A Man Of High Ideals

Sun Herald

Sunday March 2, 2008

Robyn Doreian

In fact and fiction, author Iain Banks has strong convictions about how the world should be, writes Robyn Doreian

In 2003 when Iain Banks cut up his passport and sent it to 10 Downing Street in protest at Tony Blair's involvement in the Iraq war, the Scottish author received a perfunctory receipt. Rather bizarrely, a year later he was sent an invitation to a reception at the British prime minister's headquarters. Of course, Banks didn't attend, but when he applied for a new passport in 2006 it was granted immediately.

"I was anticipating a big fight - that I was going to have to write letters for another as I got rid of the first one - but it came through very efficiently," Banks says. "So I didn't get any fight after all."

Left wing in his political views and a supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, Banks holds out hope for an egalitarian society. While global circumstances may conspire against such a notion, Banks has meanwhile created his own fictional future society; a utopian kind he would like to be a part of.

Known as the Culture, Banks's civilisation is formed of eight humanoid species, part of a loose federation established about 9000 years ago.

By using the resources of the universe through computer networks and robot drones, its citizens enjoy a prosperous, nonviolent society where time is ample to enjoy consciousness-enhancing drugs, intellectual conversation and interstellar travel - until they are made to intervene in another's war.

Matter, his latest Culture novel, deals with the ethics and politics of such an intervention. Written under the name of Iain M. Banks (M for middle name Menzies) to distinguish his science-fiction series from his mainstream and nonfiction works, this complex story of protagonists King Hausk and his children Ferbin, Djan and Oramen is his first Culture novel for eight years. In part the distractions caused by his divorce from his wife of 25 years, Annie, contributed to the gap, but more accurately it's due to personal challenge.

"I wanted to prove to myself I can write science fiction that isn't just based on the Culture, which I did with 2004's The Algebraist," he says. "I do miss writing about the Culture, though, as I love dealing with drones, fantastic character names and all the gadgetry. It's an itch I need scratched every few years, but not every time."

Born in Fife, the only child of a seaman in the admiralty and a former professional ice skater, Banks began reading science fiction in his teens and authors such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke dominated his genre of choice.

"When you start reading a science-fiction story you simply have no idea where it's going to be," he says. "It could be back in time, the present with some strange twist or the far future, so it's that plunging into the unknown that I absolutely adore."

Talented at writing stories since primary school, Banks always knew he wanted to be a writer, and from the age of 14 attempted to write novels. "I wrote my first full-length novel, The Hungarian Lift Jet, when I was 16," he says. "It was about spies and was full of sex and violence, even though at 16 I hadn't had any experience of either."

He studied English literature, philosophy and psychology at the University of Stirling and later moved to London where he undertook a string of "wee silly jobs" to pay the bills while he wrote.

While working as a costing clerk in a law firm - when he wasn't "tapped by his flatmates to go out for a pint" after work - nights were spent in his bedroom at his manual typewriter. He wrote the first draft of The Wasp Factory in just 10 weeks.

As his previous five novels had been rejected, Banks wrote a second draft before sending it to publishers. It's something he concedes may have led to publication - but not before six rejections.

"Jonathan Cape was always my first choice," he says.

"Macmillan, who finally accepted it, was my seventh. The only reason I went to them was that it was 10 minutes from work, which meant there was still time for a pint during my lunch hour."

When The Wasp Factory was published in 1984, Banks's life was transformed. The advance meant he could quit his job and not worry about money for the next year. Such were the reviews that Banks was now a recognised name: his dream of being a professional writer was finally realised.

The immediate success didn't faze Banks as his next novel, Walking On Glass, had already been written. But while mainstream fiction was cementing his reputation, he began his first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas.

"The Culture is a reaction to the kind of science fiction I read as a teen," he says. "The American version was quite right wing, where capitalism triumphed, while the British depicted the future as very grey and everyone wore the same uniform. I just found that a lot of the science fiction didn't fit the way I thought the future was going to be."

While bestsellers Espedair Street (1987) and The Crow Road (1992) spawned radio and television adaptations, Banks also wrote nonfiction, and in 2003 visited Scottish distilleries to write about whisky.

As in his fiction where characters often voice political opinions, writing around the time of the Iraq war Banks let loose on George W. Bush.

"There seemed to be such an absurd inability to recognise that he was just this idiot," he says. "Bush seemed to be sleepwalking into this proto-fascist state with Britain being dragged in on the coat-tails of America. I found it disgraceful, and still do."

Banks says his politics have a lot to do with growing up in Scotland, which he describes as a nation that has a more collective feel about it and an ethos that has more to do with co-operation than competition.

"As a kid my parents raised me to believe in helping other people and not necessarily being out for number one all the time," he says. "That other people mattered and you should not be selfish because, apart from anything else, being selfish is a sign of insecurity."

In February, Banks celebrated his 54th birthday. With British book sales nearing five million, he's "lying fallow", which means his daily routine includes emails, reading the paper, going for a walk round the village and in the evening watching a DVD and sometimes enjoying wine and a curry with his new partner.

Leading a gentler, green lifestyle since trading his clutch of fast cars for a diesel model, Banks has also been attending to his hobby of musical composition. Influenced by Bach, Beethoven, Led Zeppelin and Radiohead, Banks is nearing the completion of a "long orchestral song" created using an Apple Mac. He is also "thinking about thinking about the next novel", which he will begin in October.

"To the outsider this all looks like a lot of walking around doing nothing whatsoever," he says. "But it's an important part of the literary output process. As much as I love being a writer I don't want to do nothing but write - I want to have a normal life as well. I have to stay detached from the whole thing; it keeps me sane."

Matter by Iain M. Banks is published by Orbit, $35.

© 2008 Sun Herald

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