Canal Dreams by Iain Banks

[Sally Ann Melia]

I have read all of Iain Banks Books, and unusually perhaps this one I have always enjoyed.

Canal Dreams tells the story of Hisako Onoda a Japanese Cello super star prodigy who when invited to play the major capitals of Europe refuses to fly, and instead chooses to take a ship from Japan. She travels as a passenger aboard across the Pacific, through the Panama canal then to the Atlantic and Europe. In the early chapters there is some mention of guerilla in Costa Rica, but this in no way prepares us for what comes next.

As she enters Panama the country is already descending into war, but caught in her world of music and plans for Europe Hisako is barely aware of this, and sleepwalks onwards despite entreaties to leave the ship and take the plane. So Hisako is still on board when the oil tanker Nakado when trapped with two other ships in the Panama Canal, becomes the subject of an attack.

I won't say more about the story, just to say this is the opening, and the tale itself is one of human frailties vis human cruelties. the female character Hisako, as with all of Iain Banks female protagonist is carefully drawn and immediately compelling. the action is as cruel and relentless as any terrorist film.

With flashbacks to Hisoka's youth in Japan and a detailed knowledge of the engineering and layout of a super tanker, this book offers both exotic locals and interesting technological details.

There is an interesting thought running through this book as well. This fictional conflict in Panama is drawn as one of many global mini-flashbacks, and you get the feeling that while the protagonists suffer and die, the rest of the world is watching football or tennis. In essence the ROW lives on in blissful wilful ignorance.

Recommended

 

[Vertigo]

Again (see my other comment on your The Business review) this does look particularly interesting but as it is one of the few Banks books that I've not picked up yet it will sadly probably be a while before I get around to it. And yet... that plot does sound right up my street so I may just have to pick up a copy and move it farther up the list!

 

[Sally Ann Melia]

Its a fast read, its very compelling or at least i found it so. But I like super tankers and all the tech around them.

SD

 

[Vertigo]

So I have now bought and read this one:


“Canal Dreams was my first attempt at a political thriller - an action book. As a political thriller it's not very good and a sign that it's not so good at what it's supposed to be doing is that it would be so easy to take the politics out and make a pro-CIA propaganda movie. If it's that easy to strip out, the political element, I haven't done my job properly.”

So says Iain Banks and maybe he’s right since it didn’t really come across to me as a political thriller but rather a psychological thriller with a bit of a political twist. Political thriller or not I enjoyed it, if that’s an appropriate adjective for a book that is intensely violent at times.

The main protagonist and the person whose perspective we follow throughout is Hisako Onoda, a well-known Japanese cellist with a chronic fear of flying. So, on finally agreeing to do a concert tour in Europe, she opts to go by ship, passing through the Panama Canal where their ship, along with two others, is trapped after the actions of local rebels close the canal at both ends, matters coming to a head after the ship has been violently boarded by a one group of the rebels.

All the main action takes place whilst waiting for the canal to reopen, intertwined with flashbacks that gradually drip feed the reader with Hisako’s backstory, an approach that works very well. Receiving her whole backstory in one load up front would have created a tedious, slow start to the book but this way we get all the necessary elements of Hisako’s history as we need them, giving us appropriate justification and motivation for her actions along with some necessary abilities. Without this backstory the last half of the book would have been totally unbelievable and it really only just scrapes into believable with it, as Banks leads the reader through Hisako’s transition from reticent, mild mannered Japanese lady to female John McClane (Die Hard). For me this is what the book is really about; not the politics but rather this transformation, which initially takes place almost claustrophobically in small constrained steps until a critical tipping point is reached after which the violence really erupts.

Throughout the book Banks’s prose is beautiful, initially, in the first half of the book, wholly appropriately so, as the gentle bucolic narrative explores the wilderness of the central portion of the Panama Canal alongside Hisako’s early life in Japan. But the extraordinary thing is how, as the narrative moves into the violence, Banks’s maintains that same beautiful, almost loving, tone, making for very disturbing reading.

This is definitely not a book for everyone; there is a lot of violence including a rape; the former very graphic the latter, thankfully, not quite so much so. This should not be too surprising to anyone who has read much of Banks’s work; when he goes down the violent path (think Wasp Factory or Song of Stone) he often juxtaposes it with a beautiful, idyllic setting. Be ready to be shocked but also moved.

5/5 stars