Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Time Jumps

The only thing that bothered me about Ian Banks' spectacular book was his tendency to thrust you into situations with absolutely no explanation or description. The ironic thing was that he had spectacular descriptions, but the generally didn't appear until after you had already drawn much of the same conclusion for yourself. I understand that he was trying to create an authentic experience of the events in the novel by revealing things only as they occurred to the characters. Unfortunately, the characters had the advantage of living in the world and already having seen/learned about what was going on. I am not opposed to Banks' technique on principle. I think that it can be very effective. In particular, the slow revelation of Quilan's mission as he himself remembers it is very good. However, I think Banks overuses the technique. As soon as the reader thinks they have a grasp of what is going on, they are thrust unexpectedly into a new situation where they are confused again. It is extremely difficult to get a hold of the timeline until about halfway through.