I recently finished The Crow Road by Iain Banks, sent to me as a gift by Cas (thanks again!). I wasn’t really sure how to take the opening sentence, which left me wondering what kind of book she’d sent me: “It was the day my grandmother exploded.”* However, after 30 or 40 pages, I was hooked, and proceeded to plow through it with all possible speed. I loved it.
The plot follows Prentice McHoan, a Scottish university student (who’s majoring in history, cheers to that!) who’s dealing with more than a little death in his family. Indeed, “the crow road” is (at least in the book) a Scottish phrase meaning death. He also struggles with other prominent life issues, like his love life (or largely lack thereof), his flatmate who isn’t the greatest intellect on the planet, and the rift between him and his father over religion: Prentice believes, while his father is a rather vocal atheist.
The narration style is one which I’ve not encountered much, but which I really enjoyed a lot. While the story does have Prentice at the center of action, the narration itself is quite fluid in regards to both time and perspective. Time-wise, the book leapt from one point in time to another; from Prentice’s “present”, to his childhood, to his teen years, etc. Perspective-wise, sometimes the narration was in first-person, other times third-person, focused on someone else entirely (often Kenneth, Prentice’s father). The first couple of these time / perspective shifts threw me off, but after that the transitions were painless, and livened things up.
The thing I probably enjoyed the most about the book was the sheer Scottish-ness of it. After watching the historically-horrendous Braveheart countless times in my youth, I fell in love with anything to do with Scotland, and The Crow Road stirred that love up. Reading about the lochs, the little villages, the castles, makes me want to visit the country, something I’ve not really thought about for a long while. My only trouble with going to Scotland, though, would be if Banks’ characters are a good representation of the country’s inhabitants as a whole. Do those people ever drink anything that is non-alcoholic? It seemed every other page, Prentice, friends, families, everyone was tipping back a shot of whiskey. Are they related to the Battlestar Galactica crew? 
* The grandmother exploding was due to her pacemaker not being taken out before she was put into the furnace at the crematorium. The scene was pretty hilarious: the doctor drives into the crematorium lot, jumps out of his car, and starts yelling, “STOP, STOP!!!” This is followed by Prentice hearing a loud explosion from inside the crematorium as his grandmother’s pacemaker pops. Then the doc falls over, having a heart attack of his own.
Glad to see you enjoyed it! The last person I lent the book to lasted a couple of chapters then gave up.
And yes, whisky (without an e thank you very much, we’re not Irish) is the life-blood of the Scots.
I was actually hoping there would be a sequel, so I could continue learning about Prentice’s life / relationships (especially with Ash!), but it appears there’s not.
Regarding the spelling: most bottles in America are labeled whiskey, and so I’m far more accustomed to the spelling with an e. Whisky actually looks quite wrong to me, even though looking it up in a dictionary says otherwise.
Banks doesn’t tend to go in for sequels, which I quite like. It lets you imagine what you think might happen next. His sci-fi (as Iain M. Banks) are mostly set in the same universe, but even then he doesn’t tend to reuse characters.
And yeah, the spelling is a contentious issue. It’s just assorted grandparents and other relatives would be rolling in their graves if they saw me spelling it with an ‘e’!
Yeah, I’m probably being a bit greedy; I just really wanted it to keep going, I liked the characters that much.
So the spelling of the word really is a (relatively) hot topic in the UK? I’d never thought much of it; probably because I’ve almost always seen it with an ‘e’.
The spelling isn’t a topic at all to be fair. Most people couldn’t give a monkeys how it is spelt. It bugs me and mine because we’re Scots and are annoyed that the spelling of the word keeps getting corrupted.
Ah, I didn’t know you were of Scottish descent. Neat. (It’s been a long time since I listened to one of your podcasts, but you don’t have a Scottish accent, do you? If I recall correctly you sounded (to my American ears) like a typical Brit. No offense, of course.
)
I’m a bit of a mongrel (like most Brits to be fair), with a smattering of blood from all over the Isles, but I’m mainly Scottish – grandparents on both sides spoke with an accent, lots of my relatives still do, and I can lay claim to a tartan.
But yes, I sound like a sassenach, to my eternal shame.
Very cool! Do you have a picture of your family tartan? Lots of folks think they’re actually a bit ugly, but I think they’re rather neat. In the SCA I lusted after a tartan kilt as my garb, until I found that historically, they fall outside of the organization’s timeframe. Not that anyone follows that much (because you see tartan kilts all the time in the SCA, among other things), but it’d bug me.
It’s rather peculiar to read that about the Sassenach. My somewhat long-standing memory of you is still registering you as English, so to read your comment about saying you sound… well, English, is a bit weird.
Heritage and ancestry is a very odd thing. I don’t quite understand the American obsession with claiming blood from lands other than America. It’s weird when friends say “Oh, I’m Irish American” and the last time anyone from their family stepped foot in Ireland was ten generations back.
But my clan are the Buchanan’s. I can also claim a fair portion of Morrison blood, but that branch has been anglicized for a few more generations, so it’s less strong.
As for sounding British, well I am British. I was born and raised in the South of England, so of course I sound like I sound! (Though sit me down for more than ten minutes in a room with my Scottish relatives and I start to develop an accent to go with the best of them!)
I think the American obsession about claiming blood from other lands is due to America being such a busy melting pot of peoples and cultures. I think as more and more folks were mixed into the stew, the greater the desire was to hold on to something unique – and saying “I’m German American” or whatever is one thing to hold on to. Granted, doing so doesn’t really change anything other than one’s mindset, but that can be said for a lot of things people say and hold on to.
I’m personally of German descent, which I find nifty, considering my love of the language, but I don’t worry about the descent thing too much. I can point to my geneological lines all day, and in the end, I’m American, not German, so.
True, true, about being British. I suppose that was a silly comment on my part; I’m of German “stock” (makes me feel like a bred puppy or something), but I certainly don’t speak with a German accent, except when I’m purposely doing so.