Book Group: Feb 2015 - Complicity discussion thread

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Oysterboy Feb 2015 5:36pm, 14 Feb 2015 10,368 posts	0 Oysterboy Just finished it and I feel much the same as Daz. It was just a pretty standard crime book. I enjoyed parts of it a lot but towards the end I was just making myself trudge through it and I found it quite boring. I gave it a 6.
CStar Feb 2015 8:22pm, 14 Feb 2015 4,237 posts	0 CStar As I like Boris Starling's books, gruesome is not an issue for me!
Red Squirrel Feb 2015 10:25pm, 14 Feb 2015 18,191 posts	0 Red Squirrel I didn't find Complicity or The Wasp Factory gruesome. I couldn't finish American Psycho though.
LindsD Feb 2015 12:29pm, 18 Feb 2015 4,162 posts	0 LindsD Song of Stone is pretty gruesome, if I remember correctly. I read this back when it came out, and it was definitely one of my top five books for a long time. Was therefore really excited to read it again. Was a little disappointed at first, but I guess I knew the twists and the outcome so lost that suspense, but about a third of the way in got really into it and found it hard to put down all the way through to the end. I like the 'you'/'I' device, though I was a bit confused about the change in the epilogue - am I being thick? There was also one plot hole that annoyed me slightly - if Andy breaks into the dentists before the party, he can't know that Howie is going to get into a fight after the party and therefore not go on the rigs. I guess we are meant to think that he was going to find some way of keeping Howie there, or just kill him the night of the party. The out-of-date tech was quite funny, actually. I gave it a 9 as I still really enjoyed it. I love the idea of everyone being complicit and not doing anything being as bad as doing something. A Banks book no one has mentioned that I really liked was Transition. Didn't like his non-fiction about whisky though.
Diogenes Feb 2015 12:39pm, 18 Feb 2015 8,727 posts	0 Diogenes Interesting, Linds, I've got Transition but could never get into it - started it at least twice and never got beyond the first few pages.
LindsD Feb 2015 12:39pm, 18 Feb 2015 4,163 posts	0 LindsD Gosh, I'm surprised. I read it again almost as soon as I'd finished it.
westmoors Feb 2015 1:46pm, 21 Feb 2015 455 posts	0 westmoors Never read any Ian Banks (M or otherwise) before so didn't know what to expect. Didn't read any blurb on this either so went in completely cold. Found it really easy to read except a couple of times it took a paragraph or two to realise something was being related from the past. Liked the mix of first and third person which kept you guessing if Cameron really was the killer. Found it amusing reading about the technology. You forget how far we have come! On the whole, I enjoyed it. I probably would never have read it if it wasn't for this group! Might delve into someother Banks novels.
Columba Feb 2015 4:08pm, 21 Feb 2015 6,104 posts	0 Columba Thanks for the warnings, folks, I'll avoid Wasp Factory as also Boris Starling. I have a vivid visual imagination and some of those images are staying with me much longer than I'd like them to. That being said, I was pretty gripped by the book (but not so much as to drop everything else in my life and just read it non-stop to the end). I thought the switch to Cameron becoming "you" at the end was an indication that he had now become entirely complicit in what Andy was doing. And his having developed cancer, - "a lump the size of a tennis ball" - and he's still not giving up smoking! - was an indication of how impossible it is now going to be for him to pick up his life again and get on with it. As with the disintegrated "game". Curious about the character (another journalist) who is introduced right at the beginning, and named, and yet plays no further part in the story. And his name is Iain. Is this the author playing the book equivalent of a cameo part?
Red Squirrel Feb 2015 4:52pm, 21 Feb 2015 18,228 posts	0 Red Squirrel I'm squeamish and couldn't finish American Psycho but am struggling to remember any nasty bits in the Wasp Factory. I remember loving it and would recommend it to anyone.
Red Squirrel Feb 2015 4:58pm, 21 Feb 2015 18,229 posts	0 Red Squirrel I've just googled a quick reminder of the plot. Cheesy peeps! I didn't remember all that.