Canal Dreams – Iain Banks

Hisako Onoda is a Japanese cellist, on her way by sea to give recitals in Europe. Hisako’s voyage is interrupted when an uprising in Panama temporarily closes the Panama Canal, and hers is one of a few ships moored in the Gatún Lake. While they wait for the Canal to reopen, Hisako, who is forty-four, enjoys a younger French lover from another ship, goes diving with him, and participates in the social events held between the ships.
 
So far, it is a travelogue, and the reader feels a natural empathy for this fairly solitary artist from a poor background, who has struggled to succeed, is now acclaimed, yet has remained modest. We sympathize with her plight at having to take a long trip by sea on account of an acute fear of flying, and we are amused by the antics and entreaties of her agent, Mr Moriya, and the conversational exchanges of the different characters, similarly confined on the ship.  There is something of a stage play about these people forced together and going nowhere fast.
 
This being Iain Banks, we expect more than just a mood piece and the action, when it comes, is full on. We are already rooting for Ms Onoda by this point, but not even when we appreciate her physical capability and mental strength can we seriously see how she might survive.
 
The only time my interest waned was with the long dreams—it seems that other people’s dreams are boring even in fiction—but the action sequences are cleverly done, which is a real skill.
 
Banks considered Canal Dreams the least of his novels. Perhaps because it is his most conventional? He preferred his rip-roaring, leviathan Culture novels, but this simpler story is a neat and well put-together read that has its own merits. There is even a Graham Greene-ish feel in the encounter with the “venceristas”.