A SONG OF STONE: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Unsettling but not groundbreaking...
Review: It seems to be generally agreed upon that this is not one of Iain Banks' finest works. In Song of Stone, Banks has plucked some successful elements from previous works and placed them in a new novel. It's not, however, a retread of ideas but some of the imagery might be familiar to Banks fans. Normally, Banks could make something like this work, however the story that he developed in A Song of Stone is not all that gripping.

That being said, this is still a piece of Banks' fiction. I don't blindly praise favorite authors' works but there is something inherent in Banks' fiction that exists here as well. Banks is wonderful at making the reader uncomfortable. If for nothing else, this book is a perfect example of Banks' darkness and the quiet horror he can cause readers - something he has in common with J.G. Ballard.

My advice - read all the Banks stuff you can get your hands on. Some are better than others but all are worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: Avoid this wretched book.
Review: Let me start by saying that I'm normally a fairly big fan of author Banks stuff, both SF and mainstream. So I brought some expectations to this book. Rarely have I been so miserably disappointed. ? Overall this seemed like a dumbed-down version of "Canal Dreams", a war story by someone who has never been in a war, but thinks it's A Bad Thing, but "Dreams" was vastly the better book. Why? Well, for starters, there is not a single remotely sympathetic character in the book... well, okay, I could live with that. Banks indulges in his usual wholesale torture and slaughter, with characters being dropped down wells and then p***d on, gang-raped and then dangled into a moat to drown, and decapitated by millstones; well, okay, I'm not squeamish. If Banks wants to show us a bleak war scene, where ugly decadence meets uglier barbarism, all right; ugly can be interesting. But what broke me, what made this book an utter chore to read, was that it *wasn't* interesting. One dislikes the characters and so feels no sympathy for the various nasty things that happen to them. Worse yet, Banks writes in the first person, and the protagonist's narrative voice is almost unbearably tedious. I know Banks can write crisp, clever, interesting prose, but in this book he has chosen not to. He seems to have been trying to write a Kafkaesque parable of war and decadence (all geographical and temporal references are quite pointedly omitted; the story could be taking place anywhere in Europe in the present or near future), but the unnecessarily convoluted language destroys any chance of success. Another problem is that Banks seems to have written a war story without bothering to learn about war. In one scene, an artillery piece shells the castle to no great effect; the next day, the soldiers in the castle sortie out to where the shots came from, ambush the artillery crew, and capture the piece. Right... the crew, having fired a few shots to announce their presence (but not enough to do any real! damage), and having no air support or other protection, just sat there for a day? Uh huh. Oh, and there are some minor irritants -- a villain who talks American English while everyone else seems to be speaking English English; flashbacks to the narrator's misspent youth that have no relevance at all to the rest of the book; a female character who almost never talks but is inexplicably the object of much desire... oh, I could go on, but why bother? I can deal with Banks writing an ugly book -- hey, I loved "The Wasp Factory" -- but an ugly, boring, and stupid book, no. Do yourself a favor, and don't waste your time with this one.

Rating:
Summary: One of Banks' Worst
Review: Of all the Iain Banks novels I've read (and that's all but 3), this is my least favorite. In fact, I didn't enjoy it at all. The main character is not particularly likeable, drives you nuts with his inability to act, and remains the most likeable person in the novel. The ending is unpleasant, to say the least.

In spite of the "M." in the author's name, this is not a work of science fiction or The Culture (he writes under two names, with and without the M, to distinguish between his science and mainstream fiction). The novel takes place somewhere more like war-torn Bosnia.

Of all his books, this is the only one I'll get rid of, because I will *never* read it again. Pick up The Crow Road instead, a much better read.

