Absolutely wonderful! This piece of work is truly captivating. I simply couldn't put it down. In the beginning, I didn't mind not knowing what was going on for a long time. It was like being in a bit of a mystery fog. But then, gradually, through the dialogues and the thoughts expressed, information was dripped in. It was like little drops of water slowly filling a bucket. And as those drops accumulated, I began to understand. The writing is fantastic on all levels. The way the author weaves the story, the use of language, the development of the characters - it's all just superb. It's a literary masterpiece that keeps you engaged from start to finish.

My favourite among all Banks's contemporary novels is truly a remarkable piece of work. The disjointed memories of a bedridden hospital patient slowly start to unravell, like a mysterious puzzle being pieced together. As the story progresses, the truth gradually emerges, captivating the reader's attention. At times, the atmosphere is creepy, sending shivers down the spine. However, despite the eerie elements, the novel is highly compelling, making it impossible to put down. The author's skillful writing and unique narrative style draw the reader in and keep them engaged until the very end. It is a must-read for fans of contemporary literature, offering a thrilling and thought-provoking experience.

Reading this book is a difficult yet highly worthy enterprise. In numerous aspects, this has to be regarded as Banks' finest non-SF endeavor, despite the presence of certain elements of his SF writing within it. It is set in two planes of existence, which is an extremely challenging concept to bring to life. However, the rich and vivid detail, the disconcerting quality of the story, and indeed the concerns of the main character himself gradually become our own. It is truly good and has a trippy effect. Moreover, the Forth Rail Bridge is such an outstanding and iconic piece of architecture that it truly deserved this kind of immortalization in fiction. The way the author weaves the story around this magnificent structure adds an extra layer of depth and interest to the narrative. It makes the reader not only engage with the characters and their dilemmas but also appreciate the beauty and significance of the Forth Rail Bridge in a whole new light.

Iain Banks regarded this 1968 book as his finest novel. He stated, ‘Definitely the intellectual of the family, it’s the one that went away to University and got a first.’ However, it is not the most straightforward to read. It predominantly focuses on the thoughts and dreams of Alex, a victim of a car crash who is in a coma for most of the book. The crash itself is described in the first two pages. One of our members skipped this part, thinking it was the preface. Dear reader, do not make the same error. But whether one misses this or not, it takes some time – perhaps 70 pages – before the reader grasps the structure and plot.

The bridge in the novel is a fictionalized and exaggerated version of the Forth Rail Bridge. The real bridge, a huge cantilever construction in red-painted steel, was built in 1890 and connects Edinburgh with Fife. The bridge in the book is much larger, vast and multilayered, extremely wide, seemingly a world of its own with its own totalitarian government. It serves as a powerful metaphor for society or perhaps for the author’s psyche. Where does the bridge begin and end? No one knows; perhaps it doesn’t end on dry land at all. Later, when the protagonist travels along it for days, he passes through different climatic zones, leading us to conclude that the bridge is at least hundreds of kilometers long.

In real life, the protagonist is a young businessman from Glasgow named Alex. He has a penchant for drink, drugs, and fast cars. When he was still a young student in Edinburgh, he fell in love with Andrea Cramond, the daughter of an advocate. But she goes to live in France and enters into another relationship. He turns to drink and crashes his souped-up Jaguar. While in a coma, he lives on the bridge as the amnesiac John Orr, periodically meeting his psychiatrist, Dr Joyce. Sometimes another character called The Barbarian appears; he rants and raves in broad Scots dialect, often incoherently –类似 a Scottish Caliban. The key to understanding the book is that Alex, John Orr, and The Barbarian are one and the same, each representing a different aspect of one man’s psyche. To complicate matters further, the Barbarian has an enigmatic being on his shoulder called ‘The Familiar’. We weren’t sure what it was supposed to represent. One of us thought it might be a phallus, but perhaps it was a mentor, a guardian angel, a parrot, or the id. Or even a representation of a controlling force, someone suggested the government in Westminster.

