Iain Banks

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway This Week is a novelist, prolific, popular, and highly acclaimed. His stories are full of mystery, violence, and strange characters. Very different from their author, the self-confident only child of an easy going Scottish couple who always wanted to write. He eventually had his first book, The Wasp Factory, published when he was thirty and working as a junior clerk in a law firm. Since then, his mainstream books have always been in the top ten bestseller lists. Complicity was number one. The Crow Road was made into a television series. And he also writes highly successful science fiction novels. Purporting to be something of a slacker, he says he writes because he likes it. I'm too busy enjoying it, he says, to actually analyse it. He is Ian Banks. It seems to me, Ian, that you're the sort of writer who would make a a budding writer suicidal, because apparently you just knock off these books in a couple of months and take the rest of the year off.

Iain Banks1:22

I know, yes, the first thing my editor said to me when uh way, way back 1984 83, in fact, when the WOS factor was accepted, was and he said, How fast do you write? Oh, you know, knock off a booger in two, three months and he said, God's sake, my dear boy, lie you know, you shouldn't say this but I said, Oh, but not not having the brain power to lie and remember what my lies, you know, are, uh, I tend to, you know, sort of fall back on the truth, you know, through no sort of moral um scruple just because it's it's more efficient. So I'm afraid that is the sad truth.

Presenter1:45

And do you write as quickly as you speak? Do you just write it?

Iain Banks1:47

Yes, fairly quickly. I do my the quota these days is uh fifteen thousand words a week, which boils down to three thousand words a day.

Presenter1:59

So you're your own man, you do it your way, and and as I indicated, you're nothing like the m mysterious and violent people that you write about. The obvious question to you, and I'm sure it's one you've been asked many times, you know, if you're so normal, where do you find all these twisted and depraved ideas that you write about?

Iain Banks2:15

Well, uh my theory is that you know perhaps it's something that's just in me, some sort of idea that if I didn't actually write about, I might do them or something. I I don't really think that, but it's like Jimmy McGovern says every

Presenter2:23

But like Jimmy McGovern says every man is a potential rapist, he's saying every man is potentially violent.

Iain Banks2:25

Yeah, every person, yes, let's face it, men, you know, but uh come come come front on that. Um I think there's there's some sort of truth to that. I think it's very these sort of generalizations, you know. I as a as a general rule, I hate generalizations, you know, so I was kind of quite shy of that one. But uh

Presenter2:41

But you're not really saying you're you're you know you're repressively violent as it were.

Iain Banks2:44

I think so. There's certainly not of catharsis about writing, about violence, about unpleasant things. I think it might I don't think I'd actually go out and do any of that.

Presenter2:52

And yet it's there in you. I think you've said before that you ha perhaps you haven't developed a filter as you've grown up. I think that's it.

Iain Banks2:54

Fooding

Iain Banks2:57

I think that's it, uh-huh. I think it's one of these things that as a rule you sort of develop uh as you grow up, as you go you know, grow from being a child, as you mature you do develop all these filters and you you filter out all the the demons and monsters that fill you know a lot of children's heads. And I think that I've sort of grown up without that filter in place for some reason.

Presenter3:12

So you're still a wee boy at heart?

Iain Banks3:14

I'm afraid so, yes. Well there's that idea that men never grow up, you know, that well, the female half of the species actually really matures, you know, men just learn to act better.

Presenter3:22

Tell me about your first record.

Iain Banks3:23

First record is, I can't believe I'm choosing a record from Desert Island this that contains the lyrics Fall, Doll, Driddle, All Doll, which it does later on, but it's Steel Span, it's Hairs on the Mountain. I really chose it because it's got a very sort of plaintive sort of feel to it. What it's really about is an old man looking back at his life and thinking, Oh, if I were a young man again, oh, I'd be after them fillies, let me tell you. And I just dropped that if I'm alone on a desert island, you know, I'd have this sort of elegiac, lamenting, you know, sort of emotion about sexual relations or whatever. And I think this song expresses it very well.

Presenter3:56

Yeah. Dumb criminal Uh

Speaker 23:57

May he run. Like hairs on the mountains, young women.

Speaker 24:04

They run.

Speaker 24:05

Life has on the mountains And if I was a young man I'd soon go hunting to me

Presenter4:15

You're right.

Speaker 24:16

Followed the blue

Presenter4:17

There I Right for a little day.

