A book group read. Overall, a great read, quite a hoot. On the downside, I found the timeline difficult to follow, sometimes not sure at first who was talking. It would also have been useful to have a family tree, as that was somewhat complicated.
A bit rambling at times, but some great dark humour moments (although, sometimes I felt that the one liners were just not what a person would actually say, except maybe a stand up comedian)
The intrigue was well maintained, the various relationships diverse and complex.
I actually don’t know how I would classify this book, as the humour takes the seriousness from the thriller or murder mystery.
Looking forward to our BG meeting next week ( )

I was reading 'The Crow Road' on Peterborough station when a random man asked me whether I'd read [b:The Wasp Factory|567678|The Wasp Factory|Iain Banks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1434940562s/567678.jpg|3205295]. I replied with total honesty: “Yes, and I hated it.” This appeared to amuse him. My experiences with Ian Banks novels have varied wildly. His writing is always accomplished; he is undoubtedly a craftsman with words. His characters and themes, however, are not always to my taste. I enjoyed 'The Crow Road', a family saga with a mystery in the last few chapters. Prentice the narrator was largely sympathetic and his family were appealingly vivid and odd. Banks certainly fleshes out a convincingly eccentric set of relatives. Indeed, as I read I contemplated the foibles, fallings-out, and fiascos in my own family from a novelistic angle. The McHoan family experience a great deal more drama than mine is accustomed to, but this is told in a naturalistic manner so doesn't seem excessive or forced. The family relationships are delicately drawn and convincing. I did wonder how normal it was that the whole family drank such a lot, though. Maybe my close family are unusually abstemious? The depiction of intergenerational and political differences were a lot easier to relate to.

The whole book is also a love letter to Scotland, which was perhaps my favourite aspect. The landscapes are beautifully evoked and many scenes take place during journeys by car or train and other interstitial moments. I found the narrative moving and involving, sometimes even profound. Although this isn't my favourite Banks novel (currently [b:Transition|6436659|Transition|Iain M. Banks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1425502839s/6436659.jpg|6626240]), it's definitely one that I appreciated. ( )

Excellent story about family & secrets & grief. I love a story that can put grief in the silent moments.
Notable humanity and the humor. I enjoyed the recurrence of ballast as motif. Was the mystery necessary? It was certainly a change in tone, but also needed for earlier insights. ( )

I found The Crow Road by Iain Banks a very enjoyable read. The author skilfully mixes multi-generational family drama with a mystery that threads throughout the book. Prentice McHoan is the young man who relays the story. He is in his early twenties, a student at university in Glasgow, who loves to party. The memorable opening of the book finds Prentice at his family home in Gallanach for the funeral of his grandmother, but he finds himself thinking about his Uncle Rory, a travel writer who disappeared eight years earlier, many in the family believe that Rory has died, calling it “away on the Crow Road”.

From here the book jumps around between the generations of three families, the McHoans, the Urvills and the Watts. These families have been entwined by both friendships, careers and marriages through the years and as we learn of the past and the present we are introduced to some interesting characters that the author has developed with sly humor and intelligence. We learn to care about them through the wildly funny or, at times, deeply tragic incidences that have occurred through the years.

The Crow Road is a coming-of-age, mystery combination whose setting in Scotland brings the story to life. I was a little confused at the beginning of the book when the author jumped between times and characters, but the individual voices were so well developed that I soon felt comfortable with this format. The book evoked feelings of warmth, sadness, and humor and this, along with some fascinating plot twists made The Crow Road a memorable read. ( )

He's away the Crow Road. ( )

I love how this book is constructed, it's like a Scottish version of a John Irving novel. Definitely coming back for more Ian Banks books in 2018! ( )

"People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots;.......a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots."

'Crow Road' opens with a funeral with a quite memorable first paragraph:

“It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach’s Mass in B minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach.”

Prentice McHoan, the main narrator, is the middle son of a uniquely dysfunctional family who is estranged from his avowedly atheist father because he simply cannot accept the concept that death is simply the end of the road. He spends a lot of time contemplating “the crow road,” a Scottish expression for death, the possibility of an afterlife, and the fate of his Uncle Rory, who disappeared eight years earlier.

