Why the Waste Land?

[Vetch]

I am wondering about the reason Banks named two of his novels after lines from Eliot's Waste Land.

Any thoughts?

 

[Green]

I don't know the significance of the passage from the Waste Land (I was always terrible at looking for meaning in stuff)... but the reason they're both named for the same passage is because the two books are linked by the Idiran war. The first is set in it, the second is (partially) about how it affected one of the minds who fought in it.

The quote from Consider Phlebas is something to do with pride coming before a fall, or something, isn't it? I guess Banks just likes the Waste Land

 

[Vetch]

I guess you are right about the war that links both books and the Waste Land (yes? I'm also not too sure what the Waste Land is about -- but then, being poetry, it is about many things, and war, to me, seems to be one of them).
And yea, Banksie likes it, I think so too.

Still... I think there is more to it.
The lines come from the same paragraph in the Waste land:



_______________IV. DEATH BY WATER

PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas 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.



I strongly feel that Horza (from Consider Phlebas is Phlebas; and his fear of the Culture might be symbolized by a fear of drowning.

Those are just ideas put in to words that might not totally grasp what I mean/feel...

So I'd love to read more thoughts by you people!




P.S.
Am just reading The State of the Art; there's another line from the poem:

I heard the remote drone behind me sigh to itself again. 'Ah, it's true what they say; April is the cruellest month ...'

 

[easygoingman]

Hi

here someone gives their insight into this poem and the relevance to the novel 'Consider Phelbas' :

Death by Water@Everything2.com

I'll confess though I love nearly all of Iain's sci fi, I don't bother with much literary analysis of it, + I'm not much of a fan of poetry.

I can only add that like the drowned Phoenician Sailor, Horza is flung off into space and picked up by pirates

this part Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

I see as meaning consider the tale of Horza and what befalls him (after all he doesn't have the nicest life or the happiest ending!)

 

[J-WO]

As memory serves, much of the waste land is inspired by Frazier's 'The Golden Bough' and its study of vegetative gods/deities such as Osiris, Adonis and Christ, ie- divine beings subject to seasonal death and rebirth- a mythological motif that occurs in just about every culture since the birth of agriculture.
What Eliot tries to highlight is the essential misery and doom of that condition- april being the 'cruellest month' because, although it brings rebirth of the land, it can only ever lead to another death.
That bloke who gets thrown into space in 'Windward' is, I'd hazard, representative of the seasonal god in that, after one entire galactic cycle he is revived once more- the ultimate Phlebas.
Looking at all the culture novels, I'd say the culture have condemned themselves to a space opera version of this outlook- For some reason, probably guilt at having their hand forced into the Idiran war, they will not or cannot sublime like other civilizations on their level. Sublimation possibly being an allegory for Nirvana and the buddhist outlook generally- something Eliot contrasts with the cycle of life and death.
Sorry if I've come across as that irritating kid you sat next to in English A level. I understand that the Culture novels might possibly just be about big ships and robots doing cool stuff...

 

[Vetch]

Ok, three years later I feel it's about time to answer... X)

I guess I never did, coz all I can say is: very insightful, very helpful (also for my grasp of Eliot's poem) and Thank you! 8)

I really got nothing new to add. I still think Horza fears the Culture like drowning - losing control and trusting might feel like drowing to people.
But what you wrote about that cycle of death and rebirth and subliming makes great sense, too.

So, thank you. 8)

 

[J-WO]

No problem, Mate. See you in another three years!

 

[Andrew Short]

Its probably in a similar mind with his ship naming ethos of names not necessarily needing to make too much sense

 

[Vertigo]

There is the fact that Hoza was in the process of being drowned (rather horribly) when we first meet him.