Presenter4:23

Steel Eye Span and Hairs on the Mountain. We made it sound all very easy, this writing business just then, Ian Banks, but um it is now you are one. But becoming one it was quite difficult, wasn't it? The wasp factory you you you took around everywhere.

Iain Banks4:38

Well, only I only went to six publishers, but I'd taken lots of other books, previous books. So you had a huge.

Presenter4:42

So you had a huge collection of rejection stars.

Iain Banks4:44

Uh yes, I did. I never did quite managed to you know paper my bedroom wall with some, but uh I'd uh I'd started writing, I tried I wrote my first proper sort of s proper length as it were of novel back when I was uh I was sixteen, you know, and I didn't get published. It was factually wasn't published till the very day of my thirtieth birthday, so it was like uh it's just the one and a half decades to wait, you know.

Presenter5:04

What did it feel like in that moment? It was Macmillan, wasn't it?

Iain Banks5:07

That's right. Yeah.

Presenter5:08

What actually happened?

Iain Banks5:09

Well I got I was working for a firm of lawyers in London at the time and I just got a phone call and there's a chap from now known to me as James Hale, still my editor, as a freelance now, um said he'd like to talk to me and uh he said I'm calling from Macmillan and just at that point, you know, having sort of fantasized about getting a call from a publisher for all those years, you know, sort of

Presenter5:15

Known to me?

Iain Banks5:27

Gulped and said yes, and so we met for lunch and uh he said it was uh agor of orgories.

Presenter5:33

'Cause he'd read it that weekend, I think, and you met for lunch on Monday and signed you up on Wednesday.

Iain Banks5:35

Yeah.

Presenter5:38

It was more than just that, though, signing you up, wasn't it? I mean, they they put everything behind they d decided you were their big discovery of the season, you were the lead writer, you had a big promotional budget behind. I mean, the thing that budding writers dream of. Oh, I know of nine.

Iain Banks5:48

Yeah.

Iain Banks5:51

Oh, I know. It never occurred to me to be that way. I'd sort of thought, well, if I keep being allowed to write a book a year or whatever, I can, you know, maybe in three or four or five years I'll be able to sort of give up work and sort of live reasonable sort of comfort, you know. Well, penury actually, but it didn't didn't matter. And instead, you know, we got a very good paperback deal. I thought, oh, I could live off that for a year, maybe two, if I scrimp and save. So I thought, right, I'm giving in my day job, you know, that's it, I'm off my way. And so it was it was a fairy tale, it really was.

Presenter5:55

Yeah.

Speaker 26:11

Uh

Presenter6:11

Yeah.

Presenter6:16

And then those reviews which condemned it as a work of unparalleled depravity, uh or praised it as a minor masterpiece. Did you expect as much?

Iain Banks6:24

Oh, absolutely not. No, I was I I thought we'd if we're lucky we'd get one or two sort of half decent reviews and one just enough to put on the cover of the paperback I'd be happy, but instead we got this absolute barrage of you know the the full spectrum, you know, from from ultra wonderful to infraghastly.

Presenter6:39

We I mean, we make it sound as if it really is utterly depraved. It isn't, of course. I mean, just to give a flavour of the piece, i I mean it's about a teenage psychopath called called Frank. Caldhaim, who tortures insects, notably wasps, and murders a brother and a couple of cousins.

Iain Banks6:50

Yeah.

Iain Banks6:53

Although as he said it was just a stage he was going through, you know, so it's kind of semi-reformed, you know, but

Presenter6:56

But I mean we I mean let's explain that that it isn't full of kind of grisly ghastliness.

Iain Banks7:02

No, there's a few bits that aren't in there, mind you. There's a good story going there somewhere.

Presenter7:04

There's a good story going there somewhere. But h how much of you is there in that book? And I'm not suggesting you've murdered your cousins, but the story is set in Scotland near a beach. The boy makes dams, you know, in the sand. He flies kites, as I say, he does makes homemade bombs, he collects insects, he plays alone, he lives a lot in his imagination. Quite a bit of you there, isn't there?

Iain Banks7:25

There's a bit, yes. And obviously the fact I'm an only child, I think there is quite a lot of truth in that, that sort of cliché, whatever. I'm sure there must be a greater preponderance of only children amongst writers than you find in any other part of the population. But yes, I used to make dams and still occasionally, if you show me a nice highland beach and a nice sunny day and maybe stream going across the beach, I'll be in there with building a dam. Bombs, yes, I did. I have a friend of mine that I used to construct bombs from sodium chlorate, wood-killer and sugar. You can't do it anymore, they put flame retardant in the sodium chlorate. To our entire credit, having let off several hundred pressurised petrol vapour explosions and lots of weed-killer and sugar bombs, including some electrically detonated, I'll have you know. We came out of it with the occasional rigging noise in our ears, intact.

