Bridge [Hardcover]

Iain Banks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2001

The man who wakes up in the extraordinary world of a bridge has amnesia, and his doctor doesn't seem to want to cure him. Does it matter? Exploring the bridge occupies most of his days. But at night there are his dreams. Dreams in which desperate men drive sealed carriages across barren mountains to a bizarre rendezvous; an illiterate barbarian storms an enchanted tower under a stream of verbal abuse; and broken men walk forever over bridges without end, taunted by visions of a doomed sexuality. Lying in bed unconscious after an accident wouldn't be much fun, you'd think. Oh yes? It depends who and what you've left behind. Which is the stranger reality, day or night? Frequently hilarious and consistently disturbing, THE BRIDGE is a novel of outrageous contrasts, constructed chaos and elegant absurdities.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Orr, the otherwise unnamed protagonist of this Pynchonesque novel, is a successful Scottish engineer who's a bit fed up with life: his work doesn't really interest him anymore; years of doping and boozing have dulled him; his girlfriend has other lovers (he does too, but he would rather she was monogamous). Then one evening he crashes his classic Jaguar into a parked MG. The aftermath is coma and months of amnesiac trance, a condition that Orr apparently comes to prefer. The reader, however, only understands all this towards the end of the novel. Virtually the whole of the narrative consists of Orr's trauma-induced hallucinations. The bridge of the title is a fantastically ramifying construct in Orr's brain resembling an outer-space city in a science fiction movie. Banks's ( The Player of Games ) novel is satire, and its target turns out to be the British Isles' equivalent of American "yuppies." Deploying a wide range of stylistic devices, the narrative condemns fiercely an overly mechanistic society and its self-referential ethos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

An amnesiac searching for his past finds his life dominated by the world of "the bridge," a gigantic structure whose ends have never been seen but which contains a lost library, a host of dreams and nightmares, and the key to another reality. From the expansive, macrocosmic scale of Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games , Banks turns inward to explore the complex, surreal microcosm of the human mind in a kaleidoscopic novel for sophisticated, literary readers of speculative fiction. Recommended.-- JC
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (July 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316858544
• ISBN-13: 978-0316858540
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,077,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe not the best place to start., September 1, 2001

By 

"nwc18" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bridge (Paperback)

This is one of Banks' less readable outings. The use of language is just too complex for The Bridge to be considered a page-turner, but it is a book well worth the work for Banks fans. That said, it is perhaps a bad place to start with this author (I would recomend Complicity or The Player of Games, both captivating, well writen books, and considerably easier reads). It involves a man in a dreamscape while lying in a coma (maybe). He has had an accident on a large road/rail bridge and now finds himself on an endless, self-sufficient bridge covered with cities and farmland. He has no memories of his past, but knows that he doesn't fit in. And then things start to get complex and sureal, with bloodthirsty barbarians, war criminals, missing libraries, and a few Banks in-jokes (this book was his third published, but he had already written five [I think] SF books that hadn't sold, a couple of them about the Culture, and that's the why of the knife-missile).

An earlier reviewer commented on this book's similarity to Marabou Stork Nightmares by Welsh. The comment that this book seems to draw on Welsh as an influence would be reasonable, except that The Bridge was written ten years before Marabou.

Happy reading.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing Nontraditional Narrative, December 10, 2002

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bridge (Paperback)

My only previous experience with Banks's work was his twisted first novel, The Wasp Factory, so this surreal and complex work was initially a bit of a surprise. However, having since learned that he also writes science fiction under a slightly different name, this book's style makes more sense. The story here is of an amnesiac man who finds himself on The Bridge, a giant structure and society that seemingly has no end. However, there's also the parallel story of apparently the same man, set in a more recognizable reality. It appears this "real" man is in a coma, and his existence in the world of "The Bridge" is a coma-induced dream state. Further complicating the matter are chapters featuring a barbarian warrior who is wandering around a fantastical realm battling wizards and monsters, looting towers, and tupping wenches, all the while recounting his adventures in a thick Scots dialect (think James Kelman or Irvine Welsh).

Some (indeed, many) readers will find this crosscutting and the lack of traditional sequential narrative rather frustrating. However once one accepts that this is not going to be a conventional novel, the ride is rather invigorating. The chapters with the warrior are some of the funniest stuff I've read in a long time. Bank's ultimate aim seems to be merely to provoke questions about reality, memory, imagination, and the like (cf. films like Jacob's Ladder or The Sixth Sense). First published in 1986, the book is a clear influence on Irvine Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares. And oh yeah, the fictional Bridge is based on the Forth Rail Bridge, which was built about ten miles west of Edinburgh just before the turn of the last century.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please read, August 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bridge (Paperback)

I don't easily give a book 5 stars, but this piece of writing showed how Iain Banks was not a one-off with the success of the Wasp Factory. In fact, no matter how good the wasp factory wasm, this is better.

The narrative follows an individual as he slips into a coma after an accident and the stories of the two parrallel lives in either. It is interspaced by the bizzare adventures of the most wicked, foul, scots-tounged knight ever to exist. Follow his narrative at your peril.

The story would be fine as it stands, but where the story unfolds in the parrallel world is a giant city built on an endless bridge. What really made the story for me was what the bridge was modelled on in real life - the Forth Bridge in Scotland. One thing that i'm interested in was whether or not other readers of the book who have not seen the forth bridge and it's surroundings felt the story had the same edge. Readers?

To conclude, a book that opened my eyes, and definately Bank's best. Just don't make this the first Banks book that you read - start on the wasp factory, a free tip!