0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09Beside one of Scotland's most dazzling creations,
0:00:09 > 0:00:12lived one of the nation's most dazzling creative minds.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17Iain Banks' home on the shores of the Firth of Forth
0:00:17 > 0:00:21is where he wrote some of the most compelling fiction in a generation.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27And it's where he was to face his own death from cancer.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31This was his final interview.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45It's been almost 30 years
0:00:45 > 0:00:48since Iain Banks' remarkable debut, The Wasp Factory.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51It marked him out as a major new talent.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53Over the course of 29 books,
0:00:53 > 0:00:56he created an extraordinary body of work,
0:00:56 > 0:00:58with a very particular point of view.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02He combined both critical acclaim and popular success.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06His books are clever, controversial, funny, warm, political,
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and astoundingly imaginative.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12They reflect the personality of the man.
0:01:12 > 0:01:13Usually with my male central characters,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17they will be basically me, but in an idealised form,
0:01:17 > 0:01:20ie, taller, handsomer, younger,
0:01:20 > 0:01:21thinner of waist,
0:01:21 > 0:01:23and more successful with the ladies.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30Nowhere was the strength of that personality more evident
0:01:30 > 0:01:32than in the blog he published in April.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36He announced he was "officially very poorly", and had asked
0:01:36 > 0:01:40his long-term girlfriend to "do him the honour of becoming his widow".
0:01:42 > 0:01:45In Iain Banks' final novel, The Quarry,
0:01:45 > 0:01:48one of the main characters is dying of cancer.
0:01:48 > 0:01:52It's a visceral portrayal of a man furious at his approaching death.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58Iain, "I am officially very poorly", that statement sounds like
0:01:58 > 0:02:01the first line of an Iain Banks novel.
0:02:01 > 0:02:02I suppose it does, actually.
0:02:02 > 0:02:07And this idea that your novels are really like a hand grenade
0:02:07 > 0:02:11and yet you were delivered of your own extraordinary hand grenade in your life.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14Your first reaction to that was what?
0:02:14 > 0:02:20I think it was on the lines of "Oh, bugger!" Um...
0:02:20 > 0:02:24it's one of these things I guess in a sense you rehearse in your head.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26I think anyone kind of does it.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29You sort of game it, you play it, you think about how would I feel,
0:02:29 > 0:02:33how would I react if, you know, a loved one is, well, dies
0:02:33 > 0:02:36or is delivered of a verdict,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39you know, prognosis like that, as it were.
0:02:39 > 0:02:40And I think especially as a writer,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44and I think probably within a greater field, actors are probably
0:02:44 > 0:02:48the same when you have to take on
0:02:48 > 0:02:50the part of someone who's dying or dead,
0:02:50 > 0:02:55well, you know, if you're writing about people who are facing death
0:02:55 > 0:02:57and you automatically, you kind of have to embody that.
0:02:57 > 0:02:59You have to take that in quite seriously.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02And obviously there are professions that are very much involved
0:03:02 > 0:03:04with death, you know, funeral directors and so on
0:03:04 > 0:03:09and people in A&E and, you know, ambulance drivers and so on,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12you know the paramedics that come with the ambulance.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16I think you'll probably find a preponderance of people like that
0:03:16 > 0:03:18who are sort of pre-prepared,
0:03:18 > 0:03:22or as pre-prepared as you can be with your reaction.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25And I just took it as just, you know, bad luck, basically.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27It did strike me almost immediately,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought, hah!
0:03:30 > 0:03:33If I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, "Why me, God?
0:03:33 > 0:03:36"What have I done to deserve this?"
0:03:36 > 0:03:39Don't know why I turned into a Jewish person there, but never mind.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43And I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46you know, sort of treat it as bad luck and get on with it.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Humour has been at the heart...
0:03:48 > 0:03:52Very very black humour has been at the heart of so much of your work.
0:03:52 > 0:03:57I mean, does it help you get through different stages of this,
0:03:57 > 0:03:59just finding the humour in things?
0:03:59 > 0:04:01I guess so. It's not something you kind of do deliberately.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04I guess it's just there, it's an automatic reaction, and yes,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07obviously, with the loss factor, you go right back to the start.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10That was, you know, it was always meant to be a black comedy,
0:04:10 > 0:04:13that was very much the idea, and I...
