Tuesday, June 3, 2014

My hero / Iain Banks by Ian Rankin

Iain Banks in Edinburgh, 2007. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

My hero: Iain Banks by Ian Rankin

A year after his death, his friend says he will always remember Banks's almighty guffaw

Friday 13 June 2014


M

y fellow writer and occasional drinking companion Iain Menzies Banks died on 9 June 2013. When his cancer was diagnosed in the February of that year he emailed friends to share the news. The email was typical Iain – not at all downbeat or maudlin; almost jaunty, in fact.

He made sure that by the time word got out to the public at large, he and his partner Adele were outside the UK and away from the media glare, leaving some of us to meet at our spiritual home – the Abbotsford bar on Edinburgh's Rose Street – to shake our heads and mutter the usual well-meant cliches. Iain wouldn't have wanted to hear any of it, and when he eventually did join us for what turned out to be a last session together, we spoke mostly of other things, though he did joke about his jaundiced colouring, comparing himself to Grandpa Simpson.

The Iain of the Abbotsford is the one I'll remember, arching back his head to let loose a guffaw at some joke or comment, then running with the idea, his nostrils flaring at the scent of a story. There was always a childlike gleam in his eye, as if he relished the intricacies of the world while still seeking to make sense of them, and this is reflected in the variety and imaginative brio of his written work.

He went about his death the way he had lived his life – filling every waking moment to the brim: marrying Adele, revisiting favourite places and putting his hard-won green credentials to one side by purchasing a BMW in which to bomb around his beloved Scotland one last time.

He also found the time and energy to fire a few final broadsides at "the establishment" – his wit sharp, his rage palpable. For his memorial service, Iain's choice of closing song was Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". People were supposed to file out of the packed room while it played, but I felt compelled to stick around, wishing Iain was next to me for a spot of air guitar and another of those life-affirming almighty guffaws.


THE GUARDIAN






2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
054 My hero / Michael de Montaigne by Liyun Li
055 My hero / Michael Donaghy by Maggie O'Farrell
056 My hero / Richmal Crompton by Louise Crompton
057 My hero / Edward Thomas by David Constantine
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal
059 My hero / Sefton by Jilly Cooper

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 My hero / Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
100 My hero / Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson

102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill
111 My hero / Arnold Lobell by Julia Donaldson (23 December)

2012 (PAGE 9)
115 My hero / Nadime Gordimer by Tessa Hadley (27 January)

(PAGE 8)

2013

(PAGE 5)
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman (13 September)
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer (1 November)

(PAGE 4)



(PAGE 3)

2015
250 My hero John Bayley by Richard Eyre (22 January)
2016




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