including being beaten black and blue – we can see where Rankin threw his anger.
Sometimes it is only when a writer gets angry that he produces his best work. To adopt a cavalier approach to writing (or in the case of the great Goon Spike Milligan, a completely unorthodox/abstract approach) is occasionally the onlyway of breaking through the safety net. There are so many examples of this, from the ancient to the modern. It doesn’t have to be anger that provokes the best work: sentiment and tenderness work too. I’m thinking of a book like Campbell Armstrong’s All That Really Matters , where the author embarks upon a very personal story – not totally autobiographical – in order to touch his audience’s hearts.Digging into emotions are the key to good writing and sometimes that is a very difficult thing to do, especially in crime fiction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found it almost impossible to do in his Sherlock Holmes fiction, trying to add flowery prose through his narrator Dr Watson, only to realise that Sherlock Holmes dictated a sterile atmosphere of pure facts!
‘First there had been Bible John,terrorising Glasgow in the late 1960s… And now there was Johnny Bible. The media has been quick with the name.’
Black and Blue
On reading Black and Blue , one is pulled into Rebus’s life and interest in the Johnny Bible/Bible John cases, but that is almost the sub-plot to the book, as Rebus is forced into moments of happenstance 50 that pull him towards solving the case. It is an interestingway of writing a novel and the fact that it takes a long time to sort the Johnny Bible murders against Rebus’ confusing life dictates and justifies the length of the novel. In fact, like Let It Bleed , things don’t end up that well for Rebus, and this makes the story so much more believable – because as Frank Sinatra observed, that’s life!
Rebus’s flaws/hang-ups are clearly showcased in the noveltoo. The way he needs to fight a friend to release tension, the way he talks back to authority when they need to cross-examine him . There is a depth and believability about Rebus, as Rankin enthuses: ‘Rebus is a man who has used his psychological problems to good advantage in his working life.’ 51 And he is right. Rebus is a survivor. The fact that he had survived a tour in the Army, a breakdown,and neither drank nor smoked himself to death, is highly commendable. Could we say a similar thing about Ian Rankin? No, not really. Perhaps his drinking habits have got the better of him in the past but he is no Rebus, that is for sure.
Has Rebus therefore been Rankin’s Dorian Gray? An interesting concept, but frankly one that doesn’t hold too much water. Perhaps if Rankin was a single man,his life would have had less meaning and his books more, but even then I can’t see where Rankin would have pressed self-destruct after the end of the Rebus novels.
‘“Thing is, I’ve tried to learn from you, but I’m not sure you were the right choice. A bit too intense maybe, eh? See, whatever it is you’ve got, John, I just don’t have it.” A longer pause. “And I’m not sure I even want it, tobe honest.”’
Black and Blue .
CHAPTER TWELVE
EDINBURGH, BENEATH THE VENEER
‘But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched by rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward from the Highland hills.’
Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh – PicturesqueNotes
A lthough the Rebus books sometimes take place outside Edinburgh, Rankin always brings the story back to the capital city for the more dark – macabre – moments of corruption and murder. A good example of this is the novella Death Is Not The End (Orion, 1998). Rebus travels to his hometown to help an old friend, Brian ‘Barney’ Mee, find his missing son Damon. It looks like a
Sometimes it is only when a writer gets angry that he produces his best work. To adopt a cavalier approach to writing (or in the case of the great Goon Spike Milligan, a completely unorthodox/abstract approach) is occasionally the onlyway of breaking through the safety net. There are so many examples of this, from the ancient to the modern. It doesn’t have to be anger that provokes the best work: sentiment and tenderness work too. I’m thinking of a book like Campbell Armstrong’s All That Really Matters , where the author embarks upon a very personal story – not totally autobiographical – in order to touch his audience’s hearts.Digging into emotions are the key to good writing and sometimes that is a very difficult thing to do, especially in crime fiction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found it almost impossible to do in his Sherlock Holmes fiction, trying to add flowery prose through his narrator Dr Watson, only to realise that Sherlock Holmes dictated a sterile atmosphere of pure facts!
‘First there had been Bible John,terrorising Glasgow in the late 1960s… And now there was Johnny Bible. The media has been quick with the name.’
Black and Blue
On reading Black and Blue , one is pulled into Rebus’s life and interest in the Johnny Bible/Bible John cases, but that is almost the sub-plot to the book, as Rebus is forced into moments of happenstance 50 that pull him towards solving the case. It is an interestingway of writing a novel and the fact that it takes a long time to sort the Johnny Bible murders against Rebus’ confusing life dictates and justifies the length of the novel. In fact, like Let It Bleed , things don’t end up that well for Rebus, and this makes the story so much more believable – because as Frank Sinatra observed, that’s life!
Rebus’s flaws/hang-ups are clearly showcased in the noveltoo. The way he needs to fight a friend to release tension, the way he talks back to authority when they need to cross-examine him . There is a depth and believability about Rebus, as Rankin enthuses: ‘Rebus is a man who has used his psychological problems to good advantage in his working life.’ 51 And he is right. Rebus is a survivor. The fact that he had survived a tour in the Army, a breakdown,and neither drank nor smoked himself to death, is highly commendable. Could we say a similar thing about Ian Rankin? No, not really. Perhaps his drinking habits have got the better of him in the past but he is no Rebus, that is for sure.
Has Rebus therefore been Rankin’s Dorian Gray? An interesting concept, but frankly one that doesn’t hold too much water. Perhaps if Rankin was a single man,his life would have had less meaning and his books more, but even then I can’t see where Rankin would have pressed self-destruct after the end of the Rebus novels.
‘“Thing is, I’ve tried to learn from you, but I’m not sure you were the right choice. A bit too intense maybe, eh? See, whatever it is you’ve got, John, I just don’t have it.” A longer pause. “And I’m not sure I even want it, tobe honest.”’
Black and Blue .
CHAPTER TWELVE
EDINBURGH, BENEATH THE VENEER
‘But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched by rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward from the Highland hills.’
Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh – PicturesqueNotes
A lthough the Rebus books sometimes take place outside Edinburgh, Rankin always brings the story back to the capital city for the more dark – macabre – moments of corruption and murder. A good example of this is the novella Death Is Not The End (Orion, 1998). Rebus travels to his hometown to help an old friend, Brian ‘Barney’ Mee, find his missing son Damon. It looks like a
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