Summary Bridge
Ian Banks Coma
Bridge We literally break into the stream of the hero’s consciousness, which conveys his sensations from the “weave” to the wreckage of the car. We understand that this man was in an accident and is on the verge of life and death. He himself realizes his “problem” and talks about it in a tone not devoid of irony and even self-irony. Metamorphosis Chapter One John Orr tells Dr. Joyce an intricate, fictional dream. The fact is that the doctor is trying to cure Orr from memory loss, analyzing his dreams. But John never tells his real dreams, considering them banal or simply very chaotic. This scene takes place on the tennis court: between the doctor and the patient there is like a double duel (and both of them win Orr).
The doctor suggests Orr himself to decipher his dreams, connecting them with a bridge. We learn that John Orr was caught by the services of the Bridge without memory and without documents. He was given a new name,
John Orr attempted to learn something about his past, as well as about Most: about its size, the date of appearance, etc. But all his attempts were in vain because of the bureaucratic red tape that dominates the Bridge.
Arriving in the evening to his home, John turns on the TV, which begins to show only one black and white picture: a man in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical equipment. Orr composes a new dream for the doctor and writes it down.
Chapter Two
The content of sleep: sea battle.
Orr makes his morning toilet (with a claim to elegance), reflecting on the structure of public life, when suddenly the TV itself turns on and again shows yesterday’s vague image. Orr tries to call the repairmen on the phone, but finds out that the phone does not work either (a symbolic separation of the hero from the world of the Bridge begins to occur).
Orr is having breakfast in the “Breakfast on the Grass” with his friend at the hospital, engineer Brooke. From their conversation,
Orr goes to the doctor, but meets only workers who do not answer his questions stubbornly: perhaps they simply do not understand him, since Orr has only an administrative dialect. He finds out the new address of the doctor in the registry and visits him. Tells a fictitious dream and performs a psychological test.
Wandering on the upper tier of the Bridge, Orr discovers an old elevator, with an old lifter sleeping in it. He, at the request of Orr, carries him to the trains, but on the plan John discovers the Third City Library and asks the elevator operator to change direction. From this sharp change the old man falls from the chair, the mirror in the elevator breaks, and from the ceiling a lamp and plaster breaks. On the floor where the library should be located, a catastrophe happened: the sirens howl, hanging a thick smoke, carrying the wounded… Some employee with a horn drives Orr. He goes to the tennis club, where he calls the repair service.
At home, Orr rings the phone, but when he picks up the phone, only beeps are heard…
Chapter Three
Orru dreams of a ruined city by the sea, which seems to him vaguely familiar. There he meets a hunchbacked dwarf, who bears the sea with an iron chain. Between them there is a conversation. Orr leaves, feeling like he has not previously seen a cast-iron bracelet tinkling rhythmically on his wrist.
Orr wakes up in the middle of the night and sees a familiar picture in the TV, but this time a nurse appears, who injects the patient. Orr seems to feel pain from the injection, too.
Orru calls Brooke and invites him to the bar “Dissy Pitton” and urges him to take a broad-brimmed hat. Orr, in bewilderment, comes to the bar where Brooke and his fellow engineers (all pretty drunk) ask him to look after Miss Errol, because they go to a brothel, and her brother sleeps face in a plate. A broad-brimmed hat was needed by some engineer, their friend, but he already left.
Orr meets Ebberline Errol, a pretty, elegant girl, the daughter of a chief engineer. It entrains not luring, swallowing, not swallowing.
Then Orr wanders around the compartments of the Bridge, looks for that elevator, but he fell through the ground. Orr notices that all manifestations of art here, whether painting or architecture, are connected with the Bridge: people are portrayed in the form of bridges, and the Bridge is in the form of people. Orru is disgusting such art, from which it breathes fatigue and degeneration.
Arriving home, John sees the same picture and feels all the same pain from the injection.
Chapter Four
In this chapter, the main character is a young, empty-headed warrior-shirt, whose speech leaves much to be desired. He, having killed the old wizard, takes away the magic speaking bird that sits down on his shoulder and talks unceasingly on different topics so that the barbarian does not understand anything at all. He is looking for a “redhead” in the castle of the sorceress: he passes through the harem of mutilated women, who are lusting, the eunuch is killed. “Red-haired” barbarian and does not find, but “zvirushka” fights with the queen and disappears.
