I’ve discovered Iain Banks, and it feels almost like the first time I read Anthony Bourdain. It’s a feeling of pure electricity.
Also it will forever be an honor to read words written by beings who’re born to write.
People like these are not just writers, but conduits of something seemingly spiritual or alien or out-of-this-world. They remind me that the world isn’t just so. There is definitely something beyond, but what? In the meantime art and writing and music and the countless results of inspired creativity will sustain us here, until we get there, whatever and wherever that is.
As always, I’m a little late (but am I?). Iain Banks is no longer with us, but I read a really beautiful obituary about him in The Guardian and I don’t know why, but I feel satisfied.
My satisfaction comes from knowing that he had lived a life filled with most of the things he wanted – books, writing, readers, the chance to live in his imagination, and the ability to warp the shape of this universe through his thoughts.
It’s really all so satisfying.