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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lost in the woods, 25 Aug 2003
The Business is a fair fairy story, at least in concept. There’s a prince seeking a princess, a Queen resigned to her bed for 25 years with a broken heart, a palace of a thousand rooms, snow-capped mountains, pied piper children, an all powerful James Bond style baddie organisation. And like any good fairy tale it tries to have a moral, arising from one hot pretext set just outside of reality. Banks lays it on thick but really fails to bridge the gap between fairy and really. That pretext is the Business itself, founded in times before modern civilization. The problem, unusually for Iain Banks, is that there is a lack of grasp of what this story is all about. Is it a licence to discredit the misty corporate world of international business? Is it about surviving on overhwhelming capitalist power through duplicity? Is it about human relationships, disrupted intimacy, and misplaced loyalty? Or is it just about a prince seeking a princess? By the end, there aren’t any answers. You are left feeling a little cold in the Himalayas. But it’s just such a great idea for a book. The shame is nothing of that mysterious corporate world is uncovered. The Business has worldwide influence and domination. It’s rich and powerful. It seeks a seat at the United Nations by buying up under nourished and unknown nations. Kate is the ambitious Level Three executive at its heart. Yet most of the 400 pages are devoted to her globe trotting and excruciating detail about her in-flight experiences; buying clothes; meeting whoever…. Banks introduces some thriller tension at the start; colleague has teeth taken out by dark adversaries, Kate uncovers a Business factory hiding some dark secret, the Board are either homely uncle / aunty characters or underworld nearly gangsters. Great, but we are then subjected to a long winded “travels with Kate” until we understand any link at the very end. You have wonder what it’s all about. Don’t be prepared to be too disappointed as Iain Banks has the undoubted and undisputed skill in writing and there’s never a word out of place, but overall it doesn't gell. Hot plot lines are introduced, and then disappear to the sidelines. Some motives never get off the ground. With a bit more discipline, this could have really rocked.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If you've never read Iain Banks, start with The Business!, 20 Jun 2000
By A Customer
This is an excellent first book to read if you are just getting into Iain Banks, especially because so many of his other novels, while highly rated, are often considered as a bit on the weird side. Its a mix between a whodunnit and an account of one executive's rise to power. Don't expect a punchy ending - that's not the style of Iain Banks - but it's a rivetting read, and wonderfully written. I have gone on to read other books by the same author which have been disappointing, but The Business is a classic read. So go on, go buy a copy today....
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Anything but the business..., 3 Sep 1999
By A Customer
What a great idea for a story - a firm thousands of years old, a finger in every pie throughout history - and we're stuck with a hero who can't quite decide if she's man or woman, corporate hotshot or voluntary sector wannabe, scum from Scotland or girl from the valley! Kate is totally unconvincing. And not even in a particularly challenging way. She's everything anyone could want to be, and at the same time all things noone would want to be - is this the point of the novel, perhaps? Is this what corporate life in the nineties is turning us all into - financial high-flyers, hopping first class from one exotic location to the next, hopelessly unfulfilled in love (and probably sex), with friendship which can only take place in cyberspace and on radio-waves, and here's the crux of it all, day-in, day-out hell-bent on a mission which assumes, and always has, suspense-filled all-pervading importance, and oops, it turns out to be a pretty plain-vanilla case of nothing that special afterall. Just a question of money - and more money. Wow - thrilling stuff. Depressing denouement - not a bad title in the circumstances... What I hated about this book more than anything were the phone-calls with Luce. We watch Kate matamorphose from boardroom sophisticate to adolescent, neurotic bubble-head in the space of a page or two - oh dear. Why did we have these unintersting insights into her typically empty North American life? And there was equally unconvincing Freddy and his housekeeper (who promised to be so much more, but typically really was just the housekeeper), and I kept asking myself WHY and then what's the deal with Kate - rising up the ranks of a meritocratic - no democratic - heierarchy, with all the nepotistic zeal of a Suharto family member... This book was compelling, I have to admit, but only because you're quickly reading the pages, dying to find out if there's any point to it at all... Take my advice. There's no point at all.
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