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The Crow Road by Iain Banks Read and Download Ebook The Crow Road... The Crow Road Iain Banks PDF File: The Crow Road... 1 Read and Download Ebook The Crow Road... The Crow Road Iain Banks The Crow Road Iain Banks 'It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach.' Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances... The Crow Road Details Date : Published 1993 by Abacus (first published 1992) ISBN : 9780349103235 Author : Iain Banks Format : Paperback 501 pages Genre : Fiction, Contemporary, Mystery, Cultural, Scotland Download The Crow Road ...pdf Read Online The Crow Road ...pdf Download and Read Free Online The Crow Road Iain Banks PDF File: The Crow Road... 2 Read and Download Ebook The Crow Road... From Reader Review The Crow Road for online ebook Maciek says It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach. The Crow Road is the first novel by Iain Banks that I've read, and it has one of the best and irresistible opening hooks ever - it quite literally begins with a bang (get it?). What other novel begins with the main character's dead grandmother exploding? Iain Banks is a Scottish writer who is probably more known in the US for his science fiction, which he publishes as Iain M. Banks (using his adopted middle name, Menzies). The Crow Road is one of the mainstream novels he publishes as Iain Banks, and one of his most beloved works. The title is delivered from a (supposedly) old Scottish saying referring to death - if you're "away the crow road" you're not going to be coming back. The novel's protagonist is Prentice McHoan, who returns from Glasgow to attend his grandmother's funeral held in his (fictional) hometown of Gallanah in Argyll and Bute, on the picturesque west coast of Scotland. This is not the first loss in the family: eight years ago Prentice's favorite uncle, Rory - a bohemian travel writer, motorcyclist and author of a memoir chronicling his travels through India - has left his home, taken his motorcycle and vanished without a trace. When Prentice meets with his aunt Janice, Rory's partner at the time of his disappearance, he comes into posession of some of Rory's papers and computer diskettes. He discovers that at the time of his disappearance Rory was working at a new project, titled - you guessed - The Crow Road. Prentice thinks that in these documents lies the clue to solve his uncle's disappearance and decides to analyze them, not knowing that he might find out more about his family than he hoped for. The novel resonated well with readers upon its publication in 1992, and in 1996 BBC produced and adaptation for the small screen, which was also very succesful. With this novel Iain Banks has proven himself to be a great storyteller who can handle a large cast of interesting, quirky characters - each of which is distinctive and unique personal traits. Banks creates a family which feels real, not scriped, and it's a delight to see his characters interact with one another. Prentice is a student who is struggling to survive and find himself in the world, and is compelled to believe in some sort of a higher power. Prentice cannot accept the fact that people simply cease to exist when they die; he thinks that their consciousness somehow continues on. This provokes a strain in relations with his father, Kenneth, a writer of books for children and a comitted nonbeliever, who denies the possibility of an afterlife and any universal purpose. Luckily, there's Ashley, his childhood friend, and her uncle Lachlan. Prentice's other uncle Fergus owns the local glassware factory and is an important figure in the town as the business made him very wealthy, and he lives in a grand castle. Because of his travels and exotic experiences Uncle Rory has already been an enigmatic figure, and his mysterious disapparance only adds more fuel to the Prentice's eagerness to find out what happened to him. The McHoan family interacts with the Watts and Urvills, and each family has a different financial and social background, each as different as real people are from one another. Banks tells his story mostly through Prentice's eyes, employing him as the first person narrator - and does an admirable job at creating a character who is sympathetic but also at times unlikable, who behaves like a jerk and is often not aware of things around him, but with whom we cannot help but sympathize, because we can remember full well how confused we were at one point in our lives or another. Parts of novel are set in another timeline and told in the third person, letting the reader see the past of Prentice's family and its PDF File: The Crow Road... 3 Read and Download Ebook The Crow Road... members present themselves, instead of being interpreted by someone else. What could easily have ended up as a mess works perfectly and gives the reader a more intimate insight into the storyline and the formation of its characters - in particular his father Kenneth, whose stories about Scottish myths and legends capture the attention and minds of children. Even though the sections are chronologially out of sequence they compliment one another, never feeling artificial, showing how times past haunt the times present. The Scottish setting is used to full extent here - Banks has a real sense of the place he's writing about. His Scotland is a place full of beauty and myth, even employing the obligatory imagery of castles, mountains and lochs without sounding tired and cliche, effortlessly presening the experience of growing up as a young lad in Scotland as unique and magical. He certainly romanticizes it a bit, but does so without the descent to posh sentimentality - he obviously remembers his own growing up in Dunfermline very well. Characters even use a fair amount of Scottish dialect, none of which feels forced - it contributes to their personalities and lets the dialogue flow smoothly, without sounding false. There's also a fair amount of humor in this book, sometimes grim - but also outrageously funny, such as Prentice's exploding grandmother (who herself was quite a character). Although the novel is full of death, it manages to walk the crow road with laughter, never truly losing its high spirit. The Crow Road is a a long novel, not easily classified - it is both a coming of age piece and also a sprawling family drama, concerned with several generations of several Scottish families. This works perfectly fine until the last quarter, where it changes gears and focuses on becoming a mystery. This is the section which I felt made it lose its dreamlike quality by interrupting the meditative ruminations on life and death, which I so enjoyed, and turning into a cat and mouse procedural. While I thought that the ending was ultimately satisfying, I thought that the last section prevented the novel from completely coming together and disturbed its delicate balance which was done so well. So, is The Crow Road worth reading? Certainly. I can now see why it is considered one of the author's best novels; Iain Banks is a good storyteller who writes well, and despite my gripes with the concluding part (which made me take down one star from the rating) I enjoyed spending time with his characters and was captivated by his story. It's absorbing, full of eccentic characters and situations which are both interesting and charming. It is full of humor resulting from these characters and events, and despite its grim themes its also ultimately uplifting and hopeful. It's world is full of small details which enrich it, and made reading its 500 pages no work at all. It contains moments of beauty which will resonate with all readers: These were the days of fond promise, when the world was very small and there was still magic in it. He told them stories of the Secret Mountain and the Sound that could be Seen, of the Forest drowned by Sand and the trees that were time-stilled waters; he told them about the Slow Children and the Magic Duvet and the Well-Travelled Country, and they believed all of it. They learned of distant times and long-ago places, of who they were and what they weren’t, and of what had and what had never been. Then, every day was a week, each month a year. A season was a decade, and every year a life. Angela says There are many ways to write a merely good novel, but I've read few great ones--novels with truly compelling plots--that don't make their emotional impact by pummeling their main characters until their lives just can't seem to get any worse, and then somehow finding that bit left to destroy. The Crow Road does this masterfully. Halfway through the book, main character Prentice has watched his romantic interests thwarted by those who are supposed to be closest to him, painfully embarrassed himself in front of his entire family, is trapped by his own stubbornness into a painful falling out with his father, has just lost his the last writings of his long-missing uncle Rory, is broke, and is failing school.
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