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Complicity

Complicity

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All Banks’s Culture novels feature Minds, hyperintelligent mirror-surfaced ellipsoids that run starships and other large engineering structures. But in Excession, the Minds become the primary protagonists, as they debate what to do about the titular phenomenon – an inscrutable alien artefact that seems to be older than the universe itself – and about a barbarous competing civilisation that glories in the name “the Affront”. As Minds are persons, they are not obliged to be open and honest with one another or anyone else, and some conspire to allow “gigadeathcrimes” on utilitarian principles, rather like crazed effective altruists. For that reason, consider the purpose of this narrative style and the extent to which you employ it. It might be better constrained – limited to chapters inhabited by specific viewpoint characters.

It is about hopes and disappointments, unrequited love, bravery and cowardice. Technically, it’s a quintessentially modern English novel. There are two stories travelling at once. Neither of them is told chronologically – heaven forbid we should start at the beginning and end at the end, too passe. We do indeed have exposed sex, unexpurgated violence and a Thatcherite setting. But as well as this: The first thing one notices is that most material from the book is somehow stuffed into the film (with notable exception of Cameron's cancer and Basra Road episode - sorry for referring to the novel). The result is rapid succession of events that get barely touched, not leaving room for atmosphere or, paradoxically, even decent suspense to develop. There isn't a trace of suffocating mood of the novel. Events follow each other at the pace that does not allow them to evolve and to give viewer chance to absorb them. I think that Millar and Elsley would have done much better job if given (the superb BBC TV mini-series, also after Banks) The Crow Road format. Complicity is my second Banks novel, after The Wasp Factory. Both are 5 star reads, the main reason being that Banks is a captivating storyteller capable of evoking sympathy when the reader may not necessarily feel comfortable with the feeling. If life had not regularly intruded, then I would have happily and easily read this book in one sitting. I won't make this lengthier than it needs to be. It's blindingly obvious that Banks was extraordinarily talented. Here, he portrays a journalist with a complex and messy life, who inadvertently gets embroiled in some grisly murders of high-profile people. He gets stitched up for them, and has to try and figure out who is responsible. What really made this book stand out and pushed it into a 5 star rating was how Banks told the story. Portions of it were told in second person narrative and, surprisingly, it worked perfectly. I truly felt as though I were in the story and believe me, the second-person narrative scenes are nothing I ever want to experience.Cameron Colley is a 30-ish Scottish journalist with liberal leanings, a tendency to binge on alcohol and other (illicit) stimulants, and an ongoing clandestine relationship with his childhood sweetheart Yvonne. Unfortunately for Cameron, Yvonne is married to their mutual friend William. A more serious problem is presented by the exploits of a Dexter-like serial killer, who is engaged in a spree of execution-style killings of prominent business leaders and corrupt politicians for which he is systematically framing Cameron. That can create a sense of immediacy, but almost amnesiac dislocation. We have to discover what we think, see, know and do. And if we don’t identify with the ‘you’ – if we feel implicated rather than attached – we can be pulled out of the story rather than brought deeper into it.

Given the reputation of Iain M Banks as a writer of unorthodox sci - fi and contraversial novels, I am surprised that only 2 of his works have ever been adapted for screen - The Crow Road (which I never liked either as a book or series) and Complicity, his only film outing. Under suspicion by the police, Colley finds himself involved doubly in the bizarre murders when the killer is revealed. At the end of the book, Colley is diagnosed with lung cancer (a downbeat ending omitted in the film adaptation). I'm not a Scottish young male journo with a drug habit; this book is grim, brutal, uncompromising and convoluted ...so why do I like this so much? No such scene exists in the film. This title and cover seem to be one more chapter in the harsh treatment this film has suffered at the hands of distributors. But this is not what he writes. He files stories about war is hell and peace too if you are female in this part of the world. He smokes good dope. He goes home. And this is the failure that haunts him so much he can’t even dream of it.Complicity was a violent, dark thriller, that furiously critiqued the excesses of Thatcherism. When freewheeling, amoral, drug addicted journalist Cameron Colle is drawn into a complex web of murder and deception as he probes the (supposedly) interlinked murders of several ruthless, shadowy Establishment types; the core of the case is too close for his own comfort; or the comfort of his condescending smug yuppy mates (who have the irritating habit of calling St Andrews - 'St Andy's'!?). I am a great Banks' fan, and was awaiting this film eagerly. I am quite disappointed, though the film would presumably, if taken at face value and not compared to the novel, be OK. My aim is to keep the guidance as straightforward as possible, not because I think you should only do it this way or that way, but because most people (myself included) handle complexity best when they start with the foundations.

I was so intrigued by this book that I bought an original DVD of the movie based on the book. But I admit without shame that I did not watch the movie before re-reading the book for the second time!

See also

It's all set in Edinburgh and a range of other Scottish locations, some real, some fictional, but all the real ones are perfectly described, and it's great to read about places I know well. The story was written in the early nineties and is set at that time, describing real events that went on at the time, and this really brings the book to life.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
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