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An in-depth analysis of the life and literary work of Scottish author Iain Banks, with a focus on his novel The Wasp Factory. The analysis includes a description of the symbols and their meanings in the novel, and an examination of the personality of the main character, Frank, based on these symbols and meanings. The document also discusses Banks' writing style, his exploration of various themes in his work, and the impact of his upbringing on his literary output.
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I confirm that I wrote this thesis myself and integrated corrections and suggestions of improvement of my supervisor. I also confirm that the thesis includes complete list of sources and literature cited.
In Olomouc ..................................
I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Ema Jelínková, Ph.D. for her support, assistance and advice.
Scottish literature used to be considered only as a side product or a part of English literature. This idea was connected mainly with the position of Scotland in history, because it was seen as a small nation in comparison with England. However, Scottish literature began to flourish in the past, and today it is connected with several important names. In the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, there were for example James MacPherson, Walter Scott or Robert Burns. The Victorian era introduced writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, J. M. Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle. The twentieth century was connected with modern authors including Muriel Spark, James Kelman and Irvine Welsh. And that was also the era when Iain Banks entered literary history and published his first novels.
Even though he is probably not the best-known Scottish author, Iain Banks belongs to very important writers who influenced the development of the contemporary literature. He focused on two different genres – mainstream fiction and science fiction. His first novel named The Wasp Factory won him international recognition, but it also shocked readers all over the world. This novel, which divided reviewers into two different camps, is the main source of my thesis. My aim is to give a complex image of Banks‘s first novel. I would like to show the fact that human personality is formed mainly by the upbringing and by the influence of people in the immediate vicinity.
In the first chapter, I will introduce the Scottish novelist Iain Banks and his life. His social and family background and also the key moments of his life will be described and I will discuss the beginning of his literary career and his early works, which established him as one of the leaders of contemporary Scottish literature. His premature death and later events and publications will be mentioned as well.
In the second chapter, I will talk about Banks‘s literary work. Iain Banks focused mostly on two different genres including mainstream fiction and science fiction published under the name of Iain M. Banks. I will describe similarities and
In literary history, there were not many writers who succeeded as respected authors of both fiction and science fiction. However, Iain Banks, who focused on these two genres, was able to gain popularity in both fields. As Nick Rennison points out, Banks was popular both with his fans and literary critics:
Very few writers succeeded in combining real bestseller status with ‗literary‘ credibility. Mass-market sales of hundreds of thousands of copies and respectful attention from the critics are rarely the reward of the same writer. Iain Banks is one of the few who have managed to achieve this difficult double.^1
Iain Menzies Banks was born on 16 February 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife in Scotland. His mother‘s occupation was a professional ice skater. His father worked as an Admiralty officer. Iain Banks had no brothers or sisters, he was their only child.^2 Iain Banks later claimed that being alone influenced his literary career:
I guess it was something obvious like the cliché about the only child who retreats into their own little private world. I imagine that there probably is a higher preponderance of only children who become writers, because it is a more reasonably solitary profession than even the other narrative arts.^3
Banks spent his childhood in North Queensferry, but later his family decided to move because of his father‘s work requirement. In 1963, they settled in Gourock and Banks received his early education from Gourock and Greenock High Schools. At that time, his father was promoted to a First Officer of the Admiralty.^4
Iain Banks claimed that he discovered science fiction when he was still in Gourock High School. He decided to start writing at the age of eleven and
(^1) Nick Rennison, Contemporary British Novelists (Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005), 14. (^2) Isobel Murray, ed. Scottish Writers Talking 2: In Interview (East Linton: Tuckwell Press Ltd, 2002), 2. 3 4 Murray,^ Scottish Writers Talking 2 , 2. Murray, Scottish Writers Talking 2 , 2.
wrote his first novel when he was sixteen years old. It was called The Hungarian Lift-Jet. He later attended Stirling University from 1972 to 1975, where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. During the first year here, he wrote his second novel called TTR (it stood for The Tashkent Rambler ), which was his first science fiction book.^5 He also wrote poems for some time at Stirling, but he was more interested in writing prose. He later claimed that ‗poetry was just a phase I was going through‘^6.
After university, Banks travelled through Europe, North America and Scandinavia. During that time, he was employed as an analyzer for IBM, a technician and a costing clerk in a law firm. ‗He moved to London in the late 1970s and began writing while he was working as a computer programmer.‘^7
Banks‘s debut novel was The Wasp Factory published in 1984. The reviews of this novel were divided into two different groups - one group supported his innovative way of writing, while the other one was greatly shocked. Rennison described the reactions of readers: ‗Reviewers were divided between those who were immediately impressed by the power of Banks‘s imagination and those who were apoplectically outraged by the book‘s subject matter and the prose he used to describe it.‘^8
The second Banks‘s novel was called Walking on Glass (1985), but it was received as quite a disappointment. However, it was followed by The Bridge (1986), which was successful and Iain Banks himself considered it as one of his favourite novels.
