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Iain Banks

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107 views1 page

Iain Banks

Uploaded by

adv alberto braga
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Spotlight: Iain Banks

Biographical Details
Iain Banks (1954-2013) was one of the best-known and most prolific writers to emerge from Scotland in
recent decades. Born in Dunfermline and brought up in Fife and Inverclyde, he studied English
Literature, Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Stirling and then took a variety of jobs that
gave him time to develop his writing, until the success of his first published novel, The Wasp Factory,
allowed him to write full time. Predominantly a writer of fiction, Banks published thirteen science-fiction
novels under the name ‘Iain M. Banks’ and, as ‘Iain Banks’, fourteen heavily plot-driven, non-science-
fiction novels, several of which were adapted for television or film, including The Crow Road, Complicity
and Stonemouth. One recurring characteristic of Banks’ ‘mainstream’ fiction is its use of a wide variety
of locations within Scotland, with events in many of his books taking place across several locations, and
this interest in Scottish landscape and culture clearly informs his one non-fiction book, Raw Spirit.

Publications of Interest
• Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram (Century 2003)

Where to Begin?
• ‘Introduction: Out of Our Heads’ (Raw Spirit pp. 1-6)
• ‘2: Does not Rhyme with ‘Outlay’’ (Raw Spirit pp. 25-44)
• ‘6: WhiskyLandWorldVille!’ (Raw Spirit pp. 111-134)

Style Core Themes


- Travelogue - the history of Scottish whisky
- Social History - the freedom/joy of travel
- Memoir - variety of Scottish landscape/culture

Contextualising
In writing a book about travelling through Scotland, and in particular the Scottish Highlands, Banks is
following in a rich tradition, stretching from Samuel Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland (1775) and Dorothy Wordsworth’s Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland (1803) to Edwin
Muir’s A Scottish Journey (1935) and Mike Cawthorne’s Hell of a Journey: On Foot Through the Scottish
Highlands in Winter (2000). There are also obvious parallels with Neil M. Gunn’s Whisky and Scotland
(1935) and Dave Broom’s A Sense of Place (2022). Like Doctor Johnson, Banks is keen to describe the
landscape he is travelling through and to explain the relationships between local communities and
their native industries, but his book also reflects at length on more personal topics, such as his friendships
with his travelling companions, and his love of cars, motorcycles and travelling in general. Banks does
discuss his anger at the UK’s involvement in the second Gulf war, which was taking place at the time of
his tour, but the tone of the book overall is much more informal and humorous than many earlier books
of Scottish travel writing.

Understanding
Thinking about Raw Spirit, consider the following questions, geared towards checking understanding:
• From the Introduction, identify in your own words three reasons Banks gives for writing this book.
• Based on your reading of Chapter 2, explain in your own words how the whisky industry started.
• From Chapter 6, summarise how Speyside has capitalised on its image as the ‘epicentre’ of the
whisky world.

Analysing
Choose one of the features below and explain how Banks uses it in Raw Spirit:

Descriptive Structure Humour Dialogue Anecdote


vocabuary

Evaluating
Thinking about Raw Spirit as a whole, consider the following evaluative questions:
• How successfully has Banks engaged your interest in, and improved your understanding of, the
place of history in Scottish culture? Justify your answer with specific references to the text.
• Reflective writing seeks to give us an insight into the author’s personality and values. To what
extent do you feel you have developed an understanding of Banks as a person from this book?
• How successfully has Iain Banks managed to convey the variety of Scotland’s landscape? Justify
your answer with specific references to the text.

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