Speaker 27:49

Uh

Presenter8:14

Record number two.

Iain Banks8:16

The second record is Jackson Brown. There's uh the the bit we're going to hear. It's uh just a fabulous little um thing about what life, what existence is really all about. And I I always thought it was quite profound and it brings a lump to my throat. So um yes, it's a good

Iain Banks8:31

Draw it from the same

Speaker 38:34

Into a dancer you have more

Speaker 38:39

From a seat somebody else has thrown

Speaker 28:46

Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own, and somewhere between.

Presenter8:53

Time you arrive, and the time you go.

Presenter8:59

Jackson Brown and for a dancer from the album Late for the Sky.

Presenter9:04

You were nevertheless, despite all this dams and bombs and kites and things, by your own description, a rather peaceful boy as a child. This is in in North Queensferry in Fife. Describe the childhood to memory. What did your parents do for a living? How and where did you get?

Iain Banks9:11

This is

Iain Banks9:18

My dad worked in the Admiralty, he worked in Rosaith Dockyard, and my mum was a professional ice skater. She was from one of the Croat line of a couple of the big ice shows that went and used to tour around the country in the late, late forties. And so they met about 1950, I think. She was in an ice she was an instructress at Dunferliman Ice Rink. And I've always had the impression that my dad was probably one of these lads that you'll batter around the ice really, really quickly and then come to one of those sliding stops. It creates a snow person of whoever's caught in the wash of their blades, as it were. I think one of the most important things that ever happened in our family life was that we got a television, because my dad was away in the boat fairly often. Not not didn't go deep sea or anything, but the boat he worked on used to go out and into the first of fourth. And so he'd be away for a few nights at a time. So we got a television, you know, in 1953, I think, which was, you know, I think we're the first family in our street, if not the good age, to have a apart from the posh folk on the hill, you know, to actually have a television. So I was involved with television from a very early age, and television and radio, and it was a very good thing. And what influenced you on the television?

Presenter10:07

Very early.

Speaker 210:07

But

Presenter10:17

And what influenced you on the turrey?

Iain Banks10:19

Oh, I can remember all this stuff like ragtag and Bobtail and Bill and Ben and all that sort of stuff. That's probably my earliest television.

Presenter10:25

But what did you read as a child?

Iain Banks10:27

Uh I didn't read anything until I was about seven. I was a very slow starter, but then when I did, I went straight from, you know, uh, you know, the cat sat on the mat to reading like the whole reader's digest, you know, in one sitting.

Presenter10:37

And how early did you write?

Iain Banks10:39

Well, I started trying to write I'm trying to write novels when I was fourteen. But I'd been writing I I knew I wanted to be a writer from the age of primary seven, which I think is eleven, I think, because I've actually got documentary evidence of this. I've got a drawing, we were asked to do a drawing of the profession we wanted to take up when we were older in my little drawing book because it's got me actually being an actor, I didn't know how to draw a writer, I always make it interesting. So it's me in a very nice bright red sort of jumper or whatever, it's a shock of orange hair, just what I had at the time, and on a stage, you know, and cameras around and stuff, you know, and at the top left-hand corner in big white Korean letters it says and writer, you know, correctly spelled as well.

Presenter11:18

Record number three.

Iain Banks11:19

Number three is uh ah, this is my sort of uh my workout um record. This is uh most or less a fairly sort of slow, and this one's like incredibly fast and it's uh I thought I had to have something fast so I could sort of dance around and keep fit too. So it's the Rosillos in Cold Wars.

Presenter11:34

The one teacher Uh

Presenter11:36

Trade my future

Speaker 311:37

Okay.

Speaker 311:39

For a taste of Western air, come was a food and

Speaker 311:54

Come, come, call me away.

Speaker 311:56

Come colder every second

Speaker 311:59

From all are here to stay

Speaker 212:01

Uh

Presenter12:02

The Rosillos and Cold Wars. So you went off to Stirling University, Iain Banks, to read English, Psychology, and Philosophy, all all to help you write, yes?

