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UK Holidays - The Steep Approach to Garbadale
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List Price: $13.00
Our Price: $11.05
Your Save: $ 1.95 ( 15% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: MacAdam/Cage
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781596923034
ISBN: 1596923032
Label: MacAdam/Cage
Manufacturer: MacAdam/Cage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2007-10-05
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
Studio: MacAdam/Cage
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Editorial Reviews:
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Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of Iain Banks' fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built its fortune on a board game called Empire! now a hugely successful computer game. So successful, the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the firm out. Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family clutches for years, is run to ground and persuaded to attend the forthcoming family gathering - part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting - convened by Win, Wopuld matriarch and most powerful member of the board, at Garbadale, the family's highland castle. Being drawn back into the bosom of the clan brings an inevitable and disconcerting confrontation with Alban's past. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet ready to see Sophie, his beautiful, enchanting cousin and teenage love, at the EGM Grandmother Win's revelations will radically alter Alban's perspective for ever.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Ultra left-wing passionate hatred of the U.S.A.
Comment: This is the last non-scifi book of Iain Banks I will buy, although he will probably find a way to rant his passionate hatred of America and its government in a scifi book as well. He finds it hard to believe that Americans could be surprised that the attacks of 9/11 happened; that we deserved it. He tows the fashionable ultra liberal party line. What a whiskey-addled fool. His work has been going downhill. The ending was obvious early on.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fractured Family Feud and fictional Twist
Comment: What I like about Banks' stories is that we not only find engaging and interesting characters that have tension between and within them, but the colorings each has also creates its own dynamic. Banks' characters are never neat and perfect and they have their own demons to fight, even as they are discovering that the world is not even what that character thought it was (and not what we thought it was, seen through their eyes and memories).
The same goes for the characters in this story. We are rooting for them to go one way or another, for it all to resolve in a particular fashion when Banks pulls the rug from under both our and the central character's feet with revelations that twist the picture and alters the interpretation of the past and present.
I agree with another reviewer that Banks can interject political overtones into his modern characters that seem out of place or just a bit much, but it doesn't kill what is an interesting story with some great scenes and situations in it.
Overall a good read, but not one of my top ten books by IB, which continue to be mostly his "skiffies" (Sci-Fi).
Customer Rating:
Summary: An engaging and colourful story of family and wealth
Comment: "The Steep Approach to Garbadale" is the latest literary novel by Iain Banks. Alban, exiled son of the wealthy Wopuld family, has been invited back into the fold for a crucial meeting at the family's Highland retreat (the Garbadale of the title). For several generations the Wopulds have made their fortune in producing the boardgame "Empire!", but now an American corporation wants to buy them out. Alban plans to attend this meeting, not only to voice his opposition to the sale, but also because at this congregation - perhaps the last which will involve the whole family - he may be able to find from them answers to questions he has held long in his mind. What is the truth behind his mother's suicide over thirty years ago? And what are his true feelings for Sophie, his cousin and first love?
The story is divided between two main timeframes, through which Banks explores the complex web of characters - each one colourful and many of them eccentric - which make up the far-flung Wopuld family. The first of these timeframes takes place in the present, as Alban attempts to rally the family against the American takeover bid. The second takes the reader through various episodes from Alban's past, including his teenage tryst with Sophie. Both are woven together seamlessly and skillfully, in a way which does not disrupt the narrative.
Indeed on the whole Banks' style flows well and is easy to read. His command of detail in each scene is excellent and it is possible for the reader to feel fully immersed in every new setting - and there are many, from Alban's childhood home at Lydcombe, Somerset, to exotic Hong Kong, sweltering Singapore, and the hilly environs of Garbadale House. In addition, Banks is expert at capturing on page the raw emotion and humanity of his characters (the intensity of Alban's summer affair with Sophie stands out in particular) but is also able to do humour at the same time, something which is evident in the fast-paced and consistently good dialogue.
This is not to say that the book is without its faults. Firstly, the resolution feels somewhat rushed and in many ways too neat for the complicated network of familial relationships that Banks spends the book depicting. Also, though the majority of the book is narrated in the third person, there is also, confusingly, an occasional first-person narrator known as 'Tango', who appears in only three short sections and has apparently very little relevance to the story.
These small points aside, however, "The Steep Approach to Garbadale" is a very good and engaging book, and one that I can easily recommend.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Comment: Generally agree with points raised by Nef below, where we part ways is that I think that the book's flaws are critical. I didn't really identify with the main character (which is who I assume we are supposed to like as readers), and his out-of-character rants at the end of the book didn't help matters. That fact that he is a stock character (disillusioned black sheep etc.) didn't help matters for me. I found the plot "twist" at the end of the story predictable, strange and erratic first-person narrative by a character that is mostly non-impactful,....I could go on but whatever. No need to restate Nef's well written review.
The only other book of Banks' that I have read is "Wasp Factory", and I thought it was pretty cutting edge, utterly unpredictable with bizarre and well fleshed out characters. Hoping to find some more of Banks' stuff that is cut from this mold.
I did enjoy a lot of the imagery, however, as I have traveled to many of the locales in the book. Banks does have a gift for descriptive imagery.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Satisfying
Comment: Another good book from Mr Banks. This book isn't really anything new for the author, but an ongoing refinement of his style. Broad, complex setting, lots of inner dialog, motivated characters and a dash of perversion.
This books reminded me of both "The Business", "Complicity", and "The Bridge". I think it was better than "The Business" - the setting is similarly set amongst some very wealthy people, but the scope of the events in the book is more in keeping to the scope of the setting.
Worth reading.
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