Visit of Iain Banks to Bath Literature Festival

THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE

Published in the UK by Little, Brown in March 2007,
Iain's new novel is called The Steep Approach to Garbadale.

Iain is appearing at the following events to answer questions and read from the book.
Saturday 3rd 8.30-9.30pm Bath Literature Festival, Guildhall 01225 462231

The locative version of the Crow Road will be shown to him before the reading.




Other Readings in March

Monday 5th 7pm City Books, Hove 020 8996 4390
Tuesday 6th 7pm Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, London 020 7851 2419
Wednesday 7th time tbc UEA Spring Festival, Waterstones, Norwich 01603 592 810
Thursday 8th 7pm Waterstone’s, Deansgate, Manchester 0161 837 3000
Tuesday 13th 7pm Waterstone’s Leeds 0113 244 4588
Wednesday 14th 7pm Waterstone’s, Windsor 01753 856456
Thursday 15th 7.30-9.30pm Essex Book Festival 01268 775830
Wednesday 21st 7.30pm Oxford Literary Festival 01865 276190
Thursday 22nd 7pm Waterstone’s Plymouth 020 8996 4390

Day 4: 15th July 2006

An early start took us to Crinan and views of Gallanach bay from across the sound. At the start of the Crinan canal a glorious old steam “puffer” was moored in rusting state. Then a final trip to the nearby loch where the police drag for drugs and discover Rory’s body.

We set off for Glasgow airport with plenty of video footage, assorted photos, sound track and location data for all the main sites described in the novel, plus a fair idea of how to port this onto mobile surfaces. The trip back was a near thing with a dash for the airport after being stuck in the treacle of cars exiting the Scottish Open and only minutes to spare for what turned out to be a typically delayed flight. Hopefully we will have something to present at the Iain Banks conference in London in September.

Day 3:14th July 2006

By twisting road to Oban filming Fergus’s journey to Connell.

Oban is larger than remembered, with a modern ferry terminal and overlooked by McCaig’s round folly. Unfortunately the glassworks closed three year’s before-and was clearly the model for the Gallanach glassworks. As to crematoria -the nearest is near Glasgow-so the first scene of the book seems unreconstructable.

We Split at Oban-one group to film the airport other the Shore Street Church, scene of Kenneth’s bizarre end . We also think we found the “ world mound” of ballast on a forgotten part of the front next to a crane and rotting jetty as described by Banks in front of Gallanach.

On the way back ilmed boat on Kames Bay, rocking as described in the scene where Kenneth and Mary are making Prentice in its scuppers.

Then on to record Scot at his home while part of the group went to Slockavullin and the hill at Bac Chrom to film the view-they ended actually filming Aucha Chrom and realizing that Bank’s once again had taken a scalpel to the scenery.

Day 2: 13th July 2006

Lacking vital software, we sought a broadband connection to replace the miserable 1bit per second phone modem at the house. Thankfully e found broadband at the community Centre in Lochgilphead. With full GPS, we then drove to Loch Gair to Loch Glashan, the site of the rowing boat and fishing scenes in the book. We filmed from the dam onto a very blustery lake.

Lunch at Loch Gair Hotel was highlighted by the huge collection of single malts in the whiskey room-but none of us indulged.

On the way back we frilmed Fergus / Fiona "accident" site at Achnaba, where we nearly ran ourselves off the road in a frenzy of alarming realism.

Then to on to the Dunnad, a truly magical place. Ascending by a narrow sheep track which twists and turns around the mound, one passes though a huge cleft in the outer walls -which form a natural barrier of rock reinforced by stones. Then on up to the grassy summit with its few remaining foundations and a magnificent view across the ancient Kingdom of Dalraida. Here is the incised footprint where the early kings of the Scots came to be crowned and connected to the land. It is set beside the rock-cut bowl for , presumably, their annointing. It is easy to imagine that prosperous kingdom of sea traders looking towards Ulster and the isles-but sophisticated to be trading with the Phoenicians and the Romans.

Then the Henge at Temple Ring and met Scot , a local storyteller and guide whose soft brogue suggested him as an ideal narrator for the piece. At Dun Chraigaig we scanned the entrance grave and stone alignments interspersed with nervous pregnant sheep.

Then on to Kilmartin Church and its beautiful carved gravestones
We passed up the valley to Carnassorie Castle, which was we suspected the model for the Urvil lCastle in its early ruinous incarnation. The place is accurately described by Banks and we began to understand just how plastic these actual places become in the imagination of the novellst. Like a surgeon reconstructing and transplanting whole elements to make a final and seamless surface.

Late walk to the beach at Barnlongart by Loch Caolisport. Still twilight at 11.30 pm with an incongruously lit red phone box surrounded by flowers. The edge of the narrow channel between us and Jura was lined with a white sand littered with giant oyster shells and clams on the machair.

Day 1: 12th July 2006

Day 1

Flew up from a sunny Bristol to a rain-soaked and very dreeck Glasgow Airport. Crammed all our kit, luggage and over-wrapped bodies into a six seater hire car and set off for the Highlands and Islands. En route took footage of the Glasgow to Loch Fyne road –site of two trips: Prentice and Ashley and then Verity and Lewis with Prentice in the back.

Arrived in Barnlongart to a 1930s hunting lodge cum bungalow at about lunch time, with spectacular views of Jura down the end of a long green valley stocked with rabbits and circling buzzards.

We Shot at Dunamuc-site in the novel of the Fergus Urvill’s castle “Gaineamh”. The farmer had not heard of the Crow Road-“It’s a place in Glasgow” but was happy for us to fim below the slurry pit. Briefly shot Duntroon Castle which is a possible model for the Urvill’s castle

Went on to Gallanach bay by an increasingly flaky track which is sited opposite Crinan : instead of a large port we found an empty bay with three slow and salty sheep.

Fact and Fiction

We should take Banks's accurate correlations to landscape with a pinch of salt:

"for the purposes of the geographical and historical background in my novel "The Crow Road", it was torn in half; I'd decided I wanted to locate the fictional town of Gallanach near Crinan on the mainland. I needed the place to have a deep water port with easy acess to the Atlantic and I didn't want to edit out the Corryvrecken so I blithely cut Jura in two. You get to do this sort of thing when you are a writer."

Raw Spirit - Chapter 4 - To Jura

Iain Banks

About the author

Born in Dunfermline, Fife, in 1954, Iain Banks was an only child surrounded by a multitude of aunts, uncles and cousins. He published his first novel, the controversial Wasp Factory, in 1984. It was successful enough for him to give up his day job and to write full-time. Since then he has divided his writing between science fiction, under the name Iain M. Banks, and mainstream fiction, both of which have met with critical and popular acclaim. The Crow Road was published in 1992 and has been made into a four-part television drama series. Iain Banks lives in Fife.

First Steps

This is the first entry for a Blog documenting a "First" - the logging of a locative journey through a fictional landscape. "The Crow Road" is a novel by Iain Banks from 1992. While the Crow Road is a district near Glasgow, it is also a Scottish euphemism for death. This is very much the subject of the novel, also made into a BBC serial in 1996. Part of the novel is set around Crinan on the West Scottish Coast in Argyllshire. The tracing of the points where real landscapes overlap the fiction world will be undertaken using GPS enabled PDAs and mobiles and turned into a locative tour of sites mentioned or fictionalised in the book.

The project is a participation between the Department of English at Bath Spa University and two CETL Labs(Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) BroadcastLab and DesignLab, both part of ArtsWorks. Over four days in July staff and students from the Labs will be photgraphing, filming and inscribing the locations in this beautiful part of Scotland. This Blog will be a record of that journey.