0:04:15 > 0:04:18I occasionally get asked, if I could be a character in one of my novels,
0:04:18 > 0:04:20you know, who would it be?
0:04:20 > 0:04:21There's quite a limited choice,
0:04:21 > 0:04:24given the rather unpleasant ends that some of them come to.
0:04:24 > 0:04:30You wrote The Quarry thinking it would be coming out this October or so forth
0:04:30 > 0:04:34and they're rushing it out, so tell me a bit about the writing of The Quarry.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37Well, it's, um... The narrator is an 18-year-old boy
0:04:37 > 0:04:40who's on one or two different spectra, as it were,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43possibly Asperger's being one of them.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46But in a sense the main character's his dad who's dying of cancer.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48Ha-ha! Ho-ho!
0:04:48 > 0:04:53But I was 87,000 words into the book before I discovered the bad news.
0:04:53 > 0:04:57I had no inkling, so it wasn't as though this is a response
0:04:57 > 0:05:00to the condition, to the disease or anything,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03and the book had been kind of ready to go.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07And then 10,000 words from the end, as it turned out,
0:05:07 > 0:05:09I suddenly discovered that I had cancer.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11I've really got to stop doing my research too late.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13This is such a bad idea.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16You're 87,000 words into The Quarry then, and what changed
0:05:16 > 0:05:20after your diagnosis in the writing and the revision?
0:05:20 > 0:05:23Well, the first thing I did, I'd taken my laptop
0:05:23 > 0:05:27when I first got the original bad news, as it were, in Kirkcaldy
0:05:27 > 0:05:31in the Victoria Hospital and I'd taken my laptop in
0:05:31 > 0:05:35just to...just thought I might do a bit of work while I was there.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37And I couldn't really be bothered.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39I'd basically done my work, my words for the day anyway,
0:05:39 > 0:05:47so, having got this news, I sat in bed and I wrote -
0:05:47 > 0:05:51there's a bit where Guy says, "I shall not be upset
0:05:51 > 0:05:55"to leave this stupid bloody country and this idiotic, bloody human race
0:05:55 > 0:05:59"and this idiotic world" and the rest of it, it's a proper rant.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01I think it kind of changed places.
0:06:01 > 0:06:07Originally it was exactly where I got the news, it was exactly 87,000.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11It was changed slightly because my editor said, yes, it'd actually
0:06:11 > 0:06:16be more powerful in the sort of address on camera that he does,
0:06:16 > 0:06:19the recording, so we changed that.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24"And I shall not miss being part of a species lamentably ready
0:06:24 > 0:06:28"to resort to torture, rape and mass murder
0:06:28 > 0:06:32"just because some other poor fucker or fuckers
0:06:32 > 0:06:35"is or are slightly different from
0:06:35 > 0:06:38"those intent upon doing such harm,
0:06:38 > 0:06:41"be it because they happen to worship
0:06:41 > 0:06:45"a very slightly different set of superstitious idiocies,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49"possess skin occupying a non-identical position
0:06:49 > 0:06:51"on a pan-tone racial colour wheel,
0:06:51 > 0:06:55"or had the fucking temerity to pop out of a womb
0:06:55 > 0:06:59"on the other side of a river, ocean, mountain range,
0:06:59 > 0:07:05"other major geographical feature, or, indeed, just a straight line
0:07:05 > 0:07:11"drawn across the desert by some bored and ignorant bureaucrat
0:07:11 > 0:07:16"umpteen thousand miles away and a century ago.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20"None of these things shall I miss.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24"Frankly, it's a relief to be getting shot of the necessity
0:07:24 > 0:07:27"of watching such bollocks play out.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30"I would still rather have the choice, mark you,
0:07:30 > 0:07:34"but, as this would appear to be being denied me,
0:07:34 > 0:07:40"I am making the best of a bad job and looking on the bright side -
0:07:40 > 0:07:46"I shall be free, at last, of that nagging, persistent sensation
0:07:46 > 0:07:53"that I am, for the most part, surrounded by fucking idiots."
0:07:53 > 0:07:56It just seems uncanny that you should be writing
0:07:56 > 0:07:59a book about terminal cancer as you were given a diagnosis.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03Not only that, only Iain Banks could get the diagnosis,
0:08:03 > 0:08:06sit with his laptop and write about it there and then.
0:08:06 > 0:08:07Oh, no, I disagree.