Most of the story takes place in the present, 1991, but also moves back and forth in time (often without any hint from the author about the transition). Prentice hails from the imaginary village of Gallanach in Argyll, is studying History at a Glasgow university and Britain is about to enter the First Gulf War.

After the first 400 or so pages the novel suddenly becomes a murder mystery, although we cannot be sure whether there ever was in fact a murder.

There is a good deal of humour, some excellent character development, a large amount of whiskey drinking (the drug of choice) along with a liberal sprinkling of historical/cultural references that help to set the book in a certain time and place. However, Scotland with its fog-shrouded countryside, ancient burial sites, henges and castles becomes a character in its own right.

Banks is a clever writer who has become one of my authors of choice of late. Once again I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style with it's subtle wit but whilst I enjoyed the elements that revolved around family relationships, which I felt that he set up beautifully, I found the murder/mystery element a bit of a let down. Personally I felt it as if Banks had no idea quite how to tie up the loose ends that he had spun. I also wanted to scream at Prentice to open his eyes, I just couldn't believe that he was so blind to what was right in front of his eyes even if he does finally get the girl.

An enjoyable but flawed piece of escapism. ( )

I certainly didn't dislike this, but I would have liked it a lot more if it hadn't been so long and meandery and had been more linear. 500 pages? Really? One downside of reading eBooks is that you might not realize a book's heft when you start it. 3 1/2 ( )

Families and communities are complex beings, and the small Scottiish Gallinach, home of the McHoan's,, is no different. We are witness to four generations, anchored around the telling of Prentice McHoan as he searches for his past and his future in London, Glasgow, and the pages of his uncle's journals. In the final pages Prentice finally seems ready to grow up, but I highly doubt that the rest of his life journey will be any less tumultuous because that's just the way life is: complicated. ( )

It is amazing - although not quite as amazing as first time round which is not a complaint but a credit to the author's excellent handling of surprise and mystery. I feel an affinity with Ian Banks - he is/was two years older than me and feels very much the same generation. When I read the book before, Prentice, the main protagonist also seemed like the same generation but this time I realise he must have been born about 1970 and his father Kenneth would have been not much older than Ian Banks, but had his children young. ( )

A wonderful heart-warming family story, oh who am I kidding, this is Ian Banks and the book is grim like Glasgow. Banks has the knack of making slightly surreal and farcical situations play out believably, like an atheist being smitten by god on top of a church tower. When at the end of the book I realised I was actually reading a murder mystery I was caught unawares what with all the seemingly unrelated vignettes and musings interleaved throughout the book but the last few chapters tie it all up neatly together with a little ray of sunshine at the end - unexpected but fully welcome. ( )

And it is like this.




Suddenly tears spring from your eyes and and you are too surprised by them to be able to stop the small flood that follows. Not entirely timely since you are in your favourite coffee shop hereabouts waiting for a vegetable tagine.

* * * *

Prentice, you prat, how can you not see the bleeding obvious right in front of your nose? As I wait for my tagine, I’m wondering what those who like to divide writing up by quality where literature is ‘best’ call Banks? Not literature. Presumably not trash. What? Good fiction, perhaps? As opposed to the bad stuff that is popularly read? Banks does like the reader to know what’s going on all the way and consequently from the very first moment we meet Ashley we know she is the one. If only there was a way to tell fucking Prentice Prat that. Just to make really sure at this point that we know what is going on, Verity, the one he thinks is the one, has no character whatsoever. Not one whit.

Though maybe, come to think of it, maybe Banks just can’t do women. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Ashley, who wouldn’t want to be her? But she is a character written for boys, isn’t she? Utterly loyal to her idea of you no matter what sort of idiot you are, and how blind you are; forgiving of every shitty thing you do to her – hey. Writing this down makes me realise it it were a Mills and Boon certain people would be calling it revoltingly sexist. But it’s ummmm. A step up of sorts, methinks you think and boys read Banks and – well, it’s different, isn’t it? Nup. I don’t see it myself. And I think back to Complicity in which in a different way, the girl - for there is one - is what a man would want too.

* * * *

The little girl had nightmares about cabbage. Even worse, she laid awake, the very thought of cabbage scaring sleep away.

