A Restless Imagination

IAIN BANKS is a highly successful author of both mainstream fiction and – writing as Iain M. Banks – sophisticated science fiction. What’s more, he likes book festivals, and is looking forward to revisiting Inverness.

ARTS JOURNAL: Iain, do you welcome the launch of a book festival in Inverness?

IAIN BANKS: I think it’s a great idea. I like literary festivals. I regard them as one of civilization’s better ideas anyway, and I’m going to be on stage with Christopher Brookmyre, who is both a friend and a novelist that I admire, so it is good that we are going to be doing that together. I’ve always liked Inverness, and my wife and I have talked about maybe moving up to that area later in our lives.

AJ: Do you enjoy meeting your public – some writers find that a difficult business?

IB: I do, yes. It does you good to get out there – writing is an intrinsically solitary profession, and I don’t work well away from home – I have to be in my own house in my familiar setting, with no distractions, so it’s nice to have a variation. You also have to remember that it is part of your job. Taking part in events like this or doing signing tours is always a big help to the sales force who have to get out there and sell your book, and with so much being published,  – it’s no bad thing to let people see the human face behind the cover on the shelf. I don’t mind it at all.

AJ: You have a new book out this month, The Algebraist, which is an Iain M. Banks, so presumably science fiction?

IB: It is, yes, but it’s not part of the Culture series. The idea was to write something that wasn’t a Culture novel that Culture fans would enjoy. It was quite complex in terms of details and the back story and so forth, and that held me up for longer than usual. It was always going to be a long book anyway, and it’s actually longer than I intended. It probably could become a trilogy, but for now it’s a standalone novel.

“Once I’ve started writing I really want to get it done, much like reading a book – you want to get to the end and see what happens.”

AJ: Can working within an ongoing imagined framework like the Culture ultimately become a constraint?

IB: It can, and the answer is to do something else – you can always go back to it. You can typecast yourself if you are not careful, but I get restless and want to do something different. I think that is better in the long run, even for readers who only like the Culture novels. But I haven’t abandoned it by any means – the next SF novel will be a Culture novel.

AJ: What does the M. stand for anyway?

IB: Menzies. It’s a family name.

AJ: Do you ever find yourself working on a mainstream novel and a science fiction novel at the same time?

IB: God no! Apart from anything else, I don’t have the brain cells to concentrate on two at once. They are separated in time by at least half a year, and I concentrate on one with my full attention – I suppose in theory I could, but I can’t see it myself.

AJ: You have a reputation of being a very fast writer once you get going on a new book?

IB: It has changed a bit over the years, actually. Usually it’s a case of coming up with the initial idea, and after a fairly short time, I just go for it. Once I’ve started writing I really want to get it done, much like reading a book – you want to get to the end and see what happens. It helps if it is a first-person narrative – it’s always easier to write fast that way, I find. With the last two novels I have spent a bit more time than usual thinking about them beforehand.

AJ: Why was that?

IB: In the case of The Algebraist, it was really because of that complexity I mentioned earlier – there was a lot to work out. In the case of Dead Air, which was my most recent mainstream novel, I stopped after the events of September 11 in New York and had a think about it. That altered things a lot – I always planned to include things that were happening in the real world, and obviously I couldn’t not write about the attack, so I took three months or so just thinking about that. There is a danger of over-thinking as well, though. You can get idea-bound if you think too much about a novel.

“The hard bit of writing isn’t the writing itself, it’s coming up with the ideas, and with non-fiction that is a very different process, more a kind of reporting what happened than inventing it.”

AJ: You also wrote your first work of non-fiction recently, with a decidedly Highlands and Island subject matter. How did Raw Spirit come about?

IB: I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t through my good idea. I got a phone call from my agent saying that another publisher had come up with the idea of me going round distilleries in search of the perfect malt, and was I interested? Originally they wanted me to go round the Highlands in a black cab with some garrulous Glasgow cabbie or whatever, but we got rid of that idea and I drove myself.

AJ: I don’t expect you had to agonize too long over that offer?

IB: It wasn’t the kind of commission you are going to turn away, was it? It was the first non-fiction book I had tackled, and to be honest, it will probably be the last – not because I hated doing it, but just because I can’t imagine another project that would be as attractive to me. It had Scotland, it had driving, it had whisky – although you can’t put those two together! – and I was also able to weave friends and family into it as well. Pretty much ideal, really, and it’s probably the nearest I’ll ever get to writing an autobiography.

AJ: Was the actual writing a different experience to writing fiction?

IB: Yes, and in some ways it was more relaxed. The hard bit of writing isn’t the writing itself, it’s coming up with the ideas, and with non-fiction that is a very different process, more a kind of reporting what happened than inventing it. With fiction you put yourself on the line in a different way. That took away some of the hard work away from me.

AJ: Anybody planning to read the book who doesn’t know what whisky you chose should look away now, but what came out top for you?
 
IB: My favourite whisky of all time is Laphroaig – it’s not for everyone, but I love it. Of my top ten, three are on Islay. I lean to the peatier malts. I appreciate the Speyside malts as well, but there is something about the in-your-face quality of the island malts that I love.

Iain M. Banks was born in Fife in 1954. He has written The Wasp Factory (1984), Walking on Glass (1985), The Bridge (1986), Consider Phlebas (1987), Espedair Street (1987), The Player of Games (1988), Canal Dreams (1989), Use of Weapons (1990), The State of the Art (1991), The Crow Road (1992), Against a Dark Background (1993), Complicity (1993), Feersum Endjinn (1994),  Whit (1995), Excession (1996), A Song of Stone (1997), Inversions (1998), The Business (1999), Dead Air (2002), Raw Spirit (2003), The Algebraist (2004).

Iain Banks and Christopher Brookmyre, Eden Court Theatre, Friday 8 October, 7pm.
 

© Kenny Mathieson, 2004

Related Link

• Iain Banks website