0:08:07 > 0:08:12I think perhaps the majority of writers would do that.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14In the hospital with your laptop?
0:08:14 > 0:08:18It was there, you know, I was sort of - bugger!
0:08:18 > 0:08:21So you do have to, you know, I think it's a natural thing
0:08:21 > 0:08:23for a writer just to express themselves.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27You might not do it with the idea of immediate inclusion into the novel
0:08:27 > 0:08:30if that's what you're working on or whatever
0:08:30 > 0:08:33but because... I think it was just coincidence, you know.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36I think it was just the way things worked
0:08:36 > 0:08:39that I happened to have chosen that subject.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42Let's just go back to The Wasp Factory for a minute
0:08:42 > 0:08:47and from the very get-go, you talk about it as a black comedy,
0:08:47 > 0:08:51but it's a deeply moving book as well about a twisted childhood.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55Oh, yeah, it's meant to basically press as many buttons
0:08:55 > 0:08:59as is possible and kind of cheerfully going for
0:08:59 > 0:09:02the Grand Guignol, you know, sort of feel as well.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05It was an extraordinary...I mean, it was your first published novel.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08- Absolutely.- And it absolutely... That was a hand grenade.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10It certainly worked and I'm still very proud of it.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13There's none of the books that I'm not proud of.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15There's ones I think I could have done better with.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18I still think Canal Dreams is the runt of the litter
0:09:18 > 0:09:23but, yeah, I'm still very very proud of The Wasp Factory
0:09:23 > 0:09:26and it was... You were saying earlier about The Quarry,
0:09:26 > 0:09:29I realised as I was sitting there those couple of days
0:09:29 > 0:09:34coming up with the ideas that this is looking a bit like Wasp Factory.
0:09:34 > 0:09:35I thought, well, that's OK.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39You're allowed to have themes, you're not just always just repeating yourself
0:09:39 > 0:09:41if you have similarities between your novels.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44And I kind of just liked the idea of playing around with that
0:09:44 > 0:09:47and about the father/son relationship and...
0:09:47 > 0:09:48But I mean, there's a bit,
0:09:48 > 0:09:53you can almost see the workings in The Quarry.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55- Yeah, you know what I mean.- Yeah.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59When Kit talks about this thing about he's got, about trying
0:09:59 > 0:10:04to measure people accurately, and one of the methods he resorts to
0:10:04 > 0:10:07is wandering into the room at night when they're asleep and trying
0:10:07 > 0:10:11to measure them and how frustrating it is and almost nobody's stretched,
0:10:11 > 0:10:15lies stretched out like that, and everybody sort of curls up.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19But he goes through some pain to say, "But it's not like
0:10:19 > 0:10:21"I'm a mad axe murderer or anything," and that was almost there
0:10:21 > 0:10:25just because of the Wasp Factory, so you're reassured that Kit...
0:10:25 > 0:10:28- Kit's not going to be bumping people off.- Not murderous.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31No, Kit's not, Kit's a wonderful, gentle human being, but then,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35just going into some of the kind of set pieces in The Wasp Factory,
0:10:35 > 0:10:37I mean, the death of Esmeralda.
0:10:37 > 0:10:42I mean...extraordinary because you loved kites as well, didn't you?
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Oh, yeah, I used to make my own kites and it was...
0:10:45 > 0:10:49Used to...got big black bin liners and tape them to canes
0:10:49 > 0:10:53and take them up to the hills above Greenock and fly them.
0:10:53 > 0:11:00So I just remember, a good old windy day in Inverclyde
0:11:00 > 0:11:02and going, "Bloody hell!"
0:11:02 > 0:11:05Almost getting pulled off my feet, and I thought, if you were lighter,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09if you were a child, you would be pulled off your feet and thought, hmm, really?
0:11:09 > 0:11:12And because I, you know, from way back there, I still wanted,
0:11:12 > 0:11:15that was always my ambition, to be a writer, you just think,
0:11:15 > 0:11:19well, that's a way to kill somebody off if they're quite small.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24Esmeralda looked round one last time at me,
0:11:24 > 0:11:28giggling, and I laughed back.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32Then I let the lines go.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36The winch hit her in the small of the back and she yelped.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42Then she was dragged off her feet as the lines pulled her
0:11:42 > 0:11:46and the loops tightened around her wrists.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49I staggered back, partly to make it look good
0:11:49 > 0:11:53on the off-chance there was somebody watching
0:11:53 > 0:11:59and partly because letting go of the winch had put me off balance.
