Question about Cheradenine Zakalwe (Spoilers! Read Use of Weapons First!)

I think there is a point made of how Zakalwe repeatedly insists on putting himself in danger, and suffering the painful consequences, in a quite masochistic way. It seems somewhat inexplicable on first pass through the book, given his cynicism about the actual merit of the work he does. His behavior seems bizarre, as if he is just out to punish himself... which of course he is, but we don't understand why until we learn who he actually is, and what sin he is trying to atone for.

I agree that the character has had a kind of psychotic break, and on some level has covinced himself that he is truly Zakalwe.

Just found these forums, and am enjoying the discourse. I'm sure I'll be back soon - Iain Banks book always seem to leave me with questions...
 
Hi! New member here... the chance to discuss Zakalwe made me run off and register right away.

I have to admit, even though I finished Use of Weapons last fall and have read all the rest of the Culture series since then, I still can't decide what I think about UoW. In retrospect, the Banks's consistent use of pronouns for the narrator struck me as odd, but I quickly forgot about it, so the ending came as a shock. He even provides an out in the scene where Cheradinine shoots himself... describing the small caliber pistol and wondering if it will be sufficient.

The twist honestly drove me away from Banks's works for about a month. I felt a little betrayed. At least in Consider Phelbeas you knew you were riding along with someone that you at understood, even if you disagreed with them. Finding out that you were rooting for a psychopathic monster at the end of UoW was... distrubing.

Which brings me to today. I finished Surface Detail last night and was a bit angry to find Zakalwe still alive. In the timelines I can find, SD occurs 900 years after UoW. To find The Chairmaker still alive and fighting other people's wars was disappointing. I'm guessing I can hope that I can interpret it as Zakalwe has died in some conflict at some point along the line and is now in a pleasant afterlife with his poetess... hopefully after doing enough good to atone for his sins. Banks does say Zakalwe was re-embodied, but I'm choosing to ignore that bit. :)

When does the next Culture novel come out? Maybe we can finally have Zakalwe killed or redeemed (somehow) in it. Then the character can stop bugging me.
 
I finished reading Use of Weapons last night, and had to come online to try to make sense of the story in my head also, I have enjoyed reading all the different theories and have my own take on it.

I don't think Elethiomel was necessarily crazy in the Hannibal Lector sense of the word, I agree he has done what he has HAD to do to bring the war to a conclusion, yes it is sick to make a chair out of a person, however is it any sicker than dropping the BOMB on Hiroshima, killing many innocent citizens in a painful way? This was also justified to win a war. I think Elethiomel was so sickened by doing this act of chairmaking that he did develop a split personality. I do definately need to reread the book, and as I type this I remember the 'bone chip' scar that Zakalwe got when they were younger, which is confusing if it is Elethiomel 'recalling' past events. Anyway, loved the book
 
oakford said:
I don't think Elethiomel was necessarily crazy in the Hannibal Lector sense of the word, I agree he has done what he has HAD to do to bring the war to a conclusion, yes it is sick to make a chair out of a person, however is it any sicker than dropping the BOMB on Hiroshima, killing many innocent citizens in a painful way? This was also justified to win a war. I think Elethiomel was so sickened by doing this act of chairmaking that he did develop a split personality.
Click to expand...

I think that your analysis plays into the nature of the title "Use of Weapons" The idea that on some level the chairmaker is a weapon by whoever uses him and that his insistence on meeting his objective by any means necessary is akin to the use of the atom bomb, or Atilla's destruction of who knows how many towns and cities. In fact, Zakalwe/Elethiomel is the synthesis of every warlord in one sense, because he would employ any method, no matter how brutal to win.

That also could suggest a reason for his infatuation with Sma, because he can't use tenderness to win, and can never woo her.

After thinking about this, my new question is, does the book support the chairmaker in his adventure? Not in his acts of brutality, but his journey to rediscover his identity. Does the revelation at the end show that he has humanity and feels regret? Or does it show that our identities are inescapable and we should be punished for our trangressions, no matter what we do to redeem ourselves?
 
Another question to ask is would the Culture/Contact have used Zakalwe if they had known who he really was, or would it not have bothered them? In whatever war they involve themselves in, there is always massive loss of life, seemingly more so when they 'support' both sides, what does it really say about the Culture? Zakalwe himself is a 'weapon' used how they see fit
 
Do we know for sure if it was Elethiomel or Cheradenine that Darckense had sex with? And why she did?

