A review by elusivity
Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks
3.0
Excellent writing, but once more, I find myself scratching my head over the ultimate point of this novel.
In the ongoing debate, it is often said that genre fiction goes primarily by plot, whereas literary fiction is much more accepting of static portraiture of a person/ situation /worldview /etc. (Let us not get bogged down by the fact that all narratives have plot, however rudimentary or fragmented.)
So have I, a person immersed in SF genre fiction, looking at this through the wrong lens (i.e. SF plot-focused lens, rather than a philosophical one)?
Among the many plot-strands is a lovely portion of Quilan, heart-broken by the loss of his spouse, who agrees to engage to murder a Mind and billions of Culture citizens in exchange for justified self-annihilation. However, the plot ultimately goes no where; was revealed to have no chance of succeeding even at its outset. Should I, instead of waiting for the payoff and been disappointed thereby, have been savoring it simply as an exploration of what kind of a creature can undertake such a task, while cross-referencing extensively with stories of our now-a-day kamikaze terrorist /freedom-fighters?
Another beautiful section concerned a Culture citizen in a distant part of the galaxy, involving the truly fascinating lives of the dirigible behemothaurs and their attendants, who discovered a strand of the plot and proceeded on a short, and failed, attempt to carry forth a warning. This too, went nowhere. Is this part simply to show that much of mortal action is destined to go nowhere, as well to allow the behemothaurs to comment, hundreds of millions of years after these recorded events, that all mortal striving is like trying to write a novel in the sand, and even the mightiest will one day be less than Ozymandias?
Regardless, I have been consistently underwhelmed by these Culture novels, and still have 3 more to go. Sigh...
In the ongoing debate, it is often said that genre fiction goes primarily by plot, whereas literary fiction is much more accepting of static portraiture of a person/ situation /worldview /etc. (Let us not get bogged down by the fact that all narratives have plot, however rudimentary or fragmented.)
So have I, a person immersed in SF genre fiction, looking at this through the wrong lens (i.e. SF plot-focused lens, rather than a philosophical one)?
Among the many plot-strands is a lovely portion of Quilan, heart-broken by the loss of his spouse, who agrees to engage to murder a Mind and billions of Culture citizens in exchange for justified self-annihilation. However, the plot ultimately goes no where; was revealed to have no chance of succeeding even at its outset. Should I, instead of waiting for the payoff and been disappointed thereby, have been savoring it simply as an exploration of what kind of a creature can undertake such a task, while cross-referencing extensively with stories of our now-a-day kamikaze terrorist /freedom-fighters?
Another beautiful section concerned a Culture citizen in a distant part of the galaxy, involving the truly fascinating lives of the dirigible behemothaurs and their attendants, who discovered a strand of the plot and proceeded on a short, and failed, attempt to carry forth a warning. This too, went nowhere. Is this part simply to show that much of mortal action is destined to go nowhere, as well to allow the behemothaurs to comment, hundreds of millions of years after these recorded events, that all mortal striving is like trying to write a novel in the sand, and even the mightiest will one day be less than Ozymandias?
Regardless, I have been consistently underwhelmed by these Culture novels, and still have 3 more to go. Sigh...