Rating:
Summary: Another dark, imaginative and gripping novel.
Review: Set in the aftermath of a civil war, where bands of looters lay waste to what little remains of civilisation. A couple flee what was once their ancestral castle, only to be stopped and returned there by a psuedo-military unit. The castle now becomes the focus for a dangerous game played between the female lieutenant and the main character, Abel. You can only be gripped by the twists and turns the story makes, hoping against hope, that there is some escape for the couple (now prisoners), and their people camped on the castle grounds. Ultimately the conquest by the unit of an enemy gun brings a celebration, one which unleases the "madness of war" and utimately triggers a typical dark and savage ending. "Song of Stone" is one of my favourite books and again Iain Banks manages to weave a dark and compelling novel which explores some of the moral questions of the world today.

Rating:
Summary: Banks' gas tank is running low - this is pretentious twaddle
Review: Since publication of the undeniably startling The Wasp Factory in 1984, Iain Banks has been extremely prolific, alternating between Science Fiction and "straight" fiction. 1997, when A Song of Stone was published, was a "straight year".

What is most remarkable about Banks' record is, for all his volume, the quality and inventiveness of the titles has been almost uniformly excellent: Banks has almost single-handedly set the agenda in Science Fiction in the last twenty years, and his straight works (while never quite reaching the clammy gothic heights of The Wasp Factory) have been consistently inventive.

While I'm no sci-fi buff, I think Banks is better in Science Fiction mode, at least two of his culture novels (The Use Of Weapons and Excession) for my money being as good as any other fictional works produced anywhere in the last twenty years.

So there are my credentials: I'm one of the party faithful. But even so, I pronounce this effort a total stinker. I guess it was inevitable that the creative engine would begin to get low on gas after 13 straight years of constant acceleration, and I think the long decline began here (in 2001, for the first time, Banks didn't publish a new novel in the autumn).

The first thing which truly offends the senses is not the dark obsessional interest with death and degradation - one tends to look forward to that in an Iain Banks novel - but the dismally pompous writing style. It's completely affected - it isn't like he can't write crisply, because he's done that in every other book he's ever written, so clearly it's a deliberate strategy, but what Banks expects to achieve (other than perversely aggravating his customers) is beyond me. But just occasionally you wonder whether you're not the butt of some dreadfully ironic tease: consider this sentence as an object lesson in the pot calling the kettle black:

"I have seen the choice of morning clothes occupy you almost until lunch, been witness to the search for precisely the correct scent, watched it take an afternoon or more of delicate anointing, slow rubbing and judicious sniffing, observed a simple sonnet absorb you for an evening of frowns and troubled sighs, found you intent and serious, the very picture of unaffected sincerity as you hang on every word of some dreadful bore for what seems half the night..."

Hmmm, Mister Banks. Are you having a laugh?

Banks also relies on some tried and true literary devices, including his favourite, the childhood flashbacks, which (sensibly enough) are the only point where he allows himself out of his over-clever adoption of the present tense. Elsewhere, the symbolism is forced: For aristocracy, Abel has spent a lot of his life, apparently being thrown down muddy wells, drowning in filthy water, sliding down muddy banks and being urinated and vomited on from a great height, and at one stage extricates himself - by way of a muddy birth himself, from under an overturned jeep. The construct is - if you'll excuse the pun - somewhat laboured.

Ultimately, getting through this book is rather like wading through mud. The final chapter, a pompous, staring-death-in-the-face soliloquy from the narrator (hence, I suppose, the present tense) is where the mud becomes impassable cod philosophy, and it just goes ON and ON.

Once again, you get the feeling the Banks knows exactly what he's doing: viz., having a laugh at the reader's expense: at one stage Abel conjectures, supposedly referring to his own death: "Do I want an end too tidy? Or too loose? I do not know, my dears, though an answer will dawn on me soon, no doubt. I think I want my death now. Do I?"

Well, it's almost pantomime, isn't it. I found myself shrieking YES! END IT NOW! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! IF YOU CAN'T KILL YOURSELF AT LEAST PUT YOUR READERS OUT OF THEIR MISERY! END THIS AWFUL BOOK!

Eventually, without a whimper, without a twist, without the unexpected we've come to expect from Iain Banks, without anything clever, arch or redeeming, the Song of Stone fizzles out.

Then I noticed the dedication. Now would you dedicate a book of so heavily saturated in decay, degradation and incest to your PARENTS?