* * * *

An author who can’t resist cleverness, even when he should. (Aside: isn’t there a decent editor left in England?) The first two hundred pages jar with me. They are about how witty the author is. A pity because the second half of the book is well worth it.

This is the sort of thing I mean, p. 54.

‘And how are your studies going?’
‘Oh, just fine.’
‘Good, good.’
‘And the twins; are they both well?’
‘Fine, fine’ Fergus nodded, presumably allocating his two daughters a word each in his reply.’

Too smart for his own good. Yes witty, all things being equal, the thing about a word for each daughter. But all things are not equal, aren’t they? Hello, Banks. There are readers here and we aren’t complete idiots. Fergus, as we have already just discovered, and is reinforced duing the book, typically repeats everything in this way. Clever line that shouldn’t be there. Only an author rather too much in love with himself would find a need to keep that there. Only an editor who was shagging him would let him get away with it. Or so I imagine.

* * * *

I’m picking these white pieces of ?? out of my tagine. Potato skin, I wonder, as a pile grows next to my bowl. But I try biting into one and it’s thicker and – well, nastier – than potato skin. I pick up the candle and examine these things by its light – they’ve veins – they’re – oh. That’s what they are.

* * * *

And the little girl – whose mother, quite possibly provider of the worst cooked vegetables in the galaxy, had always refused to cook cabbage because it was an abomination – could scarcely begin to imagine how dreadful it must be. And I think back to being that little girl and every cabbage fear she had was justified by this moment. Cabbage sucks.

* * * *

It takes Prentice Prat for ever, and every brain cell the Lord bestowed upon him to very, very dimly begin to understand about Ashley. But eventually. Eventually.

* * * *

And this book is all sorts of things lacking in subtlety. It is a murder mystery where we know it is a murder and who done it even as it is being done. And it is a love story we know is going to end happily if we wait long enough. And it is chock full of slightly zany characters who live slightly zany lives for us to be mostly amused by, and occasionally moved by.

Splendid scenes where Kenneth describes the actual making of the earth in Scotland longer than a prehistory ago, movements of vast pieces of the world. It makes me think of sex.

Unchallenging, escapist entertainment. ‘Eternally pleasant’ was my friend Harry’s summation. So, not literature then. But what? I’m asking the people who like to divide things up this way.


* * * *

And as your tears fall, in light too dim to see cabbage or tears, you think what a prat you are. Because towards the very end of the book as you innocently sit here, drinking your tea, you arrive at a scene which could be you, you and your loved one, and there is that moment, where like young children before they are trained to separate their emotions from each other; you hover in that childlike way between tears and smiles, weeping and laughing.

And what makes you a prat is that this is just a good writer telling a story and the whole point of what he does is that he is like an astrologer or a fortune cookie. Get everybody in. Make each person think you are writing for them. To them.

* * * *

And if I have in the least succeeded in writing this in the modern literary style adopted by Banks, you will think, dear reader, that I write to you.

xxxx
( )

And it is like this.




Suddenly tears spring from your eyes and and you are too surprised by them to be able to stop the small flood that follows. Not entirely timely since you are in your favourite coffee shop hereabouts waiting for a vegetable tagine.

* * * *

Prentice, you prat, how can you not see the bleeding obvious right in front of your nose? As I wait for my tagine, I’m wondering what those who like to divide writing up by quality where literature is ‘best’ call Banks? Not literature. Presumably not trash. What? Good fiction, perhaps? As opposed to the bad stuff that is popularly read? Banks does like the reader to know what’s going on all the way and consequently from the very first moment we meet Ashley we know she is the one. If only there was a way to tell fucking Prentice Prat that. Just to make really sure at this point that we know what is going on, Verity, the one he thinks is the one, has no character whatsoever. Not one whit.

Though maybe, come to think of it, maybe Banks just can’t do women. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Ashley, who wouldn’t want to be her? But she is a character written for boys, isn’t she? Utterly loyal to her idea of you no matter what sort of idiot you are, and how blind you are; forgiving of every shitty thing you do to her – hey. Writing this down makes me realise it it were a Mills and Boon certain people would be calling it revoltingly sexist. But it’s ummmm. A step up of sorts, methinks you think and boys read Banks and – well, it’s different, isn’t it? Nup. I don’t see it myself. And I think back to Complicity in which in a different way, the girl - for there is one - is what a man would want too.

