The Bridge

by Iain M. Banks

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published July 5, 2001 by Little, Brown.

ISBN:: 978-0-316-85854-0

Orr, the otherwise unnamed protagonist of this Pynchonesque novel, is a successful Scottish engineer who's a bit fed up with life: his work doesn't really interest him anymore; years of doping and boozing have dulled him; his girlfriend has other lovers (he does too, but he would rather she was monogamous). Then one evening he crashes his classic Jaguar into a parked MG. The aftermath is coma and months of amnesiac trance, a condition that Orr apparently comes to prefer. The reader, however, only understands all this towards the end of the novel. Virtually the whole of the narrative consists of Orr's trauma-induced hallucinations. The bridge of the title is a fantastically ramifying construct in Orr's brain resembling an outer-space city in a science fiction movie. Banks's ( The Player of Games ) novel is satire, and its target turns out to be the British Isles' equivalent of American "yuppies." …

17 editions

David Colborne reviewed The Bridge by Iain M. Banks

To be Orr not to be?

5 stars

An accident leads to amnesia — or does it? Is the protagonist a Scottish engineer, an English gentleman with amnesia, or a barbarian warrior with an immortal familiar?

Men will live on a bridge that goes on seemingly forever with no memory of how he got there rather than go to therapy.

Joking aside, Iain Banks does an excellent job of bending and twisting reality into a dreamlike pretzel while exploring love, grief, loss, personal success, and political loss.

Zivan reviewed The Bridge by Iain M. Banks

Review of 'The Bridge' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This reminded me of very early science fiction, before there really was such a genre when the fantastic was told within the framework of dreams and hallucinations.

A dive into the subconscious mind, a mix of sci-fi fantasy and romance with a touch of culture.