0:11:59 > 0:12:06I fell to the ground as Esmerelda left it forever.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13The kite just kept snapping and flapping and flapping and snapping
0:12:13 > 0:12:19and it hauled the girl off the earth and into the air, winch and all.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25I lay on my back and watched it for a second,
0:12:25 > 0:12:29then got up and ran after her as fast as I could,
0:12:29 > 0:12:34again just because I knew I couldn't catch her.
0:12:34 > 0:12:40She was screaming and waggling her legs for all she was worth,
0:12:40 > 0:12:44but the cruel loops of nylon had her about the wrists,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47the kite was in the jaws of the wind,
0:12:47 > 0:12:51and she was already well out of reach
0:12:51 > 0:12:55even if I had wanted to catch her.
0:12:55 > 0:13:02I ran and ran, jumping off a dune and rolling down its seaward face,
0:13:02 > 0:13:06watching the tiny struggling figure being hoisted
0:13:06 > 0:13:11farther and farther into the sky as the kite swept her away.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21'Childhood, often fraught and damaged,
0:13:21 > 0:13:25'plays a central role in Iain Banks' stories.'
0:13:25 > 0:13:27By contrast, his own was very happy,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30and mostly spent here in North Queensferry,
0:13:30 > 0:13:35and it's where he returned to live almost 20 years ago.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37This was a great place to grow up.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39Even if I'd only had indifferent parents,
0:13:39 > 0:13:44your average parents, it was such an adventure playground.
0:13:44 > 0:13:48There was even more of the military stuff left around, you know,
0:13:48 > 0:13:50First World War emplacements
0:13:50 > 0:13:53and Second World War anti-aircraft gun emplacements.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56It was just a great place to wander round.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00It's almost an island, it's got that lovely self-contained feel about it.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04Just three-quarters of an island, you know, this wee peninsula,
0:14:04 > 0:14:08but for the scale of a child it was absolutely perfect. It seemed huge.
0:14:08 > 0:14:12And there was something inevitable that you'd have to use the bridge
0:14:12 > 0:14:14- in your fiction?- I think so, yeah.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16It was, it's one of the...
0:14:16 > 0:14:19Almost, yeah, the only book I did that came to me in a dream.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21I just had this dream.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23I was living in Faversham in Kent at the time,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26and I had this dream about a gigantic version of the bridge,
0:14:26 > 0:14:28of this bridge,
0:14:28 > 0:14:33just on a different scale and the size of a city, in a sense,
0:14:33 > 0:14:39and I just woke up thinking, right, oh that's cool, that's nice.
0:14:39 > 0:14:42Be nice if all the books came that way, totally effortless.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48If he'd had less than the legal limit to drink
0:14:48 > 0:14:50he would take the Quattro out
0:14:50 > 0:14:55and drive to North Queensferry to sit beneath the great dark bridge,
0:14:55 > 0:15:01listening to the water lap against the stones and the trains rumble overhead.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04He would smoke a joint or just breathe the fresh air.
0:15:06 > 0:15:11If he felt pity for himself, it was only one timid, tentative
0:15:11 > 0:15:13part of his mind that felt so.
0:15:13 > 0:15:20There was another part of him which seemed like a hawk or an eagle,
0:15:20 > 0:15:24hungry and cruel and fanatically keen-eyed.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29Self-pity lasted a matter of seconds in the open.
0:15:29 > 0:15:34Then the bird of prey fell on it, tearing it, ripping it.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39The bird was the real world,
0:15:39 > 0:15:43a mercenary dispatched by his embarrassed conscience,
0:15:43 > 0:15:48the angry voice of all the people in the world, that vast majority
0:15:48 > 0:15:53who were worse off than he was - just common sense.
0:15:55 > 0:16:01He discovered, to his knowing, almost righteous dismay, that the bridge
0:16:01 > 0:16:06was not painted end-to-end over a neat three-year period.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09It was done piecemeal,
0:16:09 > 0:16:14and the cycle lasted anything between four and six years.
