The Book Depository The Quarry by Iain Banks
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Price: £24.66
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Description: The Quarry : Paperback : Little, Brown Book Group : 9781408703953 : : 20 Jun 2013 : The new novel from Iain Banks, the bestselling author of The Wasp Factory. The Book Depository The Quarry by Iain Banks - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781408703953
MPN: 9781408703953
GTIN: 9781408703953
Author: Sam Woodward
Rating: 5
Review: In broad strokes, much of Iain Banks' non-sci-fi output can be divided into two camps - his brooding, cynical & accusatory works likeComplicity ,Canal Dreams &A Song Of Stone versus his more light-heartedly whimsical, although no less accusatory, reads likeWhit ,The Crow Road &The Business . The Quarry is very much in the latter camp. Another feature of the more jovial books in Banks' canon is their tendency to steer a course which meanders precariously close to rambling territory. Taking a straightforward plot which could be resolved in about 150 pages, he would languidly stretch it over 400+ with charming asides & engaging details. While The Quarry is not quite this long, he nevertheless takes this tendency to its extreme as the particularly threadbare & undramatic plot serves as a premise for some old mates to interact with one another - mostly over cups of tea in a living room. But this is not a criticism. It's powerful testament to his writing skills that Banks could take something as mundane as a group of old friends mulling around during a long weekend in Scotland & produce such an engaging page-turner. Other writers would be more dramatic because they would have to be to sustain interest. Yet Banks never fails to captivate since even the most minor encounters are replete with meaning or charming details which bring them to life. For Banks' long-term fans, there's no alarms & no surprises. The liberal characters are more eloquent & sympathetic than the conservative ones, we have a large house in Scotland containing family secrets. Then there's the autistic protagonist who takes pleasure from the simple things in life. Kit sits likes a Buddha statue, meticulously planning his shopping trips to be as efficient as possible while the 40 year-olds around him stagger under the weight of their mutual history of one-upmanship & assorted emotional baggage like contestants in a 20 year-long series of Come Dine With Me (now there's a vision of Hell). Familiar Banksian elements but nevertheless as charming as they always have been. Banks himself referred to The Quarry as "a relatively minor piece" - and I see what he means, but that's no reason to overlook it. It's a nice little novel which sees the talented author drawing on his strengths. While the bulk of it was written before his diagnosis, this elegant summary of his world view - expressed over numerous novels but condensed here in under 350 pages - feels like a fitting epitaph. As familiar as many of the elements herein seem, I will greatly miss Banks not producing more.
Author: meanygreeny
Rating: 3
Review: I was really looking forward to reading this as I'm a massive fan of Iain's writing, I'll try and leave his very sad death out of the review and try and judge the book as I would any of his others. ... and that is my first problem, it's a good read overall and I did enjoy it but it just isn't as good as many of his others. I've given the book 3 stars but to be honest if you put this book up against almost any other work of fiction published in the last 12 months it should really have 4 or even 5 stars, but put alongside his fantastic body of work since the wasp factory and it falls somewhere in the lower half for me.... but even that still makes it a good read. If you enjoy Iain's books you will enjoy it, it has a lot of his 'trademarks' and his usual writing style but it doesn't quite fill me with the same sense of wonder that a lot of his writing does, It starts quite promisingly and it's in typical Banks territory in a lot of ways, I 'got into' the book straight away and found the characters interesting.. and that's the second problem, most of them don't really get any more interesting than they first appear (aside from a couple of characters which I won't go into detail as not to spoil it) I guess I just wanted more character development and suprises that I know Iain can do so well. Plot, well here's another problem, I have no problem with books that are 'about people' and I wasn't expecting some big hollywood-like movie plot obviously but the 'red herring' threads in this book I found a little frustrating because he sets up so many things that have so much potential but ultimately come to nothing and when I realised I only had a couple of pages left of the book I felt a little disappointed. But by far the biggest problem with the book for me it that it's just 'good' ... After I'd finished it I thought 'well that was a pretty good read' put the book down and didn't really think about it for the rest of the day (or since, until now) Compare this to the many times I've finished an Iain Banks book and sat with my head spinning for hours afterwards thinking about it over and over and feeling like I should start reading it again straight away to try and unlock the layers of meaning and things mentioned in the first half that only seem to become important when you finish the last page. I just didn't make me 'think' like so many of his others did. I spend most of the time reading The Quarry thinking "I wonder what will happen, I wonder what that meant, I wonder what will happen about that later on, what is that mentioned for, how will it end?" .. but sadly the answer to most of those questions just aren't forthcoming or the answer is simple 'nothing' If you are already a fan, you'll buy it anyway.. if it's your first Banks book then I'd try something else ... not many people mention these three in their 'best' selection but I would recommend Dead Air, Whit and Complicity. ... then the two everyone loves Crow Road and Wasp Factory... then maybe The Business and Walking on Glass ... oh, just buy them all anyway. The man was a genius, RIP.