In addition to mainstream fiction, Iain Banks later started to focus also on science fiction. In 1987, he published the book called Consider Phlebas under the name of Iain M. Banks. He decided to add the initial letter M. of his middle name Menzies to his name while writing science fiction. On the other hand, his realistic prose works were still published under the name of Iain Banks.
(^5) Murray, Scottish Writers Talking 2 , 7. (^6) Murray, Scottish Writers Talking 2 , 16. (^7) Rennison, Contemporary British Novelists , 14. (^8) Rennison, Contemporary British Novelists , 14.
After the publication of his first novel The Wasp Factory in 1984, Iain Banks suddenly became a very successful and famous author. Although his debut shocked both the audience and literary critics, this only led to the situation that people wanted to learn more about this bizarre writer and to read more of his works. Iain Banks himself was shocked by his success, as he described in the interview with Isobel Murray:
I got such a flying start with The Wasp Factory. I‘d assumed that after maybe five or six years, if I was able to write a book a year, if I was able to get the damned things published, I might just be able to scrape by and make a living, and give up my day job. But because The Wasp Factory was so sudden (...), I thought, wait a minute! This doesn‘t happen to everybody!^12
When Banks found out that people were interested in his work, he started to focus on writing even more than before. In 1980s, he managed to publish a book every year and his fast tempo continued also in 1990s. Banks himself claimed that for him writing is not such a hard job as some authors tend to say: ‗One thing I did have and still have is I can write quite quickly. When I‘m really on song I can do about 5,000 words a day, and shouldn‘t need too much revision.‘^13
During the period of almost thirty years (from 1984 to 2013), Iain Banks published twenty-nine of his works. This includes fourteen novels of mainstream fiction, twelve novels of science fiction, two short story collections and one book of non-fiction called Raw Spirit. One of Banks‘s fiction novels, The Quarry , was published posthumously, shortly after his death. In 2015, Banks‘s friend and collaborator Ken MacLeod published their joint collection of poems.
(^12) Murray, Scottish Writers Talking 2 , 19-20. (^13) Murray, Scottish Writers Talking 2 , 22.
As mentioned before, Iain Banks published fifteen fiction novels. His mainstream works were published simply under the name of Iain Banks without his middle name Menzies. Although it does not have to be seen at first sight, his books contain a lot of similarities.
Banks‘s novels often begin with a shocking opening sentence. This can be best illustrated in The Crow Road - ‗It was the day my grandmother exploded.‘^14 Another example is the cover of The Wasp Factory : ‗Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I‘d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda more or less on a whim.‘^15
Both in books of mainstream fiction and science fiction, Iain Banks plays with exposing small pieces of information and memories from the past of main characters. He gradually reveals the most important moments of protagonist‘s life. He often switches fluently from the past to the present and back.
We can see that Banks uses the retrospective way of story-telling in some way. The present comes first and it is interwoven with some parts of the past, and people are only later able to assemble all the pieces together. These ‗series of flashbacks and parallel narratives‘^16 , as they are called by Roderick Watson, are one of the important traits typical for Banks‘s style.
Banks often presents a shocking idea at the beginning of his novel. Then it is developed and we slowly reveal the whole story. Banks does not use long introductions. The reader is often thrown right into an important moment of the plot, and he gets more information about the setting, the protagonist and the plot itself only as the story continues.
Sometimes, an important moment or a clue are revealed only in one or two paragraphs at the beginning, then another topic is developed, and Banks gets back
(^14) Iain Banks, The Crow Road (London: Abacus, 1992), cover page. (^15) Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory (London: Abacus, 2013), cover page. (^16) Roderick Watson, The Literature of Scotland: The Twentieth Century , 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 253-254.
People with the feeling of alienation from the world are presented to the reader. These characters often feel alone or different from others, because of their past, their deeds and their upbringing. Banks focuses on these intense feelings, he describes the way of thinking of his characters and reveals their secret fears and desires, often through their dreams.
Banks is not afraid to reveal the bad traits of his characters, because he knows that the reader is ready to accept the person who makes mistakes and to identify himself with this person rather than with a perfect human being. That is why Banks shows many weaknesses and mistakes of his heroes, for example alcohol or drug addiction, free sexual relationships or the ability to manipulate people to gain whatever they just need.
As one of the main topics in his books, Iain Banks shows the importance of the family. Close people, friends and relatives of the protagonist are shown one by one, and the relations to each of them are revealed gradually. The role of the family is discussed in many novels, for example in Stonemouth , The Wasp Factory or The Steep Approach to Garbadale. Banks shows how important role the family plays mostly in forming of a young personality, because the person is always marked by its upbringing, and it can be seen in the later behaviour.