I'm pretty sure that we don't have any evidence as to how she was killed, (the chair makes one think she was somehow tortured, but I tend to think not, the fact of her death and abuse of the cadaver was sufficient to push Cheradenine over the edge).

I think WW2 and Churchill and civilian bombing (etc) would have been one of the inspirations for the overall theme.
 
Last edited:
Out of all the books I have read and regardless of the genre, Use Of Weapons will stand out as one of the best books I have ever encountered.

Ah to hell with it, at the risk of being verbally assaulted by a bunch of well read, booker prize list aficionados, I would like to say here that it IS the best book I have ever read. There, I've said it.
 
I read UoW a long time ago and, well, looking back upon the experience I'm surprised to see how much people seem to love it. I'm fine with twisted plots that go all over the place, but the book just never seemed to draw me in. I read through the details of Zakalwe's past without even so much as a hint of interest. There was somewhat of a dark, twisted allure that kept me reading through to the end, but even as I read through the ending plot twist, my heart didn't skip a beat like I would have been conditioned to expect from such a revelation.

As a result, in my eyes UoW became one of the most inconsequential books I ever read, neither good enough nor bad enough to make much of a lasting impression, although I'd be hard pressed to explain why. It's been a while, but I seem to remember the storyline jumping around a bit too often to draw me in thoroughly enough. I've read a lot of Banks' books: Matter, Use of Weapons, Player of Games, Algebraist, Transition, Consider Phlebas, Surface Detail, and Against a Dark Background. All of them I've enjoyed (to varying degrees of course) aside from UoW, which I neither liked nor hated.
 
Each to their own! Use of Weapons and The Player of Games are my two favorite M Banks books, perhaps even my favorites if I expand to his mainstream too, though I am partial to The Bridge and Espedair Street there and it's not exactly comparing apples and oranges to try and pick a favorite across genres.

But of course, everyone's mileage will vary, which is just as well - if we all agreed there was one best book in the world, we'd probably all have to give up writing because the one perfect book had come into existence and all else would be but a pale shadow. So, long live differences of opinion!

For me the concept that anything can be a weapon, and that people exist who seek to find and use the 'perfect' weapon for any scenario is an interesting one - as is the question on whether people will stop at using that weapon because of its cost. This can be contemplated on many levels, from the global raw weapons such as nuclear and biological, to the global non-weapons such as cyber attacks and going after an economy / infrastructure, to the personal with words and relationships.

What weapons do you use daily, how closely do you look for them, and do you weigh up the costs before deploying them?
 
I thought that the use of "Staberinde" as a name was to send a message to Beychae, as it was a code they had agreed upon earlier? His indifference towards it seems to me to be down to the fact that he has a mission to complete at that point and he uses anything at his disposal to get it done. I think that as you read back through the memories of his previous missions you can see how his personality has become somewhat calmer, and since he has lived so long it would make sense that he has begun to (on some level) deal with what he has done. I think it also tortures him that he can't seem to die because part of his being won't allow him to. You see in some of his past jobs, and in the conclusion of his part in the events on Murssay that whether he wants to die is irrelevant because he can't allow himself to due to his extreme focus in those situations.
 
I think there was a bit of foreshadowing in the flashback chapter where he was injured on the big rock island. It showed him consciously doing one thing, while unconsciously doing another. Consciously he was flopping around and trying to leave the fetid concavity he was in, while unconsciously he was drawing out the big symbol for "urgent help" (or something similar) in the language of that world. It shows his conscious mind being totally disconnected to some other, more survival based mind. I loved that chapter (apologizing to the flies and whatnot).

Also, as an aside, how great was the gift of the hat?
 
I did'nt feel the twist was bad at all. Elethiomel and Cherdenine were very similar but then under pressure in the flashback parts you see Cherdenine couldnt quite stand the pressure and Elethiomel did what it takes which is what the protagonist did unflinching through the whole book. well that was my take on it anyway
 
I'm very late to the party, but I just finished the book.

I agree with those who believe that Elethiomel suffered from some sort of split personality or other psychological adaptation to what he'd done. I think there's some convincing evidence in the last couple pages before the epilogue, too: the drone, which is clearly a proficient medic, observes "odd brain-wave patterns" right before "Zakalwe" has an aneurysm when Livueta reveals his true identity. I take that to mean that the sublimated identity is coming to the surface.