0:16:14 > 0:16:21Another myth bites the dust, he thought - par for the course.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25I think it had been such a large part of my life for so long,
0:16:25 > 0:16:30it was this gigantic symbol that had affected me in all sorts of ways.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33I think it's also there in the science fiction.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37I've just always liked big structures, you know!
0:16:37 > 0:16:40When you root some of your work in Scotland,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43that's one part of your imagination.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48The other part of your imagination's creating completely different worlds, for example the Culture,
0:16:48 > 0:16:53this kind of slightly very sarcastic kind of supergroup, as it were,
0:16:53 > 0:16:57- that kind of fly round the universe sorting things out.- Uh-huh.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01You like the idea of creating different worlds?
0:17:01 > 0:17:02I love it, yeah.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05There's an enormous freedom that you get in science fiction
0:17:05 > 0:17:08that you can just, you can go anywhere and do anything.
0:17:08 > 0:17:09It's that simple.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14The things that I love and things that I tend to read most
0:17:14 > 0:17:17are science fiction and, you know, mainstream literature.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20And those are what I love to write as well.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24And it's been a privilege in a way to be able to get away with it,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27you know, for an entire career, be able to do both.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31But is the idea behind The Culture
0:17:31 > 0:17:37to imagine a world that you think, in a way, would be better?
0:17:37 > 0:17:39Yes, oh, it's didactic.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43It's my idea of what is as close as possible,
0:17:43 > 0:17:47as close as possible to anything remotely like us,
0:17:47 > 0:17:51as a species, could get to in terms of being, if not an actual utopia
0:17:51 > 0:17:55then a sort of functioning, as good as we're going to get utopia.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57Having said that, I think that,
0:17:57 > 0:17:59I don't think humanity is up to it, quite frankly.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01I think we're too nasty.
0:18:01 > 0:18:06We may find that there are genes that code for xenophobia.
0:18:06 > 0:18:11Well, there are genes that code for, you know, racism
0:18:11 > 0:18:15and sexism, for, you know, anti-Semitism,
0:18:15 > 0:18:19for Islamophobia, all the xenophobic things, all the things
0:18:19 > 0:18:23where we decide that we're this, we're one good privileged group and
0:18:23 > 0:18:26those bastards over there, well, we hate them.
0:18:26 > 0:18:28And all the excuses that we found,
0:18:28 > 0:18:32we find, you know, to be so deeply, deeply unpleasant each other.
0:18:32 > 0:18:38On Earth, one of the things that a large proportion of the locals
0:18:38 > 0:18:44is most proud of is this wonderful economic system which,
0:18:44 > 0:18:46with a sureness and certainty
0:18:46 > 0:18:50so comprehensive one could almost imagine the process bears
0:18:50 > 0:18:54some relation to their limited and limiting notions of either
0:18:54 > 0:19:01thermodynamics or God, all food, comfort, energy, shelter,
0:19:01 > 0:19:07space, fuel and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily
0:19:07 > 0:19:15away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least.
0:19:15 > 0:19:21Indeed, those on the receiving end of such largesse are often
0:19:21 > 0:19:26harmed unto death by its arrival, though the effects may take
0:19:26 > 0:19:30years and generations to manifest themselves.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Are you a kind of evangelising atheist in your work?
0:19:34 > 0:19:37I've been describing myself as an evangelical atheist
0:19:37 > 0:19:38for about 20 years, yes.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41It's not enough to be sitting in the corner going,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44well, I know I'm right, I'm not going to tell anybody else.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47No, no, you have to, you have to go up to people's doors almost.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51Have you discovered the power of atheism, brother?
0:19:51 > 0:19:52Much more effective.
0:19:52 > 0:19:54But what about, you don't...
0:19:54 > 0:19:57There's a tiny bit of agnosticism in there on the basis that
0:19:57 > 0:19:59if you think there are other lives on other planets,
0:19:59 > 0:20:01I seem to remember you said something,
0:20:01 > 0:20:04"Damn, there might just be a God out there playing a trick on us."
0:20:04 > 0:20:06Oh, could be, there has to be a sort of
0:20:06 > 0:20:09half a percent of, you know, of agnosticism in there
0:20:09 > 0:20:11just because you just never know.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15In a sense, because it seems so blatantly bloody obvious
0:20:15 > 0:20:18that there is no God and it's all just another nonsense
0:20:18 > 0:20:21so it's just, it's us expressing ourselves.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25And as I'm saying in that piece about basing our fears and hopes and
0:20:25 > 0:20:30so on, that, well, you know it could just be some gigantic cosmic joke.
