The Wasteland by T.S Eliot and a short note on Iain M Banks

I've been tasked with cleaning out my in-law's bookshelf. A task which I'm apparently wholly unsuitable for given the large pile of books in the 'save' pile. One of the gems I came across was a very old (but undated) essay on the works of T.S Eliot.

You can read the full version here. I had read this poem in high school, and then as now it is part IV that grabs my attention. 

I'm not the only one. Iain M Banks based his protagonist in his first sci fi novel on Phlebas. 

Consider Phlebas follows the story of Horza, a mercenary who fights for the ultra religious Idirans in their war against the Culture - a democratic liberal multi-culture. 

Horza's problem with the Culture are essentially aesthetic - while he seems to wholeheartedly agree with them in principal - he finds them haughty and hypocritical. He would rather rebel, than bend.

Banks also wrote a sort-of sequel to to Consider Phlebas, in Look to Windward, in which the Culture deals with the consequences of their decisions in the first book. 

If you are interested in reading part 4 of Eliot's The Wasteland I've included it for you here:

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
                                   A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
                                   Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.