Subject: Review of Iain Banks' CANAL DREAMS

From: [email-masked]!write (Glen Cox)
Date: 17 Jan 92 17:37:03 GMT

=== Review of Iain Banks' CANAL DREAMS
=== Copyright (c) 1991 by Glen E. Cox

Banks' first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, was a surprise within a 
surprise--a well-written horror novel that was also a well-written 
"mainstream" novel.  Since then, Banks has continued to surprise 
mainstream readers with surrealistic novels like WALKING ON GLASS 
and THE BRIDGE, as well as surprising science fiction readers with 
intelligent space opera like CONSIDER PHELBAS and THE PLAYER OF 
GAMES (Banks' space opera compares favorably with HYPERION by Dan
Simmons).  

In CANAL DREAMS, Banks revisits the type of realistic horror found
in the WASP FACTORY.  Hisako Onada is a Japanese cellist who refuses 
to fly, yet wishes to tour Europe.  Her agent books her passage on
a Japanese freighter, and she gets caught up in a revolution when her 
ship becomes trapped in the Panama Canal.  That's one part of the
story.  Another story line explores Hisako's background, from the 
sacrifices that her mother makes early on as she makes it clear that 
she wishes to play the cello, through the very rigorous Japanese
education process, to joining a major Japanese orchestra.  The 
background serves as an important counterpoint to the other storyline,
explaining that her refusal to fly is based on a true phobia.  Banks
is pointing out that phobias are irrational fears, that have no 
bearing on the bravery or bearing of the person.  When the realtime
storyline turns wicked, one isn't surprised at Hisako's actions 
or her ability to weather hardship.

Banks' horror is like Stephen King's FIRESTARTER without the 
pyrokinetic, or Thomas Harris' SILENCE OF THE LAMBS without the 
psychopaths.  CANAL DREAMS is a novel about the kind of horror 
seen all too frequently in the news, and occurs even more frequently 
in the real world.  And that is true horror.

%A   Iain Banks
%T   Canal Dreams
%I   Macmillan
%C   London
%D   1989
%G   ISBN 0-333-51768-7
%O   Hardback, UK$12.95 
%P   198 pp.
%K   Associational, Horror, Mainstream