Iain Banks12:10

Yes, act on monumental hubris now I think about it. But at the time, yes, I knew I thought, ooh, I'm going to be a writer, I'm going to be a novelist, obviously you've got to do englit, that's self-selecting number one. And I thought, oh, well, I need to have, you know, books need to be about something, you have to have a theme, you know, so I thought, hmm, philosophy, I better do philosophy, you know, so I know how to philosophize. I thought, well, obviously books are composed of characters. You don't know about characters, better do psychology as well. It's a ludicrous idea, you know, but I suppose it's, you know, I guess people have chosen university courses, you know, for more more ridiculous reasons, but not much.

Presenter12:45

You write very convincingly about what you might call student low life, you know, sex, cliffs, computer games and not a lot of sleep. Prentice in the Crow Road, I think, sinks into it eventually, not convincingly.

Iain Banks12:50

Killings

Iain Banks12:55

But I

Iain Banks12:56

It's muddy doing the research for that. I almost I don't like it, you know, but it has to be done. I just hope people I hope my readership appreciate the sacrifices I make in their behalf to make these things seem so wins.

Presenter12:59

Has to be done evil.

Presenter13:05

But was that the nature of your university career then? Is that how you?

Iain Banks13:09

It wasn't actually, it's more wish fulfilment, I think. No, I was I I was quite quiet at university. Um I'd made some lots of friends uh at at school,'cause we moved through from from Fife through from the through from North Queensbury through to Gourock on the on the Costa del Clyde, just down the river from Glasgow, and that was where I made most of my s of friends that I still have.

Presenter13:27

And um have any of the books that you wrote then during that period, in that very early period, have they been published since

Iain Banks13:32

The first two not no are the incredibly snappily titled The Hungarian Lift Jet and uh T T R. One was uh very much Alistair Maclean. It was like Alistair the first one was Alistair Maclean with lots of sex uh and vast amounts of violence, you know, neither of which at the age of sixteen I had very much experience of, it has to be said. Uh and and still to this day, not not uh not not sex.

Presenter13:51

But anyway, you left university, um, you s you still didn't become a writer, or the rejection ship slips went on, you became a milkman, a dustman, a porter, all sorts of things really. And then you moved to London when you were twenty five and started working as a as a costings clerk in a lawyer.

Iain Banks14:06

Yes. It's the the business of um basically trying to justify the ways of lawyers to uh to mere mortals. Um when lawyers came up with these gigantic bills uh I had to look through the file and work out some sort of form of narrative.

Presenter14:07

Yeah.

Iain Banks14:18

A grounding in fiction all by itself. This isn't quite a creative business. It was actually, yeah. Good about cre creation used to go on thinking, How the heck can we actually you know sort of justify this amount of money? So you'd just sort of say, Oh, to doing all this, you know, and it's almost like the standard thing about, you know, to crossing the road to greet you yesterday, um, uh, five pounds to, you know, crossing the back again and just discovering it wasn't you, another five pounds. That's a slight exaggeration there, but, um

Speaker 214:18

Yeah.

Speaker 214:20

This is quite a creative

Speaker 314:22

It was actually.

Presenter14:40

You you almost enjoyed it.

Iain Banks14:42

Yes, I did. But they went paying me so much I had to think twice when it came to the crunch. And I thought, ah, there's that big advance, I can leave.

Presenter14:48

But all the time you were writing.

Iain Banks14:50

Yes, uh-huh, yeah. I mean I'd written the Wasp Factory, uh uh what that'd be nineteen eighty one I think it was, yeah, so that'd be when I was twenty seven, uh-huh.

Presenter14:59

Record number four.

Iain Banks15:00

Before it's Pete Atkin and Beware of the Beautiful Stranger and music by Pete Atkin and words by Clive James. I actually know all the words to this record so I was thinking I might not actually play this. I might play about every five years or every ten years, depending on how long I'm languishing in this desert island. It's like my memory checking record. If I'll know, you know, of course I'll be singing this to myself every now and again. I'll play the record, you know, very, very rarely just to make sure my memory is still intact.

Speaker 215:22

On the Midsummer Fairground Alive with the sound and the lights of the Wurlitz Amerry-go-round, The Midway was crowded.

Speaker 215:31

And I was the man.

Speaker 215:35

Who cuffed up a quid?

Speaker 215:37

In the dark caravan

Speaker 215:42

To the gipsy who warned him of danger.

Speaker 215:45

Beware of the beautiful stranger.

Presenter15:51

Pete Atkin singing Beware of the Beautiful Stranger, music by Peter Atkin and words by Clive James. And if Ian Banks hadn't become an author, he might have tried harder to become a composer, am I right?