* * * *

The little girl had nightmares about cabbage. Even worse, she laid awake, the very thought of cabbage scaring sleep away.

* * * *

An author who can’t resist cleverness, even when he should. (Aside: isn’t there a decent editor left in England?) The first two hundred pages jar with me. They are about how witty the author is. A pity because the second half of the book is well worth it.

This is the sort of thing I mean, p. 54.

‘And how are your studies going?’
‘Oh, just fine.’
‘Good, good.’
‘And the twins; are they both well?’
‘Fine, fine’ Fergus nodded, presumably allocating his two daughters a word each in his reply.’

Too smart for his own good. Yes witty, all things being equal, the thing about a word for each daughter. But all things are not equal, aren’t they? Hello, Banks. There are readers here and we aren’t complete idiots. Fergus, as we have already just discovered, and is reinforced duing the book, typically repeats everything in this way. Clever line that shouldn’t be there. Only an author rather too much in love with himself would find a need to keep that there. Only an editor who was shagging him would let him get away with it. Or so I imagine.

* * * *

I’m picking these white pieces of ?? out of my tagine. Potato skin, I wonder, as a pile grows next to my bowl. But I try biting into one and it’s thicker and – well, nastier – than potato skin. I pick up the candle and examine these things by its light – they’ve veins – they’re – oh. That’s what they are.

* * * *

And the little girl – whose mother, quite possibly provider of the worst cooked vegetables in the galaxy, had always refused to cook cabbage because it was an abomination – could scarcely begin to imagine how dreadful it must be. And I think back to being that little girl and every cabbage fear she had was justified by this moment. Cabbage sucks.

* * * *

It takes Prentice Prat for ever, and every brain cell the Lord bestowed upon him to very, very dimly begin to understand about Ashley. But eventually. Eventually.

* * * *

And this book is all sorts of things lacking in subtlety. It is a murder mystery where we know it is a murder and who done it even as it is being done. And it is a love story we know is going to end happily if we wait long enough. And it is chock full of slightly zany characters who live slightly zany lives for us to be mostly amused by, and occasionally moved by.

Splendid scenes where Kenneth describes the actual making of the earth in Scotland longer than a prehistory ago, movements of vast pieces of the world. It makes me think of sex.

Unchallenging, escapist entertainment. ‘Eternally pleasant’ was my friend Harry’s summation. So, not literature then. But what? I’m asking the people who like to divide things up this way.


* * * *

And as your tears fall, in light too dim to see cabbage or tears, you think what a prat you are. Because towards the very end of the book as you innocently sit here, drinking your tea, you arrive at a scene which could be you, you and your loved one, and there is that moment, where like young children before they are trained to separate their emotions from each other; you hover in that childlike way between tears and smiles, weeping and laughing.

And what makes you a prat is that this is just a good writer telling a story and the whole point of what he does is that he is like an astrologer or a fortune cookie. Get everybody in. Make each person think you are writing for them. To them.

* * * *

And if I have in the least succeeded in writing this in the modern literary style adopted by Banks, you will think, dear reader, that I write to you.

xxxx
( )

A smaller book than I thought it was going to be, and a calmer one. ( )

This story literally begins with a bang. Two things brought me and this book together...well actually three...,many of you know by now that I will read strange things in order to fulfill a challenge. Other than the challenge...I had to see if grandma literally exploded...and it was written by one of my favorite authors, Iain Banks. I had read about half way through and thought that Prentice must surely be a long lost cousin of mine. He would have fit in perfectly with my big, gruff Scottish grandfather. His exploits in this eccentric Scottish family are funny and so desperately true. You will find a bit of everything in here...mystery, magic, myths and it conveys it all with a first hand account that could only have been told the better if wee Prentice were telling you the story himself over a dram or two. Not a dull moment in it and always surprising. This book is definitely worth reading. Oh...and don't forget to find out about grandma:) ( )

Darkly humorous but at times difficult to keep track of who everyone was ( )

