It was hard at first but slowly I found myself caring about the story, the characters and, most importantly, the language. I wasn’t just reading a random book in order to answer a made up question for a test. It was the first time that I was reading a book for myself and not because I needed a good mark in my English class. Iain Banks got me into literature.

I was sad when I found out he had cancer but what made me sadder still was that he made a public statement (which turned out to be one of his last) soon after trotting out cranky boycott Israel nonsense. I then found out that he refused to sell his books in Israel. I thought this was incredibly mean. Israel isn’t perfect (neither is the UK or US) but its citizens (both Jew and Arab) haven’t done anything so bad as to be denied the same pleasure that I had had. Not to mention that CR is actually quite a good beginner’s guide to Scotland.

I therefore resolved to write to him and ask him to reconsider his position. Of course I procrastinated and forgot and then remembered again but it was too late.So I would advised people that if they feel strongly about the opinions of a famous person they should write to them right now! There’s no sense in regretting such a thing.

Thanks for the post Max.

(Much as I may – as you, Max – disagree with some of his politics, you never got the sense with Iain that those politics didn’t come from a good place, that he wasn’t a good man who maybe made some bad choices, rather than a bad man, a hypocrite, a liar, a fool).

That’s absolutely right. And thanks for sharing this.

The next term, I was completely disconnected from everyone around me. My only “friend” had gone, and I was scared shitless of social contact. I’d sit in my room, occasionally leaving for lectures, but mainly would spend my time re-reading Grant Morrisson’s “Doom Patrol” series and listening to The Dylans and the Mock Turtles on my boom-box.

One day in the University bookshop, I saw The Crow Road by Banks. I’d not read any of his stuff by that point, but was aware of him from my brother, who was a fan of The Wasp Factory and Canal Dreams and The Bridge. Intrigued by the name (and it remains a wonderful name, so evocative…you know when you read a novel’s title and think – immediately – “I will like this”? That’s what happened, right there) and the cover, I picked it up and took it back to my room and greedily devoured it.

And I dunno, something touched me, something about Prentice and his life spoke to the me of then, and helped, somehow, to bring me out of my anti-social dread, my funk of hermitdom, bring me back to the land of the living.

It remains my favourite book of his, and one of my favourite of all time, warm, humane, generous and funny (Much as I may – as you, Max – disagree with some of his politics, you never got the sense with Iain that those politics didn’t come from a good place, that he wasn’t a good man who maybe made some bad choices, rather than a bad man, a hypocrite, a liar, a fool).

The same battered copy, 21 years old, sits on my book-shelf, and I re-read it every couple of years, like trying on a pair of comfortable old slippers, easing into them, contentment.

He’s away the Crow Road now. Bless him, and goodnight, and thanks, many thanks, for the joy he brought me and so many others.

I have always worried about the DSM, though. Research has been led in the field by psychopharmacologists for years, and it is, I believe, these same people who sit on the board of the DSM advising on new diagnoses, the diagnostic criteria which inform them and so forth. To me, there is a huge conflict of interests here. A new disorder is a new market.

That such forces are at work is underscored for me by the fact that one of the diagnoses dropped from the DSM V, Asperger’s syndrome, is both one of those known to be least amenable to drug treatment, and also, as millions of parents, support workers, and ‘aspies’ know, it is one of those diagnoses most consistently supported by evidence, the symptoms clustered much the same in individual after individual in a statistically predictable ratio of perhaps every population group known to science.

Instead, the DSM V has a number of those disorders which, quite unlike schizophrenia, unlike depression unipolar and bipolar, unlike attention deficit disorder, read like the bullet points from some kind of screenwriting course brainstorming session.

I once read up on Oppositional Defiant Disorder when one of my students, a swaggering streetwise type with always a clever word to say and a way of charming anybody he came upon, was diagnosed with the condition. I am not sure I was any the wiser.

I’m not saying that he didn’t have problems, but that I’m not sure the diagnosis was a fit for his problems. You could make it fit. I’ve had exes who have made their horoscope fit every day of their lives and will continue to do so. If challenged, they would give lengthy reasonings and it would sound pretty convincing, but I wouldn’t have professionals do the same with the DSM. I’ve seen the professionals at work. I’ve seen them get confused over the simplest, most clear cut diagnoses there are.

So, what I’m perhaps saying is that we should take depression, unipolar and bipolar, as a benchmark. Anybody who feels that a certain number of symptoms do not tend to cluster together involving low mood, suicidal ideation, inability to imagine anything positive in the future, or in oneself etc etc., has not lived very much or made many insights into the people around them.

When we don’t have such strong, regularly observed and reinforced evidence to go on, then we leave the territory of diagnostic criteria and enter a area where case studies are valuable.

I don’t know. There is a long way to go before it will be possible to discuss mental health in a sensible manner without somebody dismissing it or writing off those of us who have suffered one thing or another. I am on the autistic spectrum for sure. I have attention deficit disorder, and I suffer periodically from depression. I think I know how to deal with all of these things pretty well, but I’ve dealt with psychiatrists and read x number of case histories and feel strongly that the coherence of these disorders varies considerably and that the manner in which some of them are nominated bears no relation whatever to the years of accumulated data and case studies which led to the criteria which define depression. This concerns me.

I know what Ellis means about DFW too. He’s one of those guys that I’ve consistently been put off reading because he is so revered by tons of anaemic soulless twentysomethings who can’t write…

I loved Breaking Bad, too. Just wait till the finale!

Also, why not use your convalescence to set up your own blog?

I’m not even being wholly facetious here either. A generous state fed, clothed and housed me for 3 years with the chance to study more or less full time…and all I had to do was get caught with several tons of aluminium and lead whose ownership was in dispute. Looking back, I’m grateful. I read ‘everything’. I know this sounds a bit conceited but I’ve never met anyone else who’s read as much as me. Not only that, I read things randomly, made judgements and choices based purely on subjective taste; particularly re. prose style.

The downside is that I tend to reread things too often these days…don’t know why but I’m always reluctant to read new fiction even though I regularly very pleasantly surprised. Generally, I have 3 books on the go: 1new fiction, 1old and one non-fiction and I tend to view a book in terms of its place within the trio. Just before Christmas was a real trial. I could never decide which one to pick up. It was Visit from the Goon Squad, Confederacy of Dunces and Ackroyd’s Blake biography. A few times I literally couldn’t choose, gave up and went out for a pint instead.

I’m definitely gonna see Gatsby, mind. The book’s a peach and I’ve enjoyed all Luhrman’s efforts. I take your point about Romeo and Juliet, but it hit a few high notes and he strikes me as a creator of spectacle as much as he’s a film maker.
I’m also half way through series 4 of Breaking Bad…magnificent. Up there with The Wire and Sopranos.

Sorry about the length of these posts btw but I dislocated my shoulder the other day and I’m laid up until Wednesday.

Incidentally, what did you think of Brett Easton Ellis’s dig at Foster Wallace? On the whole I think he called it spot on. Wallace was a fantastic essayist; as a novelist he leaves me a bit cold; especially Pale King. His novels tend to become an ordeal for me; like ploughing through Pynchon but without the payoff.