Rating:
Summary: Return to form
Review: This is definitely a return to 'no M' form after Whit, which I was unable to finish. It is relentlessly bleak and devoid of sympathetic characters. Recent Banks' novels have appeared to be constructed as a series of 'setpieces' with fairly weak linking passages, but this novel flows much more smoothly and inevitably to it's climax. It's not one his best novels, but it is a disturbing work and a worthwhile exercise. A mood piece.

Rating:
Summary: A Song Of Stone: a dreadful effort from Iain Banks
Review: This novel, set in a bleak, post-war future, is an example of Banks at his darkest, most violent, and most self-indulgent. Quite different from the tongue-in-cheek Gothic nature of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, or the cheerfully introspective and essentially Scottish novels The Crow Road and Espedair Street, this book is full of stomach-turning violence as the protagonist is pushed to desperation by a group of mercenaries. Banks fans will recognize much of the tone and content as being similar to his two other most violent novels, Canal Dreams and Complicity. And in keeping with some of his other works, there are undertones of incest as well.

What few redeeming features this novel has are largely to be found in the internal monologues of the narrator. However, even these become long-winded, to the point that the end of the book seems to fade into the distance, rather than approaching at a satisfying speed.

This book is a tremendous disappointment from a talented storyteller. While captivating in some of its plot developments, ultimately the unsatisfying conclusion and truly horrible violence throughout condemn this one to the remainder bin. Not recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Banks fan, this is a nightmare, beware
Review: To all Banks fans, be warned.

This is not a "normal" Ian Banks or Ian M. Banks book. This is a mix of Kafka, Gombrowitch, non-heroic-sinister-second-world-war movies and some of the excesses in the war in the former Yugoslavia, all stirred in a black cauldron. The result is a mix that shook me, but the book is not without positive merits. I did finish it and I was eager to finish it (but not looking forward to reading it), and I liked it in some ways.

I would not have given it to my uncle who managed to survived the concentration camps, and not to someone who was depressed. I am not even sure I will ever recommend it to a friend ever. It had to be someone who needed to learn to see that there exist bad alternatives in this world. Maybe someone who needs to be reminded that life under certain conditions in a certain historic setting can be like this. Bleak, another reviewer correctly named it.

I recently heard Banks speak at a book festival and he told us that some time ago the Inland Revenue Service had taken an interest in him and his finances. I sort of hope that this was his inspiration to write this book, and that the fact that the IRS discovered that he had paid to much tax (!) and that he would get the surplus back, will be his inspiration for future books, where he would use some of the great humour he has;)

I have in my life meet people who reminded me of the main characters, and they scared me. Some of them also obviously scared themselves, but the most scary ones was those who were (probably) not scared by anything, and least by themselves.In this way Banks has written an important book which cannot fail to make an impression. Where the main characters in this book belong, you will have to decide for yourself. If you enjoy Kafka, this may be something for you. If not?

Rating:
Summary: You'll think about it for weeks after you've read it...
Review: Well, to be laconic - this is one of the best anti-war novels ever written.

They say: A la guerre com a la guerre. True. The SONG OF STONE is about what happens when your turn comes to be on the receiving end of the war.

Rating:
Summary: Least impressive Banks' book I've read so far...
Review: While Ian Banks is one of the most interesting writers I've come across in the last few years, unfortunately "A Song of Stone" is one of the least engaging novels I've ever finished. Muted, yet overwrought, this tale of dissolution is less shocking than turgid. The extended and tedious stretches of "purple prose" in this disappointing book, which were apparently consciously intended to embody the self-absorbed and effete mental state of the protagonist and narrator, did little but lose my flagging interest repeatedly. Coyly lurid, and basically quite unsatisfying, this dim variation on an apocalyptic, Road Warrior-ish theme goes nowhere and then dies...Read anything else by Banks before or instead of "A Song of Stone". Though I do rather enthusiastically recommend Banks as an author, I can't in good conscience give thumbs up to this book.