posted on 28 Dec 2016

Whit By Iain Banks

Prior to his untimely death from an aggressive cancer in 2013, I would make a point of trying to read any new releases by Iain Banks as they came along. He was quite a prolific writer operating with effectively two identities –  Iain Banks the contemporary Scottish novelist and Iain M Banks the science fiction author. I have to confess that science fiction has never been a great love of mine and so I have left those alone but as soon as I read his first contemporary novel, The Wasp Factory in 1984, I counted myself an admirer of his off-beat storytelling and delicious sense of humour.

As I was sorting through my bookshelves over Christmas I stumbled on my cache of Banks novels and realised that there was one there that I’d somehow missed reading despite having bought it on its release. As far as I can tell, Whit hasn’t been regarded as one of Banks’ best but I thought I’d give it a whirl, especially as it must be the best part of three years since I read his last and posthumous The Quarry.

Banks was a well-known rationalist and humanist who had very little time for organised religion – which is not to say he didn’t have time and space for what is rather lazily called ‘the spiritual’. Anyone familiar with his books will know that they are shot-through with his belief in the human spirit. Whit however see Banks having some fun at the expense of irrational belief – it’s an extended exploration of bogus religion, cultism and the exploitation and hypocrisy that lies just beneath the surface.

Isis Whit is the young ‘chosen one’ of a cult religion, The Luskentyrians,  located in the Scottish wilds. She is special because of her birthday -  the sect reveres people born on 29th February – and because she appears to have the power of healing. Her grandfather, Salvador, is the founder of the religion and is essentially making up the rules as he goes along. Every four years to mark the 29th February there is a special festival that is central to the cult and Salvador decides that it needs a Guest of Honour, Morag – one of their sect who has gone off to find fame as a musician must be convinced to return. Isis is chosen to go out into the world to find her but, of course,  being just a teenager and completely naive in the ways of the world, Isis is about to find out some extraordinary facts of life.

Isis’s journey and her search for Morag is presented in the classic structure of the Bildungsroman –  the novel form that takes the youngster on a journey from innocence to experience. There is more than a touch of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones in Isis’s adventures in squats, porn mansions, drug dens and the like. Throughout the humour is derived from Isis’s  sense of the upright and the antique clashing with the decadence of the modern. However, Banks doesn’t mock Isis – she is consistently dignified and engagingly consistent.

Ultimately Isis must deal with double-cross and treachery and even a threat to her faith when the story of the founding of her religion and the lying and cheating that surround it turns out to be somewhat less than holy.

Banks himself confessed that he’d let everyone in the novel get off pretty lightly and it is an essentially good-humoured book that doesn’t try and rub anyone’s nose in the message. Isis is an attractive character and she stands for the better part of religious belief – decency and a real concern for other people. But just about everyone else in the book is either self-serving or filled with a world-weary cynicism that allows them to use the cover of religion for their own purposes. The overall message is pretty clear.

I’m sure that the most ardent Iain Banks fan would agree that this isn’t a great book – there are plenty of plot flaws and some structural issues – but it is an enjoyable romp and an immensely good natured one at that.

 

Terry Potter

December 2016