Iain Banks16:02

Yes, definitely, yeah. I've also fancied myself as a as a composer. Well, I mean uh a a songwriter basically, uh but with potentially larger scale stuff.

Presenter16:12

You don't just do the lyrics, you actually compose the music.

Iain Banks16:15

Yes, frankly the lyrics aren't very good, you know. I think I've uh sufficient objectivity to to determine that, that uh the lyrics used to write for um for rock songs and pop songs and all the rest of it were probably the the least uh you know sort of strong part of the whole thing, they were pretty weak really. Um but it's in music, you know, it's all absolutely wonderful, but of course you don't have my word for it,'cause I've you know got zero keyboard and uh fretboard sort of skills.

Speaker 216:29

Uh

Presenter16:36

But isn't there one book that that you wouldn't allow to be dramatized unless they took your music because you've done the kind of soundtrack for it?

Iain Banks16:42

Um yes, Espedio Street, which is the the one about the uh the rock band, um uh yes, I probably foolishly thought it would be a wheeze if I got to do the the soundtrack, or at least had the option of doing the soundtrack or writing it writing it with a proper composer, obviously, someone who actually knew what they were doing, that would probably help. But yeah, me contributing the initial um you know, sort of whistling the metal melodies or and picking them out laboriously and running mostly wrongly, you know, one note.

Presenter17:04

But you're sending yourself up. I mean, you're serious, aren't you? You would actually like to do it, yeah.

Iain Banks17:08

I'd like to do it, yeah, but and it's almost like the the success of you know the the novels has kind of taken me away from that, you know, and and and like my slacker instincts definitely come out as much that I'm not prepared to you know work hard at something that uh might not you know produce any reward when I can work at a a single novel and uh live quite comfortably off that. So I'm You know

Presenter17:27

But where have you got to in terms of the dramatization of your books? Crow Road, as we say, has been on BBC Two.

Iain Banks17:32

What's in

Presenter17:33

Well what's in the pipeline?

Iain Banks17:34

Uh well the Was Factors and Litigation a little uh known um part of knowing this uh pre-production, production, post production uh was factors and litigation. Um and uh complicity may become a film, a proper a proper feature film. Uh one of the science fiction novels has been been optioned um to the player of games.

Presenter17:52

But is there a sense in which you almost don't want them to be dramatized? Because if you hand them over to production companies, I mean, they cease to be yours anymore, unlike a book.

Iain Banks17:58

Yeah.

Iain Banks18:01

That's right, yes. Yeah, I mean, I think now if you say to to you know to anyone who r would recognise the name uh in now in Britain, you said the crowd, people would you know see an image into their head would flash, not not the book, even if they had read the book necessarily, but they they'd see you know uh Joe McFadden's face, whatever, you know, and a very handsome young face it was too, so I'm told, allegedly. But um, but you had nothing to do with that particular thing. No, I I left him to it. I thought it was the best the kindest thing to do is not to hang over the shoulders and go, Oh, you can't change that comma, that's not right, you know.

Presenter18:20

But you had nothing to do with that production.

Presenter18:28

But but is that what you don't want to relinquish, as it were? I mean if somebody else uh dramatizes one of your sci-fi novels, for example, I mean they may represent the spaceships in in the way that you didn't see them.

Iain Banks18:35

I think so.

Iain Banks18:39

You didn't see that. I'm going to grit my teeth and just steal myself for this. I'd love to see some of the science fiction made, because I like big budgets, spectacular science fiction movies myself. I'd love to see, especially consider Fleebers, the first of the SF books, which is like a pure space opera, very big ships and lots of violent action and stuff. I'd love to see that made. They could even change the ending. You could have played the central card could be played by Arne Schwarzenegger. I wouldn't mind. But it is still hard.

Presenter19:02

But it is still hurt.

Iain Banks19:03

But yeah, it would hurt, yes. I know they get spaceships wrong. They look at everybody else's spaceships. I know exactly why my anorakish phase here. I know exactly why the culture of spaceships look look the way they do, you know, so but I you just I mean you've always got the option of not not selling it. You can always I think you say to my agent, No, sorry, we're not going to sell the rights to that at all. So

Presenter19:21

And there's another another not you said. You that you you will not sell it to Hollywood, will you?

