The Bridge

Numerous tales intertwine here, each intriguing and pulling the reader onward. I felt like I was bobbing in a troubled sea, waves and currents increasing from many directions until they finally generated a great concluding waterspout.All of the curious characters are finely wrought; John Orr and his dreams real and made up, his temptress Abberlaine Arrol, the barbarian swordsman and his familiar, Andrea and her lover(s).Not unlike seeing some movies of late ("The 6th Sense" comes to mind) I felt ready and needing to reread "The Bridge" upon its conclusion. To help settle the images, ideas and plots that it had planted in my imagination, and because the delicious texture and pace of the novel invites the wish that it wouldn't end quite yet.I can't call this CyberPunk, but it feels familiarly like it. I can't say that it's post-apocolyptic but it feels that way too. Two of my favorite genres disguised as the dark world of Iain Banks' "The Bridge".An intense compelling read indeed!

I don't easily give a book 5 stars, but this piece of writing showed how Iain Banks was not a one-off with the success of the Wasp Factory. In fact, no matter how good the wasp factory wasm, this is better. The narrative follows an individual as he slips into a coma after an accident and the stories of the two parrallel lives in either. It is interspaced by the bizzare adventures of the most wicked, foul, scots-tounged knight ever to exist. Follow his narrative at your peril.The story would be fine as it stands, but where the story unfolds in the parrallel world is a giant city built on an endless bridge. What really made the story for me was what the bridge was modelled on in real life - the Forth Bridge in Scotland. One thing that i'm interested in was whether or not other readers of the book who have not seen the forth bridge and it's surroundings felt the story had the same edge. Readers?To conclude, a book that opened my eyes, and definately Bank's best. Just don't make this the first Banks book that you read - start on the wasp factory, a free tip!

I read this book when it came out a long time ago, after reading Wasp Factory. I couldn't wait. It is to this day the most involving and mind wrenching of love stories I've ever read. A mix of the brooding spaces of the English Patient, the never-quite-get-her-angst of John Le Carre, and the building adrenaline rush of early Robert Ludlum, oh, and add a big bucket of Italo Calvino, Philip K. Dick and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I just can't think of anybody else that can twist it all together like Mr Banks. I can't look at the Forth Rail Bridge the same way again, it is now a big labyrinth built by Banks. This is a must buy book, if you like any of the above (well maybe not Ludlum...) go get it.

As many of the others Banks reviewers, this is my favorite Banks book. This book overcomes the classical genre distinction between fantasy, science fiction and mainstream novels: it's the novel of a complete artist, transcending categories to write without the limits of the traditional forms, playing with them all in a delicate fugue. It mingles themes from Kafka and Freud (who makes a guest star apparition as Dr Joyce), with Banks own obsessions (war, Scotland, 19th century steel architecture), plays with the greek and middle-age mythology in a very modern way, with a funny link to the Culture. I've been twice in Scotland: the spirit of this land is so well captured (I happen to live in Paris, where the heroin flies away: I can't understand her) ! The postmodern love story is also excellent. It moved me deeply. A very absorbing book: like another reader, I keep an excellent memory of the period I read it, just because I read it at that time. P@

If you're mostly familiar with Banks' science fiction (the Culture novels, Feersum Endjinn, etc.), this novel will come as something of a surprise. It reads like science fiction -- sometimes. And sometimes a more mundane reality intrudes.It's the story of John Orr, rescued from the sea with no memory of who he is or where he comes from. He finds himself on the Bridge, a structure that apparently leads from nowhere to nowhere, and where everyone lives. It soon becomes apparent, however, that this fantastic reality is only part of the story.What is the dream, and what is the reality? What is memory, and what is imagined? As our protagonist searches his own dreams and memories for clues, the true quest emerges from the undercurrents. This is the major strength of every Banks novel I've ever read -- the reader makes her discoveries along with the protagonist. Even when you've figured out what's going on, Banks somehow manages to surprise you