The Steep Approach to Garbadale
by Iain Banks
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Book Summary Information
Author: Iain BanksEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-10-05
ISBN: 1596923032
Number of pages: 390
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
Book Reviews of The Steep Approach to Garbadale
Book Review: Toy Story
Summary: 4 Stars
Since we share a common language and cultural heritage, you'd think Americans and Brits would see the world the same way. Well, we don't, and that's the point of Iain Banks' wry and clever take on globalization and its discontents. This novel celebrates the thorny particularity of its English and Scottish characters, pitting them against the seductions of American-style global capitalism.
Alban McGill is a member of the Wopuld family. For over a century, the Wopulds have made a nice living selling the Victorian-era board game Empire! (it resembles Risk) first in cardboard and then in electronic form. When an American videogame company lobs in a bid to buy out the Wopulds, Alban's grandmother, Win, the iron-willed matriarch who runs the company, summons the clan for a meeting at Garbadale, the family estate in Scotland.
Alban's conflicted about the sale. The family can't resist so much money, he thinks, but should resist American cultural hegemony on general principles. He's even more conflicted about the Wopuld family: when he was two, his mother killed herself by wading into the loch at Garbadale wearing a stone-filled coat; he has unresolved feelings for his cousin Sophie, with whom he had an adolescent love affair; he climbed the ladder in the family firm, only to lose heart in his early thirties and resign. Since then he's drifted, working as a forester, intermittently touching down in the bed of Verushka, the quirky Glasgow mathematician he may even love, and vaguely trying to align his life with his leftish political sentiments.
Banks writes a tight, colloquial prose that deftly captures the inner worlds of Alban and his compatriots. The messy aftermath of Alban and Cousin Sophie's teenage affair is told with a graceful emotional restraint that seems to be the peculiar province of British writers. And he's perceptive about the difficulties of getting a proper emotional grip on a corporate job. Alban wants meaning from his work, but sees that capitalist firms, family-run or otherwise, often squeeze out meaning while they're squeezing out profits.
After meeting up with his cousin Fielding, Alban makes a half-hearted attempt to organize family opposition to the Spraint Corporation's buyout offer. The story climaxes at the Garbadale gathering and there the tumblers of the plot click smoothly into place. Alban resolves his feelings for Sophie and figures out what Verushka means to him. The family votes on the sale. When Win unwraps the mystery surrounding the death of Alban's mother, a well-prepared-for plot shock is nicely delivered.
Two Spraint executives arrive to convince the family to accept their bid for the company. Unlike the nuanced portraits of the Wopulds and Alban's Scottish mates, the Americans are caricatures. The senior executive is a platitude-spouting capitalist tool; his underling is a born-again, right-wing supporter of America's intervention in Iraq. In his interactions with them, Alban becomes a sock-puppet for Banks' views on global capitalism, the environment, monotheism and the Iraq war. While Banks' frustration with the state of the world is understandable, his loss of writerly sang-froid is somewhat shocking in a novel and a novelist otherwise so accomplished.
These political rants mar the novel, but they don't harm it unduly because the particulars of Alban's struggles and the world Banks is trying to honor are crafted with such skill and care. I'm sure many Americans would be happy to sit down with Banks over a pint and commiserate on the damage Americans are doing in the world. Perhaps he'd discover that Brits and Americans can make common cause after all.
Summary of The Steep Approach to Garbadale
Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of Iain Banks' fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built its fortune on a board game called Empire! now a hugely successful computer game. So successful, the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the firm out. Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family clutches for years, is run to ground and persuaded to attend the forthcoming family gathering - part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting - convened by Win, Wopuld matriarch and most powerful member of the board, at Garbadale, the family's highland castle. Being drawn back into the bosom of the clan brings an inevitable and disconcerting confrontation with Alban's past. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet ready to see Sophie, his beautiful, enchanting cousin and teenage love, at the EGM Grandmother Win's revelations will radically alter Alban's perspective for ever.Scottish Books
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