Iain Banks19:26

Well with certain something like the science fiction, I'd be quite happy to sell to Hollywood because I think they do that sort of thing very, very well. But there's other movies that other books I think just don't Hollywood doesn't need these things. Hollywood's got its own, it's got America to find its own stories in. And I think that things which are a product of our society, of this bit of the West, as it were, are translated from prose to film or television in a more sort of honest way than making them American just to appeal to a greater market or whatever. So I do feel quite strongly about that. But it's not as a blanket ban, you know, it's not let's say it's science fiction better actually.

Presenter19:32

Yeah.

Speaker 219:32

Okay.

Presenter20:01

He said quickly.

Iain Banks20:04

Yeah.

Presenter20:04

More music.

Iain Banks20:04

The next one's Family, one of my real all-time favourite bands. I'd sit around and play this and feel sorry for myself.

Presenter20:10

Aha

Speaker 220:11

I have

Presenter20:12

I have told many lies, I have asked many whys, I have whispered at his side

Speaker 220:12

Told many lies

Presenter20:21

I wish with our friend, we will help till the end. Someone to let a whole devotee won.

Presenter20:30

Uh

Presenter20:41

Family and me and my friend.

Presenter20:43

You add your middle initial and become Ian M. Banks when you write science fiction. How how big a difference is there between writing the one and writing the other one? It's it's the same in many ways, isn't it? Because they just got to be good yarn.

Iain Banks20:54

It just

Iain Banks20:56

Exactly, yeah. I can be a bit more self-indulgent with the science fiction.

Iain Banks21:02

You have more control. Things which are like fixed constants in mainstream or variables in science fiction really can change the laws of physics if you really want to.

Presenter21:10

Unless it rips.

Iain Banks21:11

A bit, yes. That's the other thing. I tend to I like writing science fiction with um you know uh making full use of the big canvas. Uh Brian Aldous once described uh a certain sort of um s science fiction indeed space opera as being wide screen baroque. And I always loved that description, so it's a fabulous way of describing a certain sort of um you know, totally over the top, you know, all guns, all lasers blazing.

Presenter21:31

It's nevertheless the case that science fac fiction exists in a kind of ghetto, doesn't it? That the general view of the critics is that it's fun, but it's not really worthy of serious consideration.

Iain Banks21:36

Oh, definitely.

Iain Banks21:41

Yeah.

Presenter21:44

But do you resent that? It's not glee.

Presenter21:48

What do you think is wrong?

Iain Banks21:49

I think it's specifically I think it's it's very much uh a British, even an English thing uh in a way. I think it's slightly more sort of respect for technology and and engineering and stuff like that in the in Scotland in a way, because of separate education system. And I think there's an awful lot of you know people who've been to Oxbridge and come out as hopeless technophobes, people just can't go can't stand technology, darling, you know. And this it's the whole sort of Two Nations thing, it's just this sort of belief that somehow you know trade and and things like engineering are somehow you know demeaning is simply not not something anyone goes into if wants to you know A make money or or B um you know have any sort of um cultural life, whatever. This is this is all this is all sort of that's a ghastly epithet would be B and Anorak. I think they'll also

Iain Banks22:29

It's all over peace. It's simply not the respect for for science and technology that there needs to be.

Presenter22:33

Do you think it's one of the reasons that you haven't been shortlisted for the booker?

Iain Banks22:36

Possibly, yes. I think that I think I've probably paid my dues, I've paid my debt to society for having uh started off with the loss factory I think by now. And uh if I'd written you know a book that was good enough in the first place, there's always a possibility that you know I haven't been choplisted because the books haven't haven't been good enough, but I think even if they have been then the fact I'm a serial re-offender every every second year I write science fiction and that is regarded as you know simply you simply cannot give the book a prize as someone who you know writes about big spaceships and laser cannons, it simply gives the wrong impression, simply can't can't be done, you know.

Presenter23:04

But of course what what judges of such um competitions as it were want or like it seems to me is is is a bit of gravitas and that's just not something you're willing to do.

Iain Banks23:13

The next

Iain Banks23:14

I can't do gravitas. No, I've tried and just it's just not in me, I'm afraid. You know, it's gravitas-free zone. So, yes, I'm very aware of the problem, but I think there's not much you can do about it.

Presenter23:23

Well, isn't there? I mean, there's a moral really, is if you take yourself a bit more seriously and and and wear your ideas less likely, you might win the booker.

Iain Banks23:30

It's an interesting theory. I think I've got a problem with that first bit about taking myself more seriously. I've I've I'm forty-three now and I'm setting my ways. You know, I can't take myself seriously and don't expect anyone else to, so oh, what the heck?