What I haven't seen discussed in this thread yet is what we should make of the prologue and epilogue. The references to baldness mean that the scenes take place after the revelation of "Zakalwe's" true identity, I believe. Or am I wrong? If I'm right, then what has happened in the interim? Did the Culture reconstruct his mind as Zakalwe? Does the opening definition of happiness mean that Sma finally gave in to his advances?

I haven't re-read the book or even the prologue/epilogue in detail, but I'm curious what others make of it.
 
Just finished this book, and wanted to see how others took the ending - interesting discussion. I'm of the opinion that it didn't really work - I could see how it could work, but we really needed to be given a bit more detail about Elethiomel and the other characters' relationships when they were children in order to get a real grasp of the character(s). As it is, I just can't reconcile Elethiomel's mercenary ruthlessness with Cheradenine's moral ambivalence towards his work with the Culture. That's a huge personality shift for one character to go through, and since "the chair incident" would only have been upsetting to Cheradenine, I don't think it can be convincingly used as a reason for this extreme character shift. Perhaps if the two characters had not been too dissimilar in the first place it would have worked, but then the book would maybe not have been as interesting...!

Aside from the problem with the ending I really enjoyed it, and thought it was a very good critique of war and its effects on people (physical and mental). Some if it was also very funny - I laughed for ages at the bit where, just after he's been decapitated, the drone send him a gift of a hat! :D
 
I've just finished reading the book today, and I'd love to hear what anybody makes of Ky's story in chapter 'II'. It describes two books published simultaneously with confusing and apparently contrasting messages relating to the question of whether souls exist. 'Use of Weapons' has two stories interwoven, one reading forwards and the other backwards, about a man who may or may not be soulless. If these are analagous, and Banks the king, then he's made it clear that studying the book in detail won't reveal an answer either way, and that he's not going to end the debate himself. Zakalwe may show up again in 'Surface Detail' and other books to come, and there will never be an end to his story. But he tells us that just because something does not have an ending, doesn't mean it doesn't have a conclusion. What can we conclude?
 
To help answer some of these questions, I've found a couple of recent interviews with the king himself. This forum won't let me publish the links directly, but you can find them easily enough by typing the following into a search engine:

1) Guardian Book Club Iain Banks Use Of Weapons

2) Orbit Books Iain Banks 25th Anniversary Culture
 
thanks for that, the Guardian one, one of the most interesting things I've read/heard about this novel, and the Cultrure in general. Nice one:)

Paul.
 
I should have guessed something of the nature of the book's surprise ending when the character of E disappeared from the "present" or main story line without explanation; not having given much thought to that, the ending came a very big shock to me. I would have welcomed a bit more elaboration on Livueta's revelation, which the reader deserves after the long journey. Realizing the book I thought I was reading (a fairly well done but standard space opera with Cheradenine as protagonist) was actually a completely different novel having his arch enemy Elethiomel as protagonist, I had to immediately read it again with a new set of assumptions to try and understand how a character of whom I'd formed a mostly positive impression based upon his thoughts and deeds in the "super-warrior" chapters could also have committed the shocking necrophiliac act of turning his stepsister and lover's bones into a chair. Several theories have been floated here. One idea is that he had a split-personality disorder with one aspect of his personality doing the dastardly deed and the other later trying to "atone" for it, but this diagnosis doesn't necessarily follow from the events of the book. Normal people do things they later regret all the time. I suspect this occurs more often in abnormal circumstances such as war (when the event did in fact occur), but even an appalling misjudgement doesn't make someone a moral cripple. E's drive to atone, perhaps more overactive than usual due to the extraordinary heinousness of his crime, forms his primary motivation throughout the book. This argues for his sanity. But this explanation assumes that the insane goal of building a chair out of a sister's / lover's bones could have been committed by a normal person. So was E. sane? He very likely had defective (abnormal?) genetics (his father was a murderer) which is a reason to assume at least some ingredient of insanity in his personality but not a conclusive one. For one thing, we don't know that E. murdered D; she could have died by other means perhaps beyond his control. But even given that stretch, his decision to use her body to help fight his war "congrues" with the title of the book (if that's a word). It seems to me that E has to be sane for the book to make Banks' deeper point about war and the things that happen during and because of war; the ability to use anything to hand even something not designed to be harmful as a weapon.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
JunkMonkey SF history question. SFF Lounge 9
sinister42 Question about explicit sex scenes in urban fantasy novels Writing Discussion 14
chongjasmine A question about Elaida... Robert Jordan 0
Timben Curious Question about Book Promoting Writing Discussion 1
D A question of commas Grammar & Spelling 22

Similar threads


Back
Top