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A review by ssofia_reads
The Business by Iain Banks
3.0
Rating: 2.5 stars rounded up.
What did I just read? This book was a very strange experience.
This book has the feel of a satire. I most definitely would not classify it as a thriller despite some descriptions choosing to advertise it as one.
We have Kathryn Telman, a career-focused Scottish woman in her late thirties, who is the first-person narrator of the book. She comes from humble origins but was adopted as a child and this transformed her career prospects, having enabled her to eventually climb the ranks in the Business.
In the first part of the book, we learn about Kathryn and a little bit about the Business and some of the organisation's key players. We get introduced to major relationship drama. We then follow Kathryn around the world as she goes where the Business tells her to but increasingly heads out on solo excursions as she is convinced there is something fishy going on within the Business and she is determined to expose it. Here we get snapshots of events and interactions but often these are not connected in a coherent manner. The witty, engaging dialogue is there but it doesn't come together as anything that advances the plot or helps build towards a climax.
It feels like Banks is trying to cover too much ground. There are a lot of characters who mostly get introduced during parties and dinners so we get a whole load of new names in one go making it very difficult to remember and keep track of them all. Some appear for this introductory moment and then never turn up again and it makes one wonder why Banks decided to use a full page or two to describe someone who didn't really have a role at all.
The book could also really have done with more coverage of the Business itself. Although we get a description of sorts of the structure of this organisation, Banks has decided to keep the aims and objectives vague. This is possibly because he wants the reader to only feel like a member of the general public when it comes to understanding what the Business really is and what it does. However, this made it difficult to really get one's teeth stuck in. Through the entire novel I felt that I was floating on the sidelines and couldn't really get into the book. It was a struggle to motivate myself to pick the book back up and keep reading.
The ending was just a big, big flop for me. It was abrupt and strange and this directly impacted my chosen rating for this book.
What did I just read? This book was a very strange experience.
This book has the feel of a satire. I most definitely would not classify it as a thriller despite some descriptions choosing to advertise it as one.
We have Kathryn Telman, a career-focused Scottish woman in her late thirties, who is the first-person narrator of the book. She comes from humble origins but was adopted as a child and this transformed her career prospects, having enabled her to eventually climb the ranks in the Business.
In the first part of the book, we learn about Kathryn and a little bit about the Business and some of the organisation's key players. We get introduced to major relationship drama. We then follow Kathryn around the world as she goes where the Business tells her to but increasingly heads out on solo excursions as she is convinced there is something fishy going on within the Business and she is determined to expose it. Here we get snapshots of events and interactions but often these are not connected in a coherent manner. The witty, engaging dialogue is there but it doesn't come together as anything that advances the plot or helps build towards a climax.
It feels like Banks is trying to cover too much ground. There are a lot of characters who mostly get introduced during parties and dinners so we get a whole load of new names in one go making it very difficult to remember and keep track of them all. Some appear for this introductory moment and then never turn up again and it makes one wonder why Banks decided to use a full page or two to describe someone who didn't really have a role at all.
The book could also really have done with more coverage of the Business itself. Although we get a description of sorts of the structure of this organisation, Banks has decided to keep the aims and objectives vague. This is possibly because he wants the reader to only feel like a member of the general public when it comes to understanding what the Business really is and what it does. However, this made it difficult to really get one's teeth stuck in. Through the entire novel I felt that I was floating on the sidelines and couldn't really get into the book. It was a struggle to motivate myself to pick the book back up and keep reading.
The ending was just a big, big flop for me. It was abrupt and strange and this directly impacted my chosen rating for this book.