John Orr wakes up and feels disgusted with himself for wanting maimed women: he was a shirt in a dream! Orr glances at the TV screen and sees the poor patient, who is turned on his stomach – he feels physical pain.
Orr meets with the doctor, who tells his own fictitious dreams. But, to his dismay, Joyce asks him questions about the dwarf hunchback and the dream associated with the harem and suggests to think about a new method of treatment: hypnosis.
In frustrated feelings, Orr meets Abberline, who rides in a rickshaw and offers to give him a ride. Because of the fog and love to the girl for high speed, their rickshaw gets into an accident. Orr strikes his head, and his smashed nose, Ebberline Orr, gives his white handkerchief. She promises to let her know about herself.
At home, Orr finds the hat returned by Butch, which he throws out with a swing from the balcony.
Trias
A stream of consciousness of the person who has got in an accident which is delivered to hospital. But in his mind wedged the voice of the barbarian, who interrupted another voice with the words “ghost capital”.
The capital of ghosts is the city in which the hero lives. Then follows the story of his quite ordinary childhood, admission to the institute and acquaintance with Andrea Cramon. They began to meet, often walking around Fort Bridge Bridge, which struck him as a child, and besides, was the same color as her red-and-red hair.
He is inclined to take a rational life, and Andrea is sensitive.
Metamorphosis
Chapter One
Orru dreams about the life of an engineer.
In the morning he receives an invitation from Abberline to meet her: she wants to paint at the marshalling yard. John is going to her, having previously written a letter to the doctor with a waiver of hypnosis. Suddenly there is a knock at the door: it came to repair the TV and phone. However, something happened to the door: it does not open. After a while the janitor comes and breaks the door (the repairmen have already left).
John meets with Abberline, who returns the handkerchief to him. While Abberline draws one of the bridge sections from nature, they talk about life on the Bridge, about its arrangement. She gives Orr a sketch, depicting a person escaping from a train.
Chapter Two
Orr dream about how he runs, clamped with rails on both sides. Behind the horn of a locomotive, but John can not escape, can not deviate from the path along the rails.
Orr is very disturbed by sleep. He continues to ponder what the Bridge represents. And the search for the library again does not bring results.
Arriving home, Orr discovers the workers who carry his furniture. It turns out that due to the fact that Orr did not agree to be treated through hypnosis, the doctor excluded him from among his patients. And since all the items were purchased by John for a hospital allowance, only for which he actually existed, now the hospital administration confiscates everything and evicts to the level where only workers live. And even provides new clothes: a poisonous-green dressing! Orr can only take a handkerchief on which Errol embroidered a monogram, and give him her sketch.
A call to the doctor’s clinic does not work, because the doctor left for some meeting.
At the level of the U-7 Orr gets acquainted with Lynch, who came to visit the newcomer on a day-to-day basis. He kindly feeds Orr in the dining room and even offers money on loan.
Orr tries to contact Brooke, but when he comes to “Dissie Pitton” he meets a complete misunderstanding and even a few blows from the doorman who does not want to push a persistent hard worker into the bar. Beaten, Orr hardly gets home and plunges into a morbid drowsiness.
Chapter Three
Orr dreams that he is on an iron bridge, crossing a small river, flooded with carnivorous fishes. On the opposite shore, there are women who all the time call and beckon him. He always goes, runs to them, but the bridge is part of the surface of the cylinder and always returns it to the middle of the river. Whatever maneuvers he did not try to outsmart the bridge – all is useless, the bridge can not be deceived. Once, when there was no fog, he saw that he was not alone: higher upstream and downstream there were similar designs, the same women… He looks at one of the captives, who runs along his bridge and suddenly jumps into the river: The suicide was torn apart in an instant…
In the morning, Orr receives his new allowance, half of which was kept for a handkerchief and hat. For half of the remaining funds, he buys a long second-hand coat that hides a green robe. To the doctor he is contemptuously forbidden: Orra was transferred to a new doctor who does not help him.