John’s adventures on the bridge are strange and full of twists. At first, he lives a comfortable life where he is provided for. He undergoes treatment for his amnesia by Dr Joyce, a psychiatrist and dream analyst, and to please the doctor, he invents dreams. Opinions were divided as to whether there was a real-life Dr Joyce treating him during intervals from the coma, or if it was all a dream within the coma. The invented dreams are so vividly recalled and detailed that Joyce suspects they are fabricated and tells John that he wants to change the treatment to hypnotherapy. When John refuses, he is banished to a lower level of the bridge, where privileges and personal clothing are summarily withdrawn. However, the beautiful Abberlaine Arrol rescues him; she is none other than the bridge’s version of his real-life lover, Andrea. She provides him with clothes and an apartment, and they make love. During the act of love, he fantasizes about girders, women’s underwear, and other engineering structures and concludes, ‘I feel like I have just f***ed the bridge.’ It’s quite a unique thought.
Life on the bridge has many odd turns. One day, the bridge is buzzed by aircraft that leave strange messages in the sky, in braille (should it be Morse code?). A few days later, barrage balloons appear, apparently to protect the bridge against further attack. Like many parts of the book, this seems to have no particular connection to the plot, unless it is to emphasize the idea that governments often exaggerate external threats for political reasons. In fact, the real-life Forth Bridge was similarly attacked at the start of World War II; something Banks would have known about as his father was a naval officer and worked at the Rosyth naval dockyard, the real target of the WWII bombers.
He stows away on a train that travels far along the bridge to a war zone. There is plenty of blood and gore, but there are also humorous passages. The author’s imagination runs wild in this section.
Finally, he comes out of his coma, and I won’t spoil the ending by revealing what happens. Perhaps the ending is a bit clichéd. One member found that the last page had been torn from his second-hand bookshop copy. Maybe the previous owner thought the ending was not worthy of the book.
What did we think of the book as a whole? It is a work of vivid imagination and rich description, delving into the psychological depths of alienation. It was his third book (published in 1986). Later, he would move into science fiction, and we can see the beginnings of that interest here. The real-life scenes, set in Edinburgh and Fife, may seem rather平淡 in comparison; his imagination truly shines when he writes about the adventures on the bridge. The book is often described by reviewers as a love story, but its strength lies not so much in the romantic aspects (although the two sex scenes are among the most interesting you’ll ever read). The love story takes a backseat to the adventures on the bridge, but the dreams are captivating, and the characters in the consulting room are reminiscent of those in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by neurologist Oliver Sacks. The situation that John Orr encounters on the bridge reminds one of Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle. The psychological aspects are both Freudian and Jungian, and at one point, the author makes reference to RD Laing, the author of works on the existential analysis of personal alienation and the classic 1960 book on schizophrenia, The Divided Self.
The division of the book into geological sections, along with metaphormosis, metamorpheus, and metamorphosis, is not very helpful and may seem pretentious. What are we supposed to make of them? Alex begins as a student of geology – the geological periods used as section headings are Triassic (250 to 200 million years ago) and Eocene (56 to 34 million years ago). Perhaps there is some significance to this. The Triassic was a time of transition after a particularly severe mass extinction. The Eocene saw the emergence of a new fauna with modern mammals and the rise of grasses, but really, what is the point? Of course, Morpheus was the Greek god of dreams, so that is a bit more relevant.
Is the work in any way autobiographical? His father was a naval military man, and his mother was a professional ice skater. What impact did they have on him? His early life was spent in North Queensferry, in the shadow of the Forth Road Bridge. Seen up close, we all agree that the bridge appears massive, oppressive, and the giant girders are unforgettable; even from a distance, the raw engineering structure is awe-inspiring, iconic, and likely to leave a deep impression on any young boy. The author was a young man when Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, otherwise known as Faslane, became the home of the Trident nuclear submarines (the Peace Camp was established in 1982). This may have influenced his left-leaning politics and sparked an interest in the alienated state of mind and the defense of the state, both themes in the book. After writing the book, his life seems to mirror that of the fictional Alex. He collected fast cars, had a car crash, and had an interrupted personal life. His characters like to rant about the politics of the day, just as he did for much of his life (he was an active supporter of Scottish Independence, a hater of everything related to Margaret Thatcher, and he campaigned with others to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq). I’m sure these details will be of interest to his biographers (he died of cancer in 2013).
His place as a major literary figure in the English-speaking world is secure. Perhaps he will be best remembered for his first novel, Wasp Factory, or for his science fiction. But The Bridge will continue to challenge, amuse, and intrigue readers for years to come…..