Iain Banks23:41

Next record. Next record. Um this and uh the next the next record, I'll stew it. These are my two air conditioning records. They both bring me out in goosebumps, no matter how hot I'm feeling. So they'd be a good way of sort of keeping ourself feeling cool on this hot desert island.

Presenter23:58

Once you see me our freedom

Presenter24:10

But in me time

Presenter24:12

Sarietu voicing Singella Bossi Si

Presenter24:27

Nkozi Sikhali Afrika from the soundtrack of the film Cry Freedom. You're quite a a political animal, Ian, in some ways, and it's been said that your books, your sci-fi books, set in something you call the culture, are more political than most. What what's the political message there?

Iain Banks24:43

I suppose it's a rather sort of wishy-washy liberal, vaguely left-leading, sort of socialistic message. And really what the culture is about is a post-scarcity society. That's a description that probably our best SF critic, John Clute, came up with. I think it's a good one. Where they don't need money. Basically, they regard money as a cheque book, is basically a ration book. If there's enough everything to go round, you wouldn't need to have it rationed by what you're allowed to make from society as it were. So in that sense, it is quite political. It's assuming that it's possible for us all to live together and flow together and live in a nice sort of situation and all be friends and go out into the universe and explore it and all the rest of it and not take all our usual genocidal mad bigotry baggage out with us.

Presenter25:28

So, but there's a bit of a serious line there, isn't it? You're saying, think about it. It's never going to happen, but think about it.

Iain Banks25:30

Oh, you're saying, think about it. It's never going to happen. Think about it. Well, it might happen. I think the point that's been made, I suppose, is that a lot of what we regard as human nature really comes from the effects of scarcity, the effects of being basically animals in a sense, however developed in our moral sense. We are still, in a sense, animals, and we're still faced with the problem of simply gathering enough resources and finding shelter and looking after our loved ones, whatever. And that we are led to acts of genocide and barbarity and bigotry because of scarcity. Of course, we just don't have enough of these resources. We need people, oh, we must have Liebensraum, or we need your gold, or we need your territory, whatever, or your resources, we need your oil. And that once you get beyond that, and if the possibility exists that through technology it is possible to have effectively free energy and free matter as it were, then it'll be an acid test, put it that way. If we're still horrible to each other, after that, we've got no excuses whatsoever. But I'm taking the generous assumption here.

Presenter26:34

That's what the sci-fi's about. What's the mainstream about then, with all this this this grizzly stuff in it? People spiked on railings and hung headfirst down in the middle of the middle.

Iain Banks26:36

What's the n

Iain Banks26:42

Well, the the thing with that was because the that was that was actually being witty'cause it was a edit editor, you see, so editor being spiked. It was an arms dealer losing.

Presenter26:48

Yes, an arms dealer losing his arms. It was that's okay.

Iain Banks26:50

Yeah, it's slightly schoolboy, but just

Presenter26:52

But I mean, is it gratuitous or is there some kind of moral framework there?

Iain Banks26:56

There's supposed to be a moral framework. I mean, at one point Frank is meant to stand for all of us. At one point, Frank actually says, sometimes I think of myself as a state or as a city. And he makes a point of he goes out and he wreaks a terrible revenge on these poor rabbits because one of the rabbits is horrible to him, whatever. And he

Iain Banks27:14

Says, as I'm not doing this because it, you know, because it it's going to teach the rabbits a lesson, I'm doing it because it makes me feel better. And I think that things like the death penalty and things that the Nazis used to do, you know, if you one of their generals was shot near a village, it's go and kill everyone in the village, men, women, and children. It's not done because it actually works, it's done because it makes you feel better. It's revenge, you know. It's one of the sort of lowest forms of human emotion, I suppose, that urge to revenge. But it's a very prevalent one. And so, I'm saying Frank is like us. I don't wonder how bizarre Frank Frank is. He's like us.

Presenter27:43

Especially.

Presenter27:48

So you would deny, would you, that there's any gratuitous violence in in in your writing?

Iain Banks27:53

Um well, by my standards, yes. Um I mean I d I I don't think I need to put gratuitous stuff in, but but I mean it's it's not really up to me to say what's gratuitous or not. It's up to if the reader thinks that the the violence I I put into the books, not all of them, but but certainly most of them is gratuitous, then it is gratuitous. But happily it's not it's not compulsory to read my novels, you know.