Mr. Lynch brings Orr a letter from Abberline, which the postman left at the door.
Ebberline brings Orru his brother’s clothes and places him in an apartment that their family does not use.
Chapter Four
The rubbish, who acquired a new magical object-a talking knife-went to the Underworld (to seek a sleeping beauty), where he meets Tantalus, who is helped to roll a rock to the mountain, Prometheus, who is freed from the bird that tortured him, and then “zagravennava monster in black rags “- Charon. Charon agrees to transport the barbarian across the river behind the head of “Ser-Berya”, which would be the decoration of his boat. The slaughter kills Cerberus, and then Medusa the Gorgon, who met him along the way. He found the Sleeping Beauty, which turned out to be a handsome man. The barbarian decided to kill him, but the head of the red-haired girl who appeared from the wall warned him: if he kills the Handsome, his spirit will move into the body of the barbarian and take possession of him. The barbarian obeyed her and, taking the redhead found there, went to Charon, but not with the head of Cerberus, because he fell into a cliff, but with the head of Medusa Gorgona. From such a gift, Charon freezes and, breaking the bottom of the boat, drowns with her. The barbarian swims the river like a dog. Red-frog, which he found, turns into a familiar “zvirushka.”
The next day, Ebberlein visits Orr. There is an intimate scene between them: “I raise the girl, realizing suddenly my presence in her, in this design of dark materials, and at the very moment when I strain my muscles, when I push her weight, I suddenly feel a bridge over us, this a huge building that rises in the gray evening, a design with its own patterns, its innumerable X-Axes, its supports… It’s above us, above me… It’s hurting… It hurts me, I’m exhausted, it feels like I’ve fucked a whole bridge ” .
After the departure of Ebberline John discovers in the apartment a TV, again working in the old regime… The phone still produces short beeps. Orr emerges from the house and encounters a catastrophe: the train overturned on the railway tracks. John begins to help carry the wounded and at the request of the doctor holds his hand a bleeding artery of a man. Orru becomes unwell and he makes his way between the wounded in the toilet of the car. After a while the train starts to move: it turns out that it has long since been emptied. Orr remains, moving in an unknown direction. Orr throws his hospital bracelet out of the window.
Eocene
Intertwining the consciousness of Orr, a Scottish engineer and barbarian.
Andrea received the coveted degree. He thought of formalizing relations, but he did not want to make a concession to the state and the Church. In addition, he realized that Andrea would probably respond with a refusal. She went to Paris to study Russian. Before leaving, they walked and looked together at the North Queensferry Bridge. It turns out this bridge will be painted: “three fucking years.”
He worked successfully, always finding excuses, not to be in Paris.
He began to meet with a young nurse, knowing that Andrea in Paris, too, someone is. His mother died, and Andrea came to the funeral. And Andrea’s father dies of a heart attack while driving a car, she returns to Edinburgh.
Metamorphosis of
Oligocene
Orr continues to ride the train, hoping to eventually get to the Kingdom or the City. On the road, he dreamed of a recurring dream about someone’s land life. In a few days he was exhausted from hunger, however, despite several opportunities to jump, Orr continues his journey. Eventually the train was filled with passengers and Orra was discovered and disembarked in the Republic, a student concentric territory. He was placed in a barrack with a hundred other people. He is a kind of prisoner among other prisoners and guards. Orra pursues dreams of war and death. It turns out that this is something everyone dreams about.
Miocene
An engineer meets with an old university friend Shawn. They listen to old records.
