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Iain Banks, The Bridge

Nicht mehr allzulange, und ich werde wohl alle (regulären, i.e. Nicht SF) Bücher von Iain Banks durchhaben und das ist so ewig schade. Aber noch ist es nicht so weit. Dies ist ein sehr früher Band von 1986, der aber wie sovieles von Banks absolut zeitlos wirkt und sich wohl problemlos in die Gegenwart übertragen ließe. Ziemlich verwirrend am Anfang, obwohl ich von der Synopsis ungefähr wußte worum es ging, und dann komplett faszinierend, allein von den Welten her, die der Erzähler durchirrt während sein anderes, physisches Ich im Koma liegt. Besonders die Passagen mit dem Conan-ähnlichem Barbar taten es mir an mit ihrem tiefschwarzem Humor.

Pain.Circle of pain on chest. Like a brand, a circular impression (am I a figure on a stamp, postmarked? A piece of parchment embossed with 'From the library of ...... ' Please complete:
(a) God, Esq.
(b) Nature (Mrs)
(c) C. Darwin & Sons
(d) K. Marx plc
(e) all of the above)).

Afterwards she took out tarot cards and started to tell his fortune. She was interested in the tarot, in astrology and sun signs and the prophecies of Nostradamus; she didn't believe deeply in them, they just interested her. He thought that was worse than believing in them completely.

I am a lucky bastard, he thought. I have so much, so much around me that is good. Not everything; I still want more, I probably want more than I could handle; in fact I probably want things that would only make me unhappy if I had them. But even that's OK; that's still part of the contentment.
If my life was a film, he thought, I'd roll the credits now; fade on this beatific smile in an empty room, the man on a ladder making things better, renovating, improving. Cut. Print. The End.

Oh god, back to Thatcher's Britain and Reagan's world, back to all the usual bullshit. At least the bridge was predictable in its oddness, at least it was comparatively safe.
Well, maybe not. I don't know.

I know one thing: I don't need the machine to tell me the choice. The choice is not between dream and reality; it is between two different dreams.
One is my own; the bridge and all I made of it. The other is our collective dream, our corporate imaginery. We live the dream; call it American, call it Western, call it Northern or call it just that of all we humans, all life. I was part of one dream, for good or ill, and it was half-nightmare and I almost let it kill me, but it hasn't. Yet anyway.

(Iain Banks, The Bridge, 1986)