Espedair Street

One of the better books from Ian Banks. This one is engaging and readable with good character development. Some of his books are slow going but this one is not. I liked it. It is about a "Rock Star". See if you can figure out whether he is talking about a particular one.

I must admit I was a bit taken aback when the book opened with the narrator declaring that he had decided to kill himself. To be sure, he quickly assures us that he has decided to live after all. It being an Iain Banks book, it's told on two timelines. Fairly traditionally: one timeline recounts the last few days in the life of Danny Weir, while the other tells the story of his life from his late teens to the present (age 31). Danny Weir, we soon gather, was the bass player and songwriter for a huge 70s/80s progressive rock band, Frozen Gold. His nickname was Weird (for Weir, D., obviously enough). The band seems to have ended under rather distressing circumstances, which don't become clear for a long time. In the present day thread, we learn that Danny is living a pointless existence in a mock cathedral in Glasgow, drinking his life away with Communist liquor, spending time with three not-quite-friends -- a young man, a rather older man, and a prostitute. He still writes music, but not very seriously -- film scores and commercial jingles. He gets drunk enough to have no idea what crazy things he might have done. He also doesn't tell any of his friends who he really is -- letting them think he is just the caretaker for Danny Weir's property. The other thread tells the story of Frozen Gold: how Danny more or less forced himself on the band as a songwriter (they were talented players of cover tunes), his resentment of the middle-class origins of the other members, the meteoric success of the band. Danny is extremely tall (6'6") and he describes himself as ugly. The leaders of the band are Davey Balfour, a supremely talented guitarist, and Christine Brice, a wonderful singer. We soon gather that Davey's risk-taking may have something to do with the band's collapse, though Danny blames himself. There is also some sexual dynamics -- Davey cheating with Danny's girlfriend, and Danny responding with an affair with Christine (she and Davey having been a couple). It all comes to a head when Davey is pushed to resume his career (it seems that his solo album is unexpectedly a success), but then learns some more devastating news. He feels that there is simply no point to his life -- but then he -- well, leave it to the novel to reveal. Yes, though, it is at least a hopeful ending, if not unambiguously happy. I rather enjoyed the book, but with reservations. Mostly they turn on a feeling that it's all too easy. Above all, Espedair Street seems facile. It's hard to believe in Frozen Gold -- in their success, in Danny's brilliance as a songwriter. It's hard to believe the tragedy that precipitates the action of the book. (The tragedy that ruined the band, on the other hand, though absurd, is believable in a weird way.) Danny's redemption also comes too easy.

As I've mentioned before, one of the things that makes Iain Banks so great is his refusal to repeat himself, all of his novels, SF or not (and this one is not), are different animals, tackling different subjects in various ways. Yet all of them are clearly written by the same person. This is one of his less brutal novels, describing the rise and fall of a extremely popular fictional rock band as seen through the eyes of their bass player and principle song writer. And while there are the typical things that you'd seen on the usual rock biopics, the drugs and sex and drinking, Banks doesn't focus on those all that much and looks at the price of fame, at the interaction between the band members, and takes some well-deserved stabs at the music industry while he's at it. The book is told in the first person by Daniel Weir (or "Weird") and while he's a bit mopey he has a keen sense of humor and his observations of the madness going on around him (even as he willingly throws himself into the madness) are perceptive and the situations the characters find themselves in are often bizarre but strangely funny and oddly realistic. Banks also makes a good decision to continue to follow Daniel after the band inevitably breaks up, interspersing his recollections of the band years with his life living in Scotland (he does an excellent job of portraying the city and people, giving the place a distinctive flair, his gift with the accents is well done, although that coupled with the local slang can make some conversations a bit hard to follow or understand . . .) and the people he meets, many of whom don't realize that he has more money than he can figure out what to do with and he's trying to decide what the heck to do with his life in general. All of this actually does lead somewhere and Banks gets credit for giving the reader a definite ending while leaving it open at the same time so that we never know for sure how it goes . . . double credit goes to not making it some kind of sappy, "It's a Wonderful Life" sort of ending either. In the end, the characters, major and minor, all come across as real people and Daniel feels like an oddball friend who has been telling you the story of his life while you sit there. Possessed of a humanity Banks' book sometimes lack, this remains one of his most charming novels.

Having recently read Espedair Street and seen Almost Famous (directed by Cameron Crowe) in the movies, it's kinda logical to compare those two pieces. As a start I gotta say first, that I liked both handiworks and it's tough to tell if one was better than the other.Both works accompany a rock band on their way to famedom. And in both works the author picks one leading character to tell the story from his viewpoint. While Crowe uses the young reporter William Miller as an outside observer, who acts basically as the band's mascot, Iain Banks features Daniel Weir as the band's base player and genius mind behind their songs. The stories unfolding are quite amusing, and the band members and all the different egos involved are displayed quite honestly, giving diversified insights to the life of a rock band behind the curtains. Yeah, it's all glimmer and glamour, but the people behind are no gods (though they might wanna believe they are), but they are ppl like you and me with positive and negative traits alike.But while Crowe's message ends here, Banks goes a bit further, as he creates a second plot around Daniel Weir after the band has split up. While Danny recalls his bands' story, his current life as the queer hermit residing in his remote church runs parallel and is described in quite colorful details, featuring just another group of freaky people and very comic-style situations, with some of them resulting from his former life as a rock star, and some just odd emanations of the weirdness of daily life.But just when you start wondering if all this is leading somewhere at all, and whether Danny Weir, who has already left behind his life as a rock star, will also give up for good, a last twist in the plot changes everything, and Banks opens a final chapter which brings all story plots together, blending them nicely into each other.With this novel Iain Banks just proves once again his special touch to describe the magic of life in all its variations, and his touch for the magic of words used to describe the events unfolding around his leading character. No event is weird enough not to be plausible, and Banks lets us believe that everything can be possible: You just gotta look and watch: Not only with your eyes, but also with your heart and imagination.

This book opens quite well and finishes in spectacular fashion. I have read it several times. Unfortunately, however, I continue to loan my copy to friends who lose or destroy it (hence I have bought at least 4 copies to date). Nevertheless, all were money well spent.The character development of Daniel Wier throughout the book is not quite as well done as Banks managed to do with the hero of the Crow Road. However, he still manages to come to life. The tall, ugly, maladroite superstar who has the midas touch with all that it entails is a lot more real than some of the other characters Banks has developed in his books.The atmosphere of the book is enthrawling. The contrast between the faux (or should that be fou) church where Wier now spends his days, and the tropical islands, recording studios, mansions, etc that were his playground, contributes to the characters sense of loss. The humour of the book is its main asset. Chasing drunken hounds around a false alter, cocaine conversations, champagne hedgehogs, etc. Brilliant!!!!!!!!!