This is an extract from a review at https://monthlybookgroup.wordpress.com/ Our reviews are also available at http://monthlybookgroup.blogspot.co.uk/

DNF at chapter 4

DNF, which stands for "Did Not Finish," at chapter 4 can be a rather discouraging situation. It might occur due to various reasons. Perhaps the story took an unexpected turn that didn't resonate with the reader. Maybe the writing style became too complex or convoluted, making it difficult to follow. Or perhaps the reader simply lost interest in the plot or characters. Whatever the cause, reaching chapter 4 and then deciding to stop can leave a sense of unfinished business. However, it's important to remember that not every book is going to be a perfect fit for every reader. Sometimes, it's better to recognize when a book isn't working and move on to something else that might be more engaging and enjoyable. After all, there are countless other great books out there waiting to be discovered.

This book is truly a complex and multi-faceted work. Bits of it are amazing, captivating the reader's imagination and taking them on a wild ride. Yet, at times, those same bits can seem boring, dragging on and making the reader wonder if they should just skip ahead. And then there are the bits that are downright curious, leaving the reader with more questions than answers.

The eventual fate of Prometheus serves as an enlightening moment in the story, but it's not enough to fully redeem the overall experience. I think I've been permanently put off this sort of storytelling by Philip K. Dick. While the book was still good in its own right, I can't help but feel that I would have enjoyed it more if it had been presented as several entirely separate tales. Each one could have been explored in more depth, without the need to constantly jump back and forth between different storylines and characters.

Overall, this book is a mixed bag. It has its moments of brilliance, but it also has its flaws. Whether or not you'll enjoy it depends on your personal taste in literature and your ability to tolerate a complex and sometimes confusing narrative.

A strange but enticing, absorbing novel. It is a unique blend that combines the dreamlike and definitively strange 'otherwhereness' of Gormenghast's Titus Groan, the playful absurdity of Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, and a touch of the nightmarish Alice. This highly structured work delves into the psyche across three genres: romantic drama, fantasy, and comedy.

It's partly a love story, a rumination of dream psychology, an examination of one's precarious place in our monied society, and a vividly imaginative exposition of what it might be like to be in - or worse, remember - a comatose state. Additionally, there's a bit of fantasy in the silly revisioning of Orpheus' ventures into the Underworld, preluded by Terry Pratchett's famous Barbarian hero Hrun, if he were portrayed by a distinctly unfunny drunken Scottish thug.

After a poor but brief device depicting the mind of a motor crash victim, we are suddenly in the world of The Bridge, with a feel similar to Perdido Street Station. Both have the same promise of an awaking to a brightly colourful, bustling, thriving fantasy city. However, as the story unfolds, there are disappointments, such as the shift away from the interesting John Orr strand and the silly Barbarian's childspeak.

Despite these initial disappointments, I got into Banks' language, style, and eventually his head, and so, the novel. The section of Alex and Andrea's relationship turned out to be some of the best writing, characteristic of Banks' later outstanding works. Structurally, the novel is multifariously stratified, with different levels and themes.

The fantasy story of John Orr ignites interest, but it's the real-world story that becomes the true heart of the novel, elevating it from a disappointing throwaway to something that demands a lengthy considered review. It gets an extra point for not disappointing but rewarding as you move through it. Overall, it's a very good novel, if not in the class of The Business or Perdido, but probably on the same shelf as Tollbooth and Titus. And it does ask an important eternal question: thing or place?

Hypnagogic, mesmerising, hallucinatory - these are the words that aptly describe the unique experience of reading "The Bridge". It is a masterful melding of the real with the vanished, the imaginary, and the may-never-have-been.

A bridge becomes not just a physical structure but the entire architectonic world of a mind, and vice versa. Banks' experiment of stretching a formal conceit to an aesthetic project is a resounding success with his use of a metal saran-wrap over the narrative.

In this novel, the usual Banksian tropes are brought to life. The names that seem familiar yet maintain an air of oddity serve to estrange, making the quasi-real seem unreal. The preoccupation with war as the fundus of the human heart, at the root of all, is a recurring theme. There are also sappy love stories between people set in modern-day Scotland. Amnesia is used as a convenient vehicle to knit together and explain all the above.

