Re: _Consider Phlebas_ confusing front matter


JavaJosh wrote:
> I was tempted to start a thread called "Confusing Front Matter" but
> really, that's not my interest (although it would be an interesting
> discussion). In reality, I would like to simply understand what the
> front matter means in Iain M. Banks' _Consider Phlebas_. Perhaps I am
> being dense, but to my eyes these snippets have little to do with the
> novel. My best guess is that he's trying to say something about the
> Idirian's vain attempts to promote their religious beliefs. I suspect
> that that is wrong and the real interpretation requires a broader
> understanding of the Koran, T.S. Eliot, or both. But I have a niggling
> feeling that it is precociously opaque and has no real meaning. It's
> just supposed to sound cool.
>
> Here is the front matter here for your pleasure:
>
>
> Idolatry is worse than carnage. The Koran, 2:190.

This is difficult to understand?
The Idirans are religious fundamentalists. They think the carnage that
a holy war would cause is less offensive to God than widespread
idolatry. Better 9 million dead and 1 million converts than 10 million
idolaters.

> Gentile or Jew
> O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
> Consider Phlebas, who was once as handsome and tall as you.
> T.S. Eliot
> 'The Wasteland', IV

This reference is less direct, and there may be a deeper level of
meaning that I am missing, but still - the poem is saying "Rememember
Phlebas? He was once a young man, and now he's rotting in the grave.
You are young now, and handsome, just like Phlebas was, but remember
that, like Phlebas, you will die too. Your beauty and youth is passing
too, and all hopes end in death."

Which obviously applies to a story about a war in which billions of
people (and most of the people onstage) die. Remember this character?
Remember his odd appearance and juvenile obsessions? He's dead now.
Remember her? She's dead too. That guy? He died. Those people on the
ship? They all died? All of them, Gentile or Jew - and you too - all
dead in the end.

Ray

.

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