Banking On Quality

By Tony Mallett

One of the world's top authors, Iain Banks, was in Brussels recently to give a reading to an invited audience at Scotland House and to sign books for the general public at Sterling Books downtown. UP Front was at both venues and I grabbed a chat with him at Sterling. The brief but relaxed interview culminated in staff pulling up their chairs while customers milled around the table to earwig. It was great fun, and the easiest interview I've done for some time.

Banks is an engaging, genuinely funny Scot, born in Dunfermline, Fife (as was I) and had entertained around 100 people at Scotland House earlier with tales of his writing career and an excerpt from his latest 'mainstream' novel The Steep Approach To Garbadale, which he read himself.

I use the word 'mainstream,' as Banks also writes as Iain M Banks when producing his highly acclaimed Science Fiction works. Earlier he had joked that if he wrote Westerns he would probably use the monicker Iain Z Banks and Iain X Banks if he'd chosen erotica.

Banks had his first book published at the age of 30 - controversial novel The Wasp Factory - but had ambitions to be a novelist from the age of 11. In his mid-50s now, he's enjoyed a quarter-of-a-century of success, with such hits as The Crow Road, Whit and his favourite, The Bridge.

His least favourite book, he told me, is Canal Dreams - the one novel I've yet to read. "Don't bloody bother," he said, grinning widely. "With that one, I encountered too many degrees of difficulty. I'm not a woman, I'm not Japanese, I don't play the cello - and I've never been to Panama."

A lot of Banks's books deal with large, quirky and occasionally dysfunctional families - either directly or more broadly and Garbadale sees him in excellent form writing, this time around, about a board-game dynasty run by a scheming matriarch. So, what is it with these mad, extended families?

"I just like them, I suppose. None of it is really from personal experience as I had a minimum-sized family with a great childhood (he's an only child). As Tolstoy said 'All happy families are the same, all unhappy families are different'. They just interest me."

His sci-fi books on the other hand are a 'V' sign "against the idea of boys and their toys. A lot of the characters are feminine. I guess I'm just being reactionary, but while technology has moved on, sociology hasn't. I try to address that.

He grins impishly: "Also, I get the chance to let my imagination off the leash."

At this point in the conversation his companion Adele swept into Sterling and plopped down some shopping. I'd just asked Banks why he still lives in cold, rainy Fife when he could afford to live anywhere and he replied: "I don't like hot climates. I'm used to Scotland and enjoy living there. A lot of my friends keep telling me to buy a villa in Spain and then offer to 'look after it' for me (laughs) but it's not something I'm bothered about."

From behind me, Adele pipes up: "But I like hot climates, though. I suppose we're just thermally incompatible!"

At which point we say our goodbyes and I plod off out into the Brussels rain thinking, yup, I'd look after his villa too...

Below are recordings of Iain Banks at Scotland House

Iain Banks chews the fat (mp3, 4 mins 44 secs, 12MB)

Reading an excerpt from The Steep Approach to Garbadale (mp3, 14 mins 6 secs, 12.9MB)

Questions and answers from the gallery (mp3, 23 mins 46 secs, 21.7MB)