Banks also shows the interest in different doubles and repetitions of various sorts in his books. The enumeration of doppelgangers is suggested by the Scottish literary critic Craig Cairns:
In Banks‘s novels Frank and Frances in The Wasp Factory represent a sexualized version of the double, in The Bridge Orr knows he has an alternative life somewhere else that he is trying to reconnect with, in Espedair Street , Daniel Weir is ‗weird‘ precisely because he has come to live a double life, being an internationally famous rock star who poses as the caretaker of a converted Church in Glasgow, while in
Canal Dreams Hisako Onoda is a Jekyll-and-Hyde figure, both cellist and killer.^18
In some novels, Banks focuses also on the latest news and problems of the world. The destruction of the World Trade Centre, new technologies or popular computer games are examples of these important issues discussed in Banks‘s books. Some of his novels are even closely related to science fiction. Walking on Glass , The Bridge or Transition all contain elements of the science fiction genre.
There is seemingly a happy ending in many of Banks‘s novels, but it is always connected with some pain, revelation or disappointment. The faith is shaken, the secrets are revealed, and people have to learn how to accept them and live with them. But even if they manage to get over the things which happened to them, they cannot forget and they are marked forever.
Banks‘s mainstream fiction novels draw not only the attention of readers, but also the attention of critics, screenwriters and directors. Some of his novels were transformed into movies or other types of shows:
His 1992 novel, The Crow Road , was successfully adapted by the BBC into a four-part television series, and Espedair Street (1987) was produced as a BBC Radio 4 Series, for which Banks wrote the accompanying music and lyrics.^19
During his life, Iain Banks published twelve novels of science fiction, including nine novels of the Culture series, and three other science fiction novels. He was a great fan of science fiction since high school and he decided to publish his own works of this genre. His science fiction novels were published under the name of Iain M. Banks, which contains also the first letter of his middle name Menzies.
(^18) ―Iain Banks,‖ British Council , accessed March 20, 2016, https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/iain-banks. 19 ―Iain Banks,‖ British Council , accessed March 20, 2016, https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/iain-banks.
Iain Banks gained huge popularity not only as the author of shocking mainstream novels, but also with his science fiction novels which belong to the famous Culture series. This series includes nine novels and one collection of short stories.
The books of the Culture series focus on the world in the faraway future. Iain Banks showed his great imagination and sophisticated plots in these novels, and he also presented himself to the readers as a skilful author of science fiction, who is able to create the whole new world and even the whole universe.
The Culture is a new civilisation full of new technologies with different attitudes to life. It was described by Berthold Schoene-Harwood:
The Culture is a vast civilisation of genetically modified humanoids who live in a partnership with artificial life forms whose superior intelligence directs a wholly automated economy. There is no scarcity in the Culture, work has become play, and the state has withered away.^23
Culture citizens usually do not fear death, because they can duplicate their mind and reload themselves into a new-grown body. They can also change their sex from male to female and the other way round as they like. Banks focuses on the genetics and offers his readers the idea that human mind is similar to some kind of a program:
For Banks, computer science and genetics reveal that we are the effects of coding upon matter: mind is a program that could conceivably be copied and transcribed into different matter, and the brain itself is a bodily pattern programmed by evolution.^24
The Culture does not operate with money. The citizens are not as obsessed with possession of things as people nowadays tend to be. Banks seems to be perceiving life and society as feminine, even the artificial intelligences, ships and Minds act
(^23) Berthold Schoene-Harwood, ed., The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature 24 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 203. Schoene-Harwood, Contemporary Scottish Literature , 205.
as feminine. Gavin Miller describes that Banks represents the decentralized ethic as particularly feminine:
The prototypical Culture world is a Culture ship, a structure within which its inhabitants are contained rather than a territory which they claim to posses. Even on the rare occasions when Culture citizens live on the outside of their ship, Banks still manages to emphasize the femininity of the sheltering world.^25
In the Culture series, Iain Banks does not reveal all information about the Culture at the beginning of the first book of the series, but he keeps the reader in ignorance. Therefore, the reader enters something unknown, he must collect bits of information to find out something about the setting, people, their behaviour and other facts about the Culture. The Culture is a big puzzle for the reader.
Banks describes its citizens, its enemies, he focuses on the development of new technologies like drones, weapons, spaceships and the technologies supporting the long-standing and healthy life of the Culture inhabitants. He does not only show these things, but he is also able to describe how everything works. During reading the whole Culture series, people get the full image of the futuristic world created by Iain Banks. They can understand the history of the Culture and the connections among all situations that happened in these books. Banks usually provides the necessary dates and background for better understanding.
Similarly to reflections from the past in the fiction books, the bits of information in individual novels of the Culture series allow the reader to understand the Culture as a whole. It reveals what the people are like, what they believe in, their religion, their politics, and also their thoughts about their universe. Finally, after reading all the books of this series, the reader gets the complete picture of the new world of Culture created by Iain Banks.
During his life, Iain Banks created two collections of short stories. The first of them called The State of the Art was published in 1991. This collection is often
(^25) Schoene-Harwood, Contemporary Scottish Literature , 207.
