Title:The State of the Art
Author(s): Iain M. Banks
Publisher(s): Night Shade Books
Pages: 188
Year: 2007
Format:MOBI
Language: English
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The random article:
Well, here I am, Bloody Mary in one hand, pen in the other, using Rushdie$prime;s book to lean on. Got an aisle to one side, empty seat to the other, so I can spread myself out (already taken my shoes off). Bit less crowded than I$prime;d expected at this time of year. Jacksonville here I come. (I guess if it had been Harvard they$prime;d have paid for Clipper Class, but you can$prime;t have everything.)
Right. The coincidences I was talking about. I started reading The Satanic Verses in the departure lounge there, and how does it begin? With two guys falling through the air after being blown up in a jumbo jet. Great. I mean not that I$prime;m a nervous flier or anything, but this is not what one wishes to read before boarding a plane, correct? So that$prime;s one. Plus those other two instances; of travel, a conversation/argument started by a book (by two books), reason against faith both times, somehow seem to belong together with this journey; bus, train, plane, a travelling trinity of functioning technology to compare and contrast with the paranoid psychoses of religious belief.
What do you do with these people? (Never mind what they might do to us, if they ever get the whip hand; what chance would I have to teach $prime;Reason and Compassion in Twentieth-Century Poetry$prime; in Tehran?) Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.
And coincidence convinces the credulous. Two things happen at the same time, or one after another, and we assume there must be a link; well, we sacrificed a virgin last year, and there was a good harvest. Of course the ceremony to raise the sun works — it comes up every morning doesn$prime;t it? I say my prayers each night and the world hasn$prime;t ended yet…
Dung beetle thinking. Life is too complicated for there not to be continual coincidences, and we just have to come to terms with the fact that they merely happen and aren$prime;t ordained, that some things occur for no real reason whatsoever, and that this is not a punishment and that is not a reward. Good grief; the most copper-bottomed, platinum-card proof of divine intervention, of some holy master-plan, would be if there were no coincidences at all! That really would look suspicious.
I don$prime;t know. Maybe I$prime;m the one who$prime;s wrong. I don$prime;t mean that either the Christians or the Muslims actually have the truth, that either the geriatric gibberings of Rome or the hysterical spurtings out of Qom contain anything remotely resembling the real bottom line about Where We Come From or What It$prime;s All About, but that both might represent the way humanity truly wants to be; perhaps they are its truest images. Maybe reason is the aberration (thought perishes).
A little girl — long curly blonde hair, enormous blue eyes, with one of those unspillable plastic cups held chubbily in both hands — has just appeared in the aisle beside me, expression very serious. She$prime;s gazing at me with that disinterested intensity only little kids seem to be capable of. Gone again.
Absolutely gorgeous. But how do I know her parents aren$prime;t Christian fundamentalists and she won$prime;t grow up sincerely believing Darwin was an agent of the devil and evolution a dangerous nonsense?
I guess I don$prime;t. (Hey! I used $prime;guess$prime; instead of $prime;suppose$prime;! I$prime;m thinking like an American already!) I guess I don$prime;t, and it wouldn$prime;t matter if I did. Let the crazies burn rock albums and hunt the Ark on Ararat; let them look stupid while we look to the future. We just have to hope there are always more of us than there are of them, or at least that we are more influential, better placed. Whatever.
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