The Bridge by Iain Banks

 


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 thirty-six, 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 multi-level 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, worried-looking 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, think 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 & 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 out-of-body 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 open-mouthed. 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 beings 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 finish 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 becomes 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, 1954-2013