Review of the Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks

This book was touted as a return to form by Iain Banks after his lacklustre Dead Air. It was supposedly a return to the territory of Crow Road. Another family saga.hmm!

In recent years, I believe Iain’s best work has been in his science fiction efforts. In particular, The Algebraist, was a stunning effort and was just about his most readable work yet. As well as this, he produced, Raw Spirit, an amusing look at the whisky industry in Scotland which came across as a romp for him and his friends.

Garbadale (saves me writing out the title all the time!) is about the Wopuld clan, a large sprawling family who to put it bluntly are multimillionaires, thanks to a board game called Empire! ( the games seems to be similar to Risk). Everyone in the family seems to be part of the family business which was started off in the 19th Century by the great grandfather whose name I can’t remember.

The book starts off in the present and starts off in amusing style with Fielding Wopuld looking for his cousin Alban in a scheme in Perth. He the suave, sophisticated, wealthy businessman looking like a fish out of the water in this flat where Alban is crashing at the moment. A few years ago, Alban, was the blue eyed boy in the family business who suddenly decided that he wanted nothing to do with the family and wanted out to pursue a career in forestry. He disappeared for no-one to know where he was. Fielding had traced him to his current abode in Perth because he need his help to try and canvas the family prior to an EGM to discuss a takeover bid by the giant American software giant, Spraint who wanted to buy them out.

This in essence is the plot. My main complaint is that it is pretty thin and at the end of the book is pretty superfluous because even after the vote, it doesn’t seem to matter what happens and what Alban recommends.

Despite this, the book really recounts Alban growing up in the family estates at Lyncombe in Somerset and Garbadale in Wester Ross. In particular, his relationship with Sophie is probably the crux of the whole tale – their teenage affair at Lyncombe and its consequences.

The story is told as a linear narrative interspersed with flashbacks which works fairly well and keeps the reader guessing what might happen at the end except when you there you know pretty well what the twist is.

This certainly, is Mr Banks’ best ‘straight’ book in a while and for my money the best since Whit. I thoroughly enjoyed his prose and wit and some of the characters he created. In particular Alban is a likeable, liberal thinker who starts the book not knowing what he wanted and to be completely honest not entirely certain where he was going at the end. You know he wants to marry his girlfriend, Verushka (VG), but not able to because she doesn’t want that kind of relationship.

I didn’t really like Sophie or the way she came across and I suppose the twist at the end was the final closure needed to put a line under their childhood romance.

Great Aunts Beryl and Doris were a hilarious couple who we met early on when Fielding brought Alban back to Glasgow. They played a bit like Mapp and Lucia on speed. Very funny.

All I can really say is read and enjoy. Who needs a good plot to enjoy the maestro’s prose.

A short post script to say that it was nice that Mr Banks didn’t have to mess about with Scottish Geography too much when describing the fictitious area around Garbadale House which was supposedly located around Loch Glencoul north of the Inchnadamph Hotel. The only true anomaly was Loch Garve where Alban and Sophie went fishing.