Orra was appointed a waiter on the train, since he understood little of the dialect on which everyone was talking: thus he escaped the worst fate. Gradually the whole train became armored, and on the train there were officers alone. They were attacked from the air, they took the wounded, unloaded tanks and cars. The car in which Orr was just staying broke away from the general structure and rolled on a rocky scree. The field marshal’s bandits invaded the car to rob and wound the wounded. As Orr unconsciously said something in their own language and applied the head of the senior waiter to what was left, they became interested in the prisoner and took him to the field marshal. Now Orr was demoted: now his job is to tell stories from his past life to the Field Marshal and his gang of notorious murderers. By the way, the scarf of Abberline at Orr was taken away: now the field-marshal blew his nose at him. His favorite pastimes were to throw soldiers into the lakes of boiling mud and drive a tethered captive before the train. When attacking the bomber Orr and ten other people managed to jump off the train and were now in the abandoned city of the city. One day the Field Marshal calls for Orr and tells him to put the barrel of the machine gun between the buttocks when he rapes the pig. But Orr can not stand it and splits his skull with a machine gun. Orr finds the uniform of an officer, changes into it, takes a handkerchief from the murdered one and escapes. One day the Field Marshal calls for Orr and tells him to put the barrel of the machine gun between the buttocks when he rapes the pig. But Orr can not stand it and splits his skull with a machine gun. Orr finds the uniform of an officer, changes into it, takes a handkerchief from the murdered one and escapes. One day the Field Marshal calls for Orr and tells him to put the barrel of the machine gun between the buttocks when he rapes the pig. But Orr can not stand it and splits his skull with a machine gun. Orr finds the uniform of an officer, changes into it, takes a handkerchief from the murdered one and escapes.
Pliocene
Andrea returned from Paris and settled in the old house with her mother. He earned more and more, he bought more and more expensive cars, but the bald spot on the back of his neck became more and more… She translated from Russian, successfully printed in Scottish and Parisian magazines. They were together, however, making short-lived novels on the side. His father is dying.
One day, Andrea returns from Paris, as if she were going down into the water. Mrs. Cramon informs him that Gustav has multiple sclerosis. Now Andrea spent as much time there as in Scotland: there was nobody to take care of Gustav. He pitied Gustav and hated him for taking Andrea from him. He hated himself for hating him.
He began to abuse drugs, feeling half as young, twice as old. Gustav needed constant care: Andrea would stay in Paris and, if his family insisted, they would have to marry…
Rubak lived to a very old age, which is rare among people like him. He was assisted by the animal-talisman, which he brought from the Underworld. Now the animal tries to restore youth to the barbarian, since only he of the two has a human body. They took possession of the flying castle and from there tried to find the source of youth. But here in the castle bursts a huge guy-shirt, helped by magical powers, namely the helmet. He kills the old shirt, and at the same time the little creature disappears from his shoulder.
Quaternary period
The engineer pretty drank and smoked herbs along with his friend Stewart, whom he met on the eve of Christmas. He decides to talk with Andrea about their relationship, explain to her how much she loves her, that she wants to spend with her all her life. He calls her, but for a long time he hears only short beeps: he probably talks to Gustav – it’s for a long time. And he decides to go to her immediately and, despite the fact that he is drunk, sits behind the wheel, promising himself to be careful. But, deep in his thoughts, he ceases to control the situation on the road and gets into an accident.
Orr smells blood and sees around the consequences of a great battle: the bodies of all kinds of animals, people of all races and skin colors. Above them is the same little man who beat the waves of the sea with a cast iron chain, only now the sea is human bodies: every body has exactly one hundred blows. The dwarf speaks with Orr and gives him a triple tambourine. Orr asks what happened here? Then the dwarf responds that they all did not listen to their dreams.
Orr continued on the course of the Field Marshal’s train. Every night he saw the same dream: an unnamed engineer.
He walks many days in the desert, he has no more water, and Orr, exhausted, falls on the sand, from which he can no longer rise. And suddenly he sees a young sun-exhausted warrior in a helmet that dies, falling on Orr. Orr grabs two birds of prey that fly to him, and drinks them with thick, salty blood.
Orr sees the bridge, which lies in ruins: it is desiccated, bony, broken. There is no living or dead on it. Orr surrenders, because he understands that all this is a dream in any sense of the word. He lies on the bed under a dropper. He guesses that he is on a bridge, in one of his hollow metal bones. He is a detail of the machine. He decides to go to sleep.
Code
In his mind, there is a struggle between the desire to pull away from everything, calmly withdraw, die and desire to live for the sake of a beloved woman and for the sake of life itself. The car is over it, painting what to do. But he is relieved of her strength and revives himself by an effort of will: he woke up and saw Andrea Cramon next to her bed.
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