Tightly written, or perhaps I should say welded, this is probably the best "non M" Banks has ever done. Despite its head-in-the-clouds freewheeling, the book never loses its feet. It is firmly undergirded by the monolithic structure of the bridge, dominated by it in fact, and Banks' artistic enterprise succeeds because of it. It is a compelling and fun read that will leave you spellbound.

This book was a gift from someone, so I went into it almost blindly. Although I had heard good things about Banks in the past, I had no real expectations. The premise of the book was interesting, but it's hard to explain exactly what it's about. It's one of those books with hallucinatory and trippy qualities that make it a pleasure to read, but also ensure that it messes with your head.

As a general rule, I quite liked this aspect and thought it worked well. However, the real downside was that there were some chunky sections written in Scots dialect, which were even more difficult to absorb than the meandering narrative. I actually enjoyed the narrative, but the Scots stuff was like Irvine Welsh mixed with a bunch of random terms I'm more used to from the Midlands. I'm sure it was authentic, but I just didn't like it.

In fact, those Scottish sections made the book drag for me to the point where I had to switch it over as a bedtime book, but only for those sections. I got through them, but they didn't really add to the book. Instead, they slowed me down and made it last a couple of days longer than it needed to. It's a problem, but of the first-world variety.

What's weird is that the main thing I'll take away from this book is one of the minor characters who really stole the show. He was a psychiatrist's patient who thought he was a different piece of furniture every day and had to go around with a police escort. Sometimes he thought he was a bidet in a women's bathroom and could be quite persistent.

That, for me, is pretty typical of this book. There was a lot of food for thought and plenty of little passages that tickled me or made me think about life and philosophy, but it was also infuriating at times and slightly disappointing because I feel like it could have been so much more. As for whether I'd recommend it, that really depends on what you're into. If you like experimental stuff or science fiction with a dystopian flavour, give it a try.

This was truly a rather strange read.

Structurally speaking, it bore a resemblance to Calvino's If On Winter's Night a Traveler. However, while the latter had more enjoyment with the narrative, this one is much darker in tone.

It is a speculation regarding consciousness and the overlap of dreamworlds with our waking dreams. The implications are intelligently hinted at and well-drawn.

Nevertheless, a significant number of the story threads, especially in the 'dream' sequences, do not connect with each other until deep into the book. As a result, the seeming incoherence of the plot in the early stages can be a bit frustrating.

But trust Banks - the payoff is indeed quite rewarding. It is beneficial that at the core of this book lies a rather tender and moving love story.

The question that lies at the heart of all the stories herein is simply this - what dreams are worth waking up from?

This book occupies a unique position that lies somewhere between a fictional biography, a steampunk romance, and a stream-of-consciousness account of an endless fever dream.

Just like in all of Banks' works, this one is a dark tome, filled with painfully human characters. The overall tone is bleak, yet there are just enough tender moments that make the characters somewhat redeemable.

The writing is truly beautiful, and the settings are both wild and imaginative. Some parts of the book are downright hilarious, and their signature shock-humor is very much present.

Although it cannot be strictly classified as a sci-fi novel, it does bear a resemblance to the scale and bleakness found in some of Banks' other pieces. It offers a captivating and thought-provoking reading experience that will keep readers engaged from beginning to end.

Overall, this book is a testament to Banks' remarkable talent as a writer, and it is sure to leave a lasting impression on those who pick it up.

Surrealistic, disturbing and funny by turns, The Bridge provides a fascinating window into the meandering mind of a man who is in a coma following a car accident.

The scenes in the initial half of the book, which are set in the realm of the endless Bridge, bear a resemblance to a steampunk vision. It's as if one is transported to a world of mechanical wonders and strange contraptions.

However, as the narrative progresses, the story starts to become a bit incoherent. There are moments when it feels as though important allusions have been missed. For example, the sections of the book are titled based on geological epochs. Why is this the case?

Despite its flaws, if you have a penchant for works that are filled with dark imagination, then The Bridge is definitely worth a try. It offers a unique and captivating reading experience that will keep you on the edge of your seat.