Presenter28:12

Record number seven.

Iain Banks28:14

It's Al Stewart and Roads to Moscow. It's to remind myself of the rest of human society, the rest of human history. I remember feeling sorry for myself, sorry for myself, sitting on, you know, alone in a desert island. I can think of this, the guy in the um in this song who's a a Soviet soldier who goes off to fight the Nazis and then ends up through no fault of his own in the gulag. And I you know that there's a lot worse situations to be than to be sat on a desert island.

Speaker 328:37

Softly we move through the shadow, slip away through the trees.

Speaker 328:44

Uh

Presenter28:44

Crossing the lines in the midst and the fields on our hands and our knees

Speaker 328:48

Uh-huh.

Presenter28:52

I'm more than I ever

Speaker 228:55

Uh

Presenter28:56

What fable to see And a fire in the air, glowing red, silhouetting the smoke on the breeze

Presenter29:08

Al Stewart singing part of his song Roads to Moscow.

Presenter29:12

You don't write more than you have to. You spend a lot of time travelling and just en enjoying Slacking. Slacking, holidaying, buying all the gadgets you fancy. Some people would say you had the perfect life. What do you say?

Iain Banks29:24

Um damn close to it, yes. I'd still rather live in the culture, mind you, you know in my perfect future society. Um but yes, I'm and and believe me, I appreciate it, you know. I keep thinking that I have this nightmare. Well I would have this nightmare if I had proper nightmares I'm gonna wake up and like, oh, the last fifteen years have all been a dream, you know, and I'm actually still a constant clerk for a big firm of lawyers in London. It's all been a I suppose other people

Presenter29:46

I suppose other people would say it's it's a kind of oh your life is an act of gross self-indulgence. People believe if they've got a great gift that they should use it to the full, you know.

Iain Banks29:54

Yeah, I've I've kinda come to a compromise with that feeling that, well, probably a book of year is about right for me. I think I'm like I don't want to burn out, you know, so um this is my excuse. I'm pacing myself, you know, a bit like drinking. You don't want to sort of go mad in the first hour or two. You want to sort of

Iain Banks30:07

Just a piece over the over the piece.

Speaker 330:09

Maastricht.

Iain Banks30:10

Last record is Uncle Warren. Warren's Avon, one of my heroes definitely. Mohammed's Radio. A record that I'm taking partly because I've never entirely worked out what it's about, so I think I'd have plenty of time to but it's also got some great lines in it. You know, the the Sheriff's got his problems too and he'll surely take them out on you. So uh just an absolute I could not go to the the desert island without uh at least one record by by Warren.

Iain Banks30:35

Everybody's restless and they got no place to go.

Iain Banks30:41

Someone's always trying to tell them something they already know.

Iain Banks30:50

So their anger and resentment flow, But don't they make you wanna rock and roll all night long?

Speaker 331:00

Uh

Presenter31:01

Yeah.

Iain Banks31:01

Uh

Presenter31:01

Oh hammers radio

Speaker 331:03

Yeah.

Presenter31:04

Warren Zivon and Mohammed's Radio. If you could only take one of those eight records, Ian, which one would it be?

Iain Banks31:09

Ooh. Uh I think I probably just uh um

Iain Banks31:13

I think it would be Jackson Brown before I'd answered it because I love the lyrics so much. Or maybe it would be Arstu, oh, I don't, I danced. Make up in mind. Gonna pin in and uh Warren, Warren's E1. Let's go for the last one here.

Presenter31:18

Make up in mind

Presenter31:22

And what about a book?

Iain Banks31:25

What I thought I'd go for was just the words, the complete unexpregated Monty Python television scripts of all the series. The idea being that I actually know, being a bit of a Python analyst as well, and I I can visualize virtually the entire you know Python oovra. Uh so all I would need would be the cue of of this you know book and I could like it I'd be like my own little private television station on the on the on the island.

Presenter31:46

And your luxury.

Iain Banks31:47

My luxury would be just the front seat, although it must be leather, from a Porsche 9-11. And it was suggested I could have the whole car and I thought, no, that'd be frustrating, sitting there on a desert island with nowhere to go in this lovely car, that would just oh, I'd be in tears. But just the seat, I could sit there going you know, and and smelling that nice leather smell and I could recreate the whole thing and play some of my records at the same time and imagine I was driving across the fourth bridge.

Presenter32:10

Iain Banks, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Iain Banks32:13

My pleasure.

Speaker 332:21

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.