Actually I didn't give it full 5 starts only because I suspect I might be a little biased in its favour, on account of this being one of the very, very few writings I know taking place somewhere I had lived myself (Glasgow & Argyll), so that there was some personal sentimental value added to the book's general merit. ( )

The day that Prentice McHoan’s grandmother explodes is the day that the McHoan family essentially starts blowing apart. Prentice has always wondered about what happened to his freewheeling Uncle Rory, a somewhat itinerant travel writer who hasn’t been seen in about a decade. And other members of his family seem to be possessed of secrets and deep undercurrents. Meanwhile, it’s the early 1990s, the Gulf War is starting to rage, and Prentice himself is trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Investigating what happened to Rory, and what his fragmentary unfinished writings mean, becomes an obsession.

This is the sort of book you really need to sit with and immerse yourself in, like Prentice becomes immersed in the secrets of his family’s past. Once I found the time to do so, I couldn’t put it down. The shifts in timelines are handled well, for the most part — toward the very end it gets a bit tangled. But there are some rewarding “aha!” moments. A bonus for 21st-century readers is the opportunity to hoot with laughter at early 1990s computers (I love that sort of thing). And bonuses for this particular 21st-century reader were the scene involving the airplane (yay airplanes!) and the fact that Peter Capaldi played Uncle Rory in the miniseries and was very well cast, based on what I’ve read here.

I was personally less than fond of some of the sex scenes, but they can easily be squint-read or skimmed over.

I’d recommend this if you’ve heard of the miniseries and want to read the book, or if you’re interested in Scottish fiction. ( )

This fascinating, very literate novel begins with a funeral, and its description in the first paragraph of the book has become somewhat iconic:

“It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach’s Mass in B minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach.”

(Apparently, someone forgot to remove Grandma’s pacemaker before the cremation.)

The narrator, Prentice McHoan, thinks a lot about “the crow road,” which is a Scottish expression for death, and the possibility (or not) of an afterlife. Prentice, the product of a rather dysfunctional (in its own unique way, of course) family, also contemplates his romances, the life of his father, and the fate of his Uncle Roary, who disappeared eight years earlier. The book goes back and forth in time (often with only a slight hint about the transition from the author), but most of the story takes place in the present, which in this story is 1991. In that year, Prentice was a university student from the imaginary village of Gallanach in Argyll, and Britain was about to enter the First Gulf War.

Banks adds a number of [fun to look back at today] cultural references that help situate the book in time, and which must have added a sense of relevancy when he published it in 1992.

Prentice, estranged from his father who is an avowed atheist, has trouble accepting the stoicism about death advocated by atheists. Nor does he care to embrace the concept of death as the total end of the road. His ruminations on the meaning of life and death are a central theme of the book.

In a remarkable plot evolution, the Bildungsroman of the first 400 pages becomes - for about 90 pages, a murder mystery, although we cannot be sure whether there was in fact a murder.

Along the way, there is a good deal of humor, especially over family relationships, and some excellent character development. The ending resolves the mysteries as well as some of the existential angst.

Banks is a clever and competent, though occasionally florid, writer. I wanted to read this book because it has been called a modern classic, and because I had heard that it provides a fairly accurate snapshot of some of the elements in Scotland that inform the culture. There is a great deal about cars, whisky, and storytelling. In addition, Scotland itself serves as a character, with Banks often setting the scene with fog-covered cliffs, old burial sites, henges, and the castles - both intact and not so much - that still dot the landscape.

The book was adapted by the BBC into a popular TV series in Britain in 1996.

Evaluation: The Crow Road is not a page turner, but it's not really a murder mystery either. It is more of a family saga with a coming-of-age protagonist and an interesting twist. I won’t soon forget Prentice McHoan and his family.

