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 Windw...