Iain Banks, The Bridge

Martyn Colebrook (University of Hull)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1990

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Bridge is Iain Banks’ most ambitious and advanced novel, combining the themes of power, identity, fantasy, dreams and game-playing which are recurrent throughout his work. It is also the novel demonstrates the inception of “The Culture”, Iain Banks’ Utopian society that features so prominently in his science-fiction novels. The Bridge is derived from an earlier Iain Banks manuscript that remains unpublished, with the plot based on “a man waking up in the desert with no memory but with a circular mark emblazoned across his chest.” In his published version, Iain Banks’ portrays a politically active, opulent middle-class engineer, Alex, whose working class roots and Socialist-supporting tendencies …

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2048 words

Citation: Colebrook, Martyn. "The Bridge". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 January 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1386, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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