(JAB) ( )

This was a case of too much of a good thing. I liked everything about this book - engaging characters, smart writing, humor, interesting structure. I also liked the Hamlet-like situation of the main character, Prentice. But it just went on too long. And the mystery of the disappearance of Prentice's uncle was sometimes a driving part of the book and sometimes got lost for long stretches. ( )

One can't approach a review of Crow Road without stepping in some Dark, as it were. the morbid humor of the opening salvo continues but really takes precedent over the novel as an organism and what we are left with is a too-convenient tale of redemption and triumph. I suppose fan's of Bank's wit will mutter a feck off and reread it out of spite. ( )

The 25th Anniversary edition of The Crow Road provides an insight to Iain Banks earlier writing. I have to admit to not reading this previously, and I found it to be an interesting coming of age story of life, death, sex, drugs and everything in between.

It flicks backwards and forwards in time and has its quite bizarre moments, yet from the first line - It was the day my grandmother exploded - I realised this book was going to be different, an alternative read, one might say. What really happened in The Crow Road, when uncle Rory disappeared?

I honestly do not know why I had not picked this one up before! Admittedly this is a strange story surrounding the family and drama of Prentice McHoan; a complex family with much to share. It will have you feeling a wide mixture of feeling
s from laugh out loud moments to ewwww! I think I'm going to puke! How many books do you think can do that, these days? It is bleak and depressing at times, just like the Scottish Highlands in winter... but even so, both have captivating and distinctive views like no other. ( )

Prentice McHoan is an under-graduate studying history at Glasgow University in the late 1980s. His extended family are well-placed Scots middle class from Argyll. but in the course of a year Prentice and his family go through a time of upheaval that will leave none of them untouched.

I came to 'The Crow Road' rather late, and also labouring under the burden of being quite familiar with the BBC TV dramatization of some years back (of which, Banks himself said "Disturbingly better than the book in too many places."). So to some extent, my perception of the novel, its plot and characters was influenced by my foreknowledge of events and characterisations. This didn't spoil the book for me, and indeed it may have helped with Banks' non-chronological story-telling (but then again, I coped with the non-linear timelines in 'Use of Weapons' OK); it also meant that where the book and tv series differed, this was a new discovery for me (mainly in terms of scenes that didn't make it to the screen, some more of Prentice's inner dialogue, and a few variations as to plot - nothing substantial, though). There are even a few more characters in the novel, especially the children of Uncles Hamish and Fergus; they are not relevant to the plot particularly, but they are present in the book and have adequate stature in it.

I was also struck by the humour in the book, though sometimes some of Prentice's witticisms and puns seemed a bit contrived, but probably quite in character. And there were definite instances where Banks' alter ego, Iain M. Banks, tried to intrude, with reflections on the nature of Time, Space and Everything.

At the outset, everything was so familiar that I was slightly underwhelmed because I knew what would happen next. But the writing and incidental detail kept my interest until I found myself staying up really late to finish the book off DESPITE knowing how it ended. The perspective I had from the tv series also distracted me somewhat, because from the outset, that made clear that there was a mystery about the disappearance of Rory; but in the novel, it is only about half-way through that it dawns on the reader that Rory is a character only seen in flashback and that he is, in fact, a missing person.

Others have commented on the sense of place in the novel and assumed that this was Banks writing about his homeland. But Banks came from the east coast of Scotland - 'The Bridge' is more influenced by his upbringing than this book - as opposed to the west coast where 'The Crow Road' is set. But he obviously knew the area well, as the sense of place and landscape is very strong, and the place-names, though fictional, ring very true. Gallanach is actually a farmhouse to the south of Oban; the McHoan family may well take its name from Kilchoan Loch further to the south between Oban and Kilmartin. It is very easy to place the action of the story in a known landscape, only very slightly at an angle to our own reality.

In all, then, this is a family saga that morphs into a mystery and gets to a resolution via some quite deep speculation on Life, the Universe and the nature (or otherwise) of God. And the characters get to have a lot of fun along the way, which we are able to share. ( )

Engaging "Coming of Age" tale set in Scotland in the early 1990s.

A little hard to follow, as the narrative jumps back and forth between the protagonist's point of view and stories from his family's history going back before his birth. I could have used a handy chart of all the characters to keep them straight.

A little mystery, philosophy, and politics, with more than a little sex and death. All told with skillful writing which is at times hilarious. ( )

From its attention grabbing first line to the love story coming together at the end, this is a perfect book.
My favourite part? The story Prentice's Dad tells him about the stone piles on top of the hills... ( )