Espedair Street

Rating:
Summary: Funny and touching
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Charming rock opera.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Forever on Espedair Street
Review: 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!!!!!!!!!