0:20:30 > 0:20:34But like Christopher Hitchens, are you anti-theist?
0:20:34 > 0:20:37Do you think that religion is actually actively evil?
0:20:37 > 0:20:40Not necessarily, and certainly not all the time.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43It is a comfort to people, apart from anything else, you know.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45But you'd say a false comfort?
0:20:45 > 0:20:49Yeah, but again, I keep coming back to the fact I could be wrong.
0:20:49 > 0:20:52And it's hard to know what else you'd put in place.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55In the end, I would love to see religion just wither away
0:20:55 > 0:20:59and, you know, just kind of be so exposed to reason
0:20:59 > 0:21:04and to rationality that it would simply cease to be.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07Or it would be very much a minority sport, as it were.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11But as actually evil, well, it can be, yes.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13I mean, it can certainly be.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16Evil's such a...kind of an all or nothing word, isn't it?
0:21:16 > 0:21:19- Mm-hmm.- Yes, it can be, you know but I mean it turned out
0:21:19 > 0:21:22so could communism as well, for that matter, you know.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26There's terrible crimes against humanity committed in its name.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29It was supposed to be all about people, not about religion at all.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32Do you believe in moral progress
0:21:32 > 0:21:34or are we in an arrested phase at the moment?
0:21:34 > 0:21:38I think the clutch is slipping at the moment, put it that way.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41I believe in moral progress, yes, of course.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44I mean, Steven Pinker wrote, I can't remember the name of the book now
0:21:44 > 0:21:48but I think we are gradually doing better.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50Fewer people are dying despite all the mayhem
0:21:50 > 0:21:54and the horribleness of which we see so much nowadays.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56Because of the media bringing it right to you.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59You know, we are killing fewer of ourselves
0:21:59 > 0:22:02so, yeah, there's moral progress. We've still got a way to go.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04You know, I'm not sure we're getting much more
0:22:04 > 0:22:07than a C on the report card but absolutely,
0:22:07 > 0:22:10yes, of course there's moral progress.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14Music's been a real importance to you in your, in your life.
0:22:14 > 0:22:16I mean, lots of people would say that but for you particularly
0:22:16 > 0:22:20because you can listen to music when you write and so forth.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24And has that been something that's given you solace just now?
0:22:24 > 0:22:29I think the solace is going to come because I write music, you know.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33I've pretensions towards being a composer.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35And that's what I intend to spend most of my creative
0:22:35 > 0:22:38energies on in the next couple of months or however long I've got,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41is writing music and trying to get it to some
0:22:41 > 0:22:43level of presentability so that should be accessible.
0:22:43 > 0:22:48Until now, this had been a private pastime for Iain,
0:22:48 > 0:22:50but he was ready to share it.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53So this is the symphony wot I wrote and I'm,
0:22:53 > 0:22:56well, I'm still slightly in the course of writing
0:22:56 > 0:23:01because it needs further tinkering with because it's such a long piece.
0:23:01 > 0:23:03There's always more you can do, it's a bit like a novel.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06A short story can be completely finished,
0:23:06 > 0:23:08- a novel in a sense can always be tinkered with.- Look at that!
0:23:08 > 0:23:10It looks so different from everything else.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13- God, it looks so complex. - Well that's because it is.
0:23:13 > 0:23:14HE LAUGHS
0:23:14 > 0:23:16MUSIC PLAYS
0:23:27 > 0:23:29This is the start of the second movement.
0:23:29 > 0:23:35It's a bit that I feel is the most finished of all the movements.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38It's a bit I've actually let people hear, you know.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54Little Scottish...
0:23:54 > 0:23:57Yeah, I think there is a sort of Scottish influence in there, yeah.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19Because it's been a hobby, it's been more fun than the writing
0:24:19 > 0:24:23because the writing is, well, how, you know, I earn my keep, basically.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27And, you know, my career depends on the writing
0:24:27 > 0:24:31and in a small way, you know, part of my publishers
0:24:31 > 0:24:35and book shop owners and so on and just your public,
0:24:35 > 0:24:38the people who actually are fans, you don't want to let them down.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40Cos I can just do what I damn well please,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42well, that's always been the case, you know, sort of until now.
