off his literary skills rather than concentrating on constructing a story that the reader could truly connect with on a deeper level.

This led to a bit of a lull in my engagement with the book during the middle sections, despite the strong beginning and end.

Thank goodness, it was all just a dream and you where there and you and you, is as cliche a sentence as the novel’s man in coma plot device. It's not exactly original as it has been used previously in everything from classic literature to cheesy soap operas.

However, Banks’s greatness truly shines through. Not only in the vastness of the world he creates but also in his remarkable treatment of the workings of the human personality. Here, he delves deep into cause and effect and the intricate crossover between dreams and reality.

The Bridge is an astonishing creation, a vast city that extends to near infinity and houses a great number of levels within its structure. It is inhabited by a multitude of different characters. This concept marries up almost perfectly with the everyday struggle of the working person. It is here that Banks shows us three sides to the same character and how these personalities interweave to provide us with the story of one man's struggle to break free of his working class roots and the guilt he grapples with while doing so. Along the journey, we are taken through various levels of the bridge. The lower levels are home to the blue collar workers who are often looked down upon due to them wearing overalls and doing "dirty" jobs. The upper levels, on the other hand, are for the more genteel professionals where anything less than white collar just won't do. It is through witnessing and scrounging out a living through this almost Victorian social divide that John Orr, the barbarian, and Alex captivate the reader with Banks’ vivid descriptions and powerful narrative.

Two relationships are developed through two of the personalities, and these also add depth to the inner class struggle faced by Alex. Banks also hints at a futuristic element which, no doubt, would lead a reader, at the time of publication, nicely into the culture series or, like me if you are new to Banks, then now.

As all the personalities merge back into a single form, I feel this is not the end of the story but merely the beginning. There is so much more to explore and discover in this rich and complex world that Banks has created.

The Bridge commences with a harrowing car crash, and the driver seemingly slips into a coma. The majority of the book delves into the ongoing, imagined reality of the man as he lies in a hospital bed. At times, it delves even deeper into the dreams within his dream version, becoming rather meta. However, much like attempting to convey one's own dreams to someone else, it becomes extremely confusing, lacks a clear direction, and isn't always captivating, except when something relatable emerges.

For me, this was the issue with the book. It had its interesting moments, but then it would veer off on a strange tangent that didn't make much sense and wasn't fully explained. I thought the flashback sections that recounted the real life of Alex Lennox were well executed and engaging. Banks presented the story of his entire life in a concise manner, which was quite impressive. I truly enjoyed the illiterate Barbarian sections, which were genuinely hilarious (but might have been incomprehensible to non-Scottish readers). I also liked how elements of the dream were intertwined with events from his real life and how they existed, slightly altered, in their dream forms.

Conversely, I enjoyed the main story part of John Orr much less, especially towards the end after he jumps on the train. It all became too surreal and irrelevant after that. I suppose that was the intention, as it's a dream and doesn't have to adhere to the same laws of the universe, but it didn't make for particularly enthralling reading for me.

This review contains spoilers.

The book takes the reader on a captivating journey through the visions of a man in a coma. At the heart of those visions is The Bridge. In various dream fragments, it reveals its multifaceted nature. What exactly it is bridging remains a mystery. Is it a passage from life to death or the other way around? Or perhaps it's a passage through a high, clear space between two shores teeming with aggressive life. It's a passage where one undertakes an unclear mission that becomes even more muddled when encountering a mirror reflection of oneself moving in the opposite direction. Are these dreams a bridge or is the bridge a dream? The Bridge is a colossal structure meant to carry a stream of movement. However, all movement has ceased, and people have established a city among the bridge's constructions, leading a stagnant life there. Strangely, it seems that nobody ever notices they are living on a bridge.

Then there is the symbolism of the lost library. It was supposed to hold the information about the bridge's builders and its purpose. Is it a case of lost memory? There are strange messages, and it appears that there is some unseen force working behind the scenes to prevent the deciphering of those messages.

Subsequently, fragments of memories of the man's life start to flow in. The lifestory sounds like what might end up as an obituary. From this perspective, this life seems rather dull. The different aspects of the bridge in the dream visions have their roots in that lifestory, which is random, mundane, and lacking any mysterious undertones.

Is The Bridge simply an escape from the dullness of life in the search for a deeper meaning?

"It leads from nowhere to nowhere" - this is indeed a brilliant and rather apt description of the book in question. I found myself persevering through the pages, determined to give it a fair chance. However, as I reached page 195, I simply couldn't bring myself to continue any further.

The story seemed to lack a clear direction, meandering aimlessly without a discernible purpose. It was as if the author had set out on a journey but had lost their way along the path. The characters, too, felt rather flat and uninteresting, lacking the depth and complexity that would have made them engaging.

Perhaps some readers might find something redeeming in this book, but for me, it was a disappointing experience. I had hoped for something more captivating, something that would draw me in and keep me hooked until the very end. But alas, it was not to be.

In conclusion, while "It leads from nowhere to nowhere" may be a clever turn of phrase, it accurately reflects my experience with this particular book. I can only hope that future reads will prove to be more satisfying.

It's brilliant. Just don't expect another Wasp Factory

I'll cut to the chase here: The Bridge is truly one of the greatest novels penned by Banks and ranks among the best works of fiction I've ever had the pleasure of encountering.

Some might complain that the central plot device is clichéd. Indeed, a significant portion of the novel consists of the series of interconnected dreams experienced by a man who lies in a coma after a car crash. However, this is clearly established in the very first pages. So, let's not expect any cheesy plot twists based on it, shall we? In fact, I would argue that there are no traditional plot twists in this book. Instead, there is a deeply satisfying sense of piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, as you gradually uncover the connections between the dreamworld and reality. The narrative threads gracefully coalesce into a captivating tale that explores open relationships, class anxiety, and the search for the meaning of life in a rapidly changing world.

If that description sounds perilously close to serious literature, that's precisely because it is. The Bridge is neither a psychological thriller nor a horror novel. To be sure, the violence and darkness are present, but they are safely confined within the dream sequences and are explicitly presented as a product of the protagonist's subconsciousness. Therefore, once again, don't anticipate the book to be overly suspenseful. Instead, embrace its rich and dark symbolism, of which there is an abundance.

For Banks aficionados like myself, there is an added layer of pleasure in coming across the shout-outs to his Culture series, such as sentient \\"knife missiles\\" or the gargantuan size and complexity of the titular Bridge. So, if you've ever derived any enjoyment from anything written by Iain [M.] Banks, do yourself a favor and read this. You won't be disappointed.