Consider Phlebas :: The Title

The Wasteland: Part 4 - 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 whirpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

This is from a poem by T. S. Eliot, and the whole version is available online at http://www.it.cc.mn.us/literature/elliot.htm.

You'd be interested to know that Iain Banks' next book is going to be called Look to Windward, the words right before Consider Phlebas. What does that mean, we wonder... could it be that Banks is planning to talk about the Idiran war a little more? Might we even see some more of the Changers, or of Horza? Who knows?

Anyway, the relevance of the poem shouldn't be lost on readers of Consider Phlebas, in the nature of Bora Horza Gobuchul's existence as a Changer.