0:24:42 > 0:24:47This was a hobby. It was simply meant to be a giggle.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50The only sad thing is you can't really do both at the same time.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52I can't write because I'm staring at a screen all day
0:24:52 > 0:24:55and the last thing I want to do is come and stare at a screen
0:24:55 > 0:24:59for the next two or three hours of me time, as it were.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01So I can only really do one at a time.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05So now that the, that's it basically with the writing,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08I can devote myself more to this, you know.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11And even if no-one ever hears it or no-one ever enjoys it,
0:25:11 > 0:25:13it'll be fun for me.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15It will be genuinely therapeutic.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18I just have such a, such a hoot with this.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22But did writing, did it always come easily to you?
0:25:22 > 0:25:27It appears to come easy. I mean, you write so quickly.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30Well, yeah, I say fairly. You know it doesn't really feel it.
0:25:30 > 0:25:35I'm only really, I'm only at the typeface for three months a year.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38The rest of my time is my own, you know.
0:25:38 > 0:25:40So yeah, well, I just found I like to
0:25:40 > 0:25:42get it out the way as fast as I can.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45I just want to, you know, go on and I get caught up in it
0:25:45 > 0:25:47and I can't really slow down.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49I just, I really need to, to get going.
0:25:49 > 0:25:51Are you still writing?
0:25:51 > 0:25:54No. No, I am going to try
0:25:54 > 0:25:59and get the plot for the next Culture novel together
0:25:59 > 0:26:06so that just in case there is some sort of miracle cure or whatever,
0:26:06 > 0:26:09I don't get to the end of the year going, "Aha, beat you cancer!
0:26:09 > 0:26:11"Oh, God, I haven't got a book to write, oh, no."
0:26:11 > 0:26:14So I'll do it just for that but also there's a very slim
0:26:14 > 0:26:17possibility, you know, that maybe somebody else could actually
0:26:17 > 0:26:20write it but I don't know, not sure about that.
0:26:20 > 0:26:22- How do you feel about that? - Mixed feelings.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25You know, in a way it would be better for it to be written,
0:26:25 > 0:26:27ach, it depends on the books.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31I haven't actually got the full suite of ideas yet for a start but...
0:26:31 > 0:26:34Are there any things you wish you'd done differently?
0:26:34 > 0:26:36Done differently?
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Ach, I don't know, that's one of those questions where you think -
0:26:39 > 0:26:43well, when you have a working time machine, you know,
0:26:43 > 0:26:45then we'll look at that seriously.
0:26:45 > 0:26:50So there's not really much point. I don't have many regrets in my life.
0:26:50 > 0:26:51I suppose I...
0:26:53 > 0:26:57Oh, like a lot of men, I've hurt women and didn't need,
0:26:57 > 0:27:01well, when I was being selfish or there's a degree of hurt towards
0:27:01 > 0:27:06ex-girlfriends that probably didn't need to have happened but...
0:27:06 > 0:27:11That's probably the greatest series of regrets in my life.
0:27:11 > 0:27:15Other than that, certainly professionally, not really, no.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17So have you made plans for your death?
0:27:17 > 0:27:23I've had a thought about, I guess it will just be the local crematorium.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27Adele has then promised to scatter my ashes in the Grand Canal
0:27:27 > 0:27:32in Venice, just a small amount, you know, but in secret if necessary.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34I don't know what the bylaws are.
0:27:34 > 0:27:40Grand Canal in Venice, in front of a certain cafe in Paris.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46Put some into a rocket to be fired over the Forth,
0:27:46 > 0:27:48again, quite a small amount.
0:27:48 > 0:27:54And oh, yeah, some onto a beach in Barra, Vatersay, whatever,
0:27:54 > 0:27:57but not too much in any.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59Most of them actually remain in the urn
0:27:59 > 0:28:04and be sunk where my dad's ashes are sunk in Loch Shiel.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06So wait a minute, some are going into a firework
0:28:06 > 0:28:10so Iain Banks is actually going to be fired into the universe?
0:28:10 > 0:28:13Oh, yeah. Well, into the... into the Forth, yeah.
0:28:13 > 0:28:15Hmm. Yeah.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19Still remaining entirely within the atmosphere, I'm afraid, but yeah.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22- Iain Banks, thank you very much. - You're welcome.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24HE CHUCKLES
0:28:40 > 0:28:43Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd