Soliloquy

Understanding John Rebus may be the most challenging thing in modern-day literary fiction. Many a reader has turned her nose away in disappointment – perhaps even disgust – at the eccentric detective’s antics. For the ageing Detective Inspector of Lothian and Borders Police in Edinburgh, Scotland – created by Sir Ian Rankin, the conscience keeper of the writing industry – life is perennially lived from the outside. This might also be the reason why he finds little in common with those in authority, or those who seek to make a living out of the policing job.

For Rebus, the job is scarcely a means of earning a living; it is a way of life, a curse or a burden that he must carry every time he heads home to his Arden Street tenement flat with nothing but ghosts for company after having poured himself a nip or two of the finest Laphroaig.

This is also the reason why few, if any, people get along with Rebus or understand him. This might be the reason why only Detective Constable (later Sergeant and Inspector) Siobhan Clarke, his anti-sidekick, may come the closest to seeing what Rebus sees, or why Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer, his onetime lover and now superior in the force, finds enough reason to dump him and move ahead with her life.

With Templer, Rebus gets along only in patches – his self-destructive tendencies certainly do not help the cause – and one can feel sorry for the latter as the lady, intent on climbing the ropes of promotion and furthering her cause as a woman breaking barriers in the police force, feels undone by Rebus’ presence in her life.

Clarke, however, is more like Rebus than either of them would like to admit, even though the latter is careful enough to not let her get close enough to get a hang of many of his bad (or not so bad) qualities. Rebus sustains no other relationship than with himself and his favourite malt, or the odd India Pale Ale if the weather gods are so kind – his ex-wife Rhona and daughter Sammy having long become part of the ghosts he sees on his walls on weekday evenings with the Rolling Stones’ ‘Beggars Banquet‘ for company.

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One thing that most readers would envy Rebus for – even if they would not his considerable girth and sceptical eating choices – is his taste in music. While Sir Ian introduces the inspector early on in the series as being a fan of all working-class music of Britain from the 1960s, he also shows considerable discernment later to enjoy the traipses of John Martyn, Hawkwind and Wishbone Ash, while maintaining an equally warm relationship with the late Jackie Leven, with whom Sir Ian himself was close.

Yet, for all his flaws, what Rebus signifies is a moral compass against the decadence of a society well past its sell-by date, and an introduction to life as we once knew it when justice meant more than just mouthing the word. The cynicism that one sees dripping from every word that the Fife-born detective utters is what Sir Ian himself believes in. Except for Fleshmarket Close, where Rebus takes a decidedly moral political stance, Sir Ian shows the former as being an outlier in a world that has been windswept by consumerism, dethroned by materialism and decayed by individualism.

Rebus’ cynicism becomes our own when we see our governments failing to meet our expectations; his pragmatism takes on a new shelf life when we see our friends and loved ones turning away at the drop of a hat in times of distress. What Rebus means – and shows – is a true mirror of society, and the music makes up more than just background white noise.

Even Tommy Smith in ‘The Sound of Love’ (“Rebus wondered if one could hear love…”) or John Martyn in ‘Solid Air’ (“Rebus could feel the opening chords of ‘Solid Air’ fill him with something that resembled hope…”). Or the Rolling Stones’ ‘Some Girls’ (“Women, relationships and colleagues had all come and gone, but the Stones were always there for him. I don’t have much, Rebus thought, but I have this. Marry the job – it will always be there for you.” For many, including me, Rebus is too lifelike a figure to neglect, or merely pass by as a fictional character.

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