Secure A Copy The Bridge Crafted By Iain Banks Ready In Digital Version

good gosh golly dang,

I don't know if I want to spoil too much about the story here so I'll get this out of the way and say that you should probably read this book.
It's just so weird. And wonderful. And kinda in that slow plodding kind of book that I like but at the same time so full of little things and such a fast pace that it makes it hard not to like it.
There's a bunch of different writing styles that come up at seemingly random that all manage to work their way into the plot and it's all just so wonderfully done.


I think that's about all I really want to say, Sure it might be a good idea to give more of a plot detail or talk about the prose or the dialogue but instead, I just think I won't.
I can get why somebody might not like it, very easily so, but it dives right into the kinda shit that appeals to me, so check it out.
Exuberant, playful, and completely engrossing, Iain Banks' third novel fromcomes between his debut The Wasp Factory inand Consider Phlebas, the inaugural book in the Culture series, in.
One story told through many different smaller stories, The Bridge reveals an author clearly having tremendous fun exploring different ways of digging into his character's story.


The Bridge is simple in outline yet manyfaceted in detail: The comatose protagonist dreams a variety of recurring and colorful dreams that serve to shed light on the different aspects of his psyche, in the process revealing what led him to this unfortunate pass.
As a result, the texture of the book comes across as almost cubist, defined as it is not by a linear narrative but by its constant shifts in tone and locale and perspective.
The most memorable recurring segment is the titular bridge, a veritable world unto itself stretching to the horizon inhabited by an entire society of people.
I would even have enjoyed reading more about this byzantine world, like Gormenghast reimagined as a bridge,

The Bridge revels in puzzles and metaphors, in throwaway jokes and bathetic humor, in dialects and pop culture ephemera, really playing the field tonally, evincing overweening ambition to explode simplistic notions of narrative.
The chaptering likens this journey through the different layers of the mind to a voyage through the different geological eras, and the bridge itself is obviously a variously interpretable metaphor.
In retrospect the novel strikes me as a little garrulous and babbly, but it was a fascinating and entertaining experiment, at every moment very enjoyable to read, and ended on a surprisingly humane and moving note that contrasts nicely with the otherwise intellectual appeal of this rather technical novel, so I can see myself coming back to Banks for more in the future.
Surrealistic, disturbing and funny by turns, The Bridge offers a window into the wandering mind of a man lying in a coma after a car accident.
The scenes in the first half of the book, set in the world of the endless Bridge, read like some steampunk vision, but as the book continues it becomes a bit incoherent.
I had the feeling I missed some important allusions, Why, for instance, are the sections of the book titled based on geological epochs

If you enjoy works brimming with dark imagination, give this one a try.

Banks apparently thinks this is his best novel, and I agree, A very fine interleaving of dream and reality, without making the connections overly clear, Kafka meets the Wizard of Oz, Ah, Banks din krøllede hjerne, din sprudlende fantasi, dit livtag med livet, i stort og især i småt.


Jeg kan huske at jeg som relativt ung mand læste starten af den her bog, og fattede hat.
Jeg er glad for at jeg vendte tilbage


In his precise usage of vivid language and images, Iain Banks' The Bridge will bring to mind Orhan Pamuk's The White Castle.
Also, since Iain frames his tale as the inner workings of the mind while his narrator is in a coma, I'm reminded of that mind centered, mind spinning classic, The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat.


The narrator, let's call him John since that's the name he's known by in his coma dreams, provides the basic facts: single, Scottish, age thirtysix, he was driving at high speed on a bridge and crashed into another car.


John's mental state from beginning to end is a tumble: sometimes he's living deep in his coma dreams, interacting with a psychiatrist John suffers from amnesia and can't even remember his own name, meeting a lovely lass by the name of Abberlaine Arrol, exploring the surrounding multilevel city forming part of a nearly infinite bridge structure and sometimes John is lucid enough to relate his past life: his family, his girlfriend Andrea, his years of study.


The progression chapter to chapter, section to section is intricate and frequently shifts from one mental state to another.
To provide a sampling of what a reader will encounter when turning the pages, I'll focus on a handful of provocative scenes, as per

DREAM WITHIN DREAM WITHIN DREAM
John's psychiatrist believes John's inability to remember his past results not so much from head injuries but is rather linked to psychological shock.
Therefore, answers to questions his amnesia poses are to be found in John's dreams,

How fascinating! While dreaming in a coma, John dreams he's seeing a shrink and is told his dreams hold the key to greater understanding.
Therefore, when John returns to his bridge apartment and dreams at night, he pays great attention, recording the details in a diary the next morning.
And what vivid, surreal dreams! Among the most astonishing parts of Iain's novel,

NUTTY AS A FRUITCAKE
Prior to entering Dr, Joyce's office yes, echoes of James Joyce, John spots something highly unusual about the shrink's next patient, a thin, worriedlooking man sitting with eyes closed on a seat with a policeman sitting on top of him.
Dr. Joyce doesn't give this arrangement a second glance,

John asks why there's a policeman sitting on his next patient, to which Dr, Joyce replies what he, Mr Berkeley, thinks he is varies from day to day, and today Mr Berkeley thinks he's a chair cushion.


