Book Review: Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks

[Coolhand]

Short Version: Fascinating, funny, dark and smart. But not quite smart enough to get away with it.

Long Version:

HERE BE SPOILERS! ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I should probably start this review with a disclaimer.
I’m a thicko.
A moron.
A complete numpty.

As a result, I don’t “get” much of what’s classed as genuine Literary fiction at all. You should never let me anywhere near Literary fiction for much the same reasons as you should never let a chimp anywhere near a loaded Kalashnikov: Neither of us know what it’s for, neither of us understand how to make it work and in the unlikely event that we do figure it out, the result will probably be lots of screaming, panic, and tears before bedtime.

So this might explain why although I am going to say some really good things about this book, I’m also going to bitch about it, because as I understand it Iain M Banks’ work is both SF and “Literature,” meaning my opinions should be suspect from the word go.

Right? Cool.

Use of Weapons is set in Banks’ Culture universe. For those not in the know, the Culture is an ultra advanced, anarchistic and hedonistic civilisation who’s occupants pass the time engaging in orgies, building starships with funny names and generally screwing around with the politics and development of the less civilised worlds. Imagine what Star Trek’s Federation would have been if they’d let Kirk write the founding charter whilst he was smoking a spliff and trying to get a leg-over with Yeoman Rand. Yep, there you go. And if that sounds like a criticism, it isn’t. The Culture is fascinating and I loved reading about the little details of life within its walls. So that’s a good thing.

There’s a nice use of humour as well, both bizarre and dark. We get to meet a vast starship that downloads its mind into a big cuddly teddy bear and wanders around its own corridors asking for hugs. We get to look at a party for rich snobs who use the latest medical tech to cut pieces off themselves and stick them onto other party guests, a scene both eye poppingly perverse and very funny. And there’s a great gag involving a hat, the main character and a drone called Skiffen Amtishaw.

There is also some pretty nasty, horrific stuff in here, and it comes out of the blue a lot of the time, jarring oddly with the almost whimsical humour and sequences in other areas of the novel. There’s one section towards the end of the book that I actually found so horrible and disturbing I had to put the book down for a bit and wander off to stroke some cats, visit Pretty Starbucks Girl to get a coffee and generally make myself feel happy again. That’s good. Full marks to Banks for getting under my skin like that. That takes serious skill and one sick mind, and I salute both.

So we come to the story…
Errr.
There isn’t one, really.
It’s probably best viewed as a series of vignettes about the life of one Cheradenine Zakalwe, an operative for Special Circumstance, a kind of Culture Black Ops unit. We get to see him topple or support various regimes for the Culture and raise interesting questions about how much of a force for good that Culture actually is. We get flashbacks of his past revealed and we also get to see him arse about on a beach and think about life, the universe and everything in a manor that’s not as interesting as it seems to think it is. The problem here is that many of the vignettes could actually be cut out of the text and not affect our understanding of the tale or characters one iota, and some of them feel very much like padding or self indulgence on the part of the author. There’s no real driving narrative to this book, no plot or overall story to follow. And in a book with no real plot, things start to become more about the characters, and there’s some cracking ones on display here, right?

Errr, well, sort of...

See, I didn’t find most of the characters in this book that well drawn or deep. They’re by no means terrible cardboard people, but they’re certainly not interesting enough to hang an entire novel on. They’d do just fine in a book with a driving plot, but we don’t have that here, so suddenly they’re required to carry a far heavier load and they’re just not up to it.

In fact, this brings me on nicely to the second of my major moans about Use of Weapons. The BIG moan. A moan so big that I actually assumed I’d read the book wrong and started a thread in the Iain M Banks part of the forum to ask about it. With the assistance of the helpful chrons denizens, I came to an answer of sorts which I felt explained the issue to my satisfaction. I sat down to read the book again with my renewed understanding.
And realised that the explanation still doesn’t work.

See, there is a surprise at the end of the book, a major twist. But it requires a character to act in a way that totally and utterly inconsistent with their previous behaviour. Nothing we have seen from this character even remotely suggests that they would behave in the manner the twist requires. Nothing. And this isn’t a minor problem, this is the big, pivotal scene that is supposed to snap the whole book into focus and make you think “Ah, so THAT’s what everything I’ve just read was all about. NOW I see, whereas before I was blind.”
But because it’s so inconsistent, so out of character, it just made me pause, blink, re-read think:
“I read a whole book for THAT?”
The more I think about it the more it annoys me. Nothing in the book shows you how this person got from point A to point B. And because of this, what should be a clever move from the author just comes across as a ludicrous cheat thrown in for cheap shock value. It strikes me as one of those endings that thinks it’s far smarter and more profound than it actually is, which is a shame because it is a clever book, just not quite as clever as it needs to be to pull off this final trick. And as a result, the whole thing pretty much collapses.

So, sparse plotting, inconsistent characterisation, but some great ideas and loads of fantastic individual scenes. Best viewed as an opportunity to explore the Culture, and enjoy some great humour and twisted sickness.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to sit in my chimp cage, eat a banana, fling some dung and try to work out which end of this Kalashnikov is safe to chew on.

[iansales]

Ah, but the whole point is that Zakalwe is not Zakalwe... so he actually acts entirely in character.

[Coolhand]

EEEEEKKKK!!! SPOILER!!!!!!!!!! Everyone just scroll past Ian's post quick!

And, er, scroll past this one as well. I'll white text my reply below to protect anyone who hasn't read the book yet.


The issue I have is that we don't see the journey from what he was to what he is. As Ethiomel he was a monster, but by the time we've met him he's become a remorseful, soulful man who muses about right and wrong, and gets upset by the cruelty and death he sees around him.

Now, that's like going from being Pol Pot to being Ghandi, and Banks doesn't show us that story arc, just expects us to buy that it happened because he tells us that it did. It's the old trap of telling instead of showing. That's what blew it for me. I went over the book again and again before I posted this review and I just couldn't see where this change becomes believeable.

Mind you, like I said, I am a bit thick when it comes to understanding literary subtlety.

[iansales]

It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't recall encountering the problem you're having. Perhaps I should read it again. Sigh. Another book on the mile-high TBR pile...

:-)

[Coolhand]

Originally Posted by iansales

Sigh. Another book on the mile-high TBR pile...

:-)

Heh heh. Dude, I know the feeling...

[gully_foyle]

I totally agree with Coolhand. The book was Banks at his best. The little stories did lend a narrative and structure to the book overall. I love The Culture, it seems like a civilisation founded on dinner parties. But the twist didn't do much for me. I just thought, well what's the point of that? Your correct, there is no link between the man we read about and the man he turns out to be. Also, I may have missed it, but I'm not terribly clear on why The Culture conscripted him as he was dying on the iceberg in his first mission. And for that matter, and please message me if you know the answer to this one, why did Ethemiol kill Darckense in the first place? I know he was kinda pissed at his cousin, but I still don't know why he took such a drastic measure.

On the subject of literariness.... If you have ever seen Madagascar:
Mason the Chimpanzee: [Mason and Phil have just escaped from the zoo] I hear Tom Wolfe's speaking at Lincoln Center.
Mason the Chimpanzee: [Phil, a mute, signs frantically] Well, of course we're going to throw poo at him!