Recall philosopher George

Berkeley's “to be is to be perceived, ” This happening initially John thought Mr Berkeley was part of some minimalist radical theater group highlights how the entire novel hums along with a strong Alice and Mad Hatter tea party vibe.


GRAINY BLACK amp WHITE
John's apartment features a television built into the wall, the screen clicks itself on and begins to hiss.
As per usual, in grainy black and white, there's a man in a hospital bed hooked up to various machines, John wonders, how is this happening, and why As readers, we also wonder if what John sees on the television is perhaps himself in his hospital bed in a coma via some type of mental projection or outofbody experience.
And how does John's viewing fit within the context of his overall coma dream

FREUDIAN SLIPS
Following a night of embarrassing sex dreams gulp!, John reflects, “I decided over breakfast that I would lie about my dreams.
There is no point in telling him the sort of things I have really been dreaming about: analysis is one thing, but shame is quite another.
”

Then, during his actual session with Dr, Joyce, recounting his dreams sort of John receives a shock, He gapes at Dr. Joyce openmouthed. Coming to a greater state of awareness, John thinks to himself: I am dreaming and you are something from within myself authors italics.


What does it all signify Does Dr, Joyce see through John's attempts to cover up, to deceive him Is this why the good doctor tells John “We have to go on to another stage of the treatment.
” Turns out, what the doctor means by this is hypnosis, The very tangled plot begins to warp, bend and thicken,

GREEK MYTH AND JUNGIAN ARCHETYPES
John's dreams becomes the stuff of what Joseph Campbell termed “The Hero's Journey,” with images from Greek myths and Medieval legends.
During one outing with that beautiful dream lady, Abberlaine Arrol, John is asked about his belief in and his desire to see a Kingdom and a City.


Does Miss Abberlaine Arrol function for John as his unconscious feminine side, what Jung termed the anima And what are we to make of Abberlaine's drawing, the one she created while on their outing

John inspects Abberlaine's finished artwork: “The broad platform of the marshalling yard has been sketched in, then altered the lines and tracks look like creepers in a jungle, all fallen to the floor.
The trains are grotesque, gnarled things, like giant maggots or decaying tree trunks about, the girders and tubes become branches and boughs, disappearing into smoke rushing from the jungle floor a giant, infernal forest.
One engine has become a monster, rearing out of the ground a snarling, fiery lizard, The small, terrified figure of a man runs from it, his miniature face just visible, twisted in a shriek of terror.
”

SURPRISE!
Iain Banks must have enjoyed many chuckles writing the section where John returns to his apartment only to find a crew of Bridge employees carting all of his possessions out.
He's being relocated to a lower section with lower status and much lower weekly allowance, John confronts the foreman but it's no use the foreman shows John the order signed by Dr, Joyce. Ahhh! And then, the final insult: the foreman demands John surrender the very cloths he's wearing and is handed a pair of low status green overalls.
And the insults continue as John attempts to reclaim a shred of respectability, I could hardly stop laughing,

MASHING OF LANGUAGE
At different points in the narrative, dream within dream, John's language veers off into heavy Scottish brogue.
“Noaw, ahm doin no to bad these days servies mutch in dimand like thay say maynly becoz all these wizerds an that are so fukin sofistikaytit that they fogett theeir sum.
” Yet another reason why John's doctor shares the same surname as James Joyce,

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
Will John be given a choice: stick with his coma dream or rejoin our more conventional dream, you know, the one we all share, the one where you're reading this review on your screen For Iain Banks to tell.



Scottish author Iain Banks,This is, first and foremost, a love story, As a confessed Romantic, this is my favorite Iain M, Banks book. But it is much more than a love story, even if it is one that resonates very powerfully on me, It is also a vision on the wonders and depths of human fantasy, and how everyone of us holds the potential for wonder.
In a way it is Whitman's quote given form:

Do I contradict myself
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.


And I love Bridges, and have a special spot for the two Firth of Forth bridges, .