{"id":6926,"date":"2008-04-01T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/01\/the-steep-appro\/"},"modified":"2008-04-01T12:00:32","modified_gmt":"2008-04-01T12:00:32","slug":"the-steep-appro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/01\/the-steep-appro\/","title":{"rendered":"The Steep Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

I finished up Iain Banks’
\n
\nThe Steep Approach to Garbadale<\/a><\/i> a couple of days ago. Took me
\nabout a week, and it felt like a faster-than-usual read, though it’s not like I
\nspend all that much time reading fiction for the sport of it (at least not these
\ndays). Faster than expected, a surprisingly engaging novel, a story well
\ntold–exactly as promised in the approbative cover matter. <\/p>\n

The upshot: Alban Wopuld deals with a hiatus from the family circle,
\nresurfacing at the behest of a cousin who recruits him to stir up dissent among
\nfamily members in favor of approving the sale of their rights to a popular game,
\nEmpire!<\/i>. Alban re-emerges as an influential presence in the family, all
\nthe while coping with two formative events from earlier in his life (and, in
\ndifferent degrees, these events are at the root of his alienation): his
\nmother’s suicide and a cousinly love affair.<\/p>\n

This little summary doesn’t ruin it. And I fully intend to be getting
\nalong with other novels by Banks just as soon as…one of these days. I only had
\ntime for this one because I am purposefully neglecting the diss for a couple of
\nweeks while on a back-to-back conferences jag (seriously, it must appear that I
\nhave been shitting around for a couple of weeks now; lazing through some books
\nabout maps, etc.). Anyhow, by this point, I sure I have done enough to pique
\nyour interest in The Steep Approach<\/i> that I should give a little bit more,
\nso, then, two passages from dog-eared pages:<\/p>\n

Also, third, she tried to quantify how hopelessly, uselessly,
\n\tpathetically weak she felt. It took a long time–she was a
\n\tmathematician, after all, not a poet, so images were not normally her strong
\n\tsuit–but eventually she decided on one. It involved a banana. Specifically,
\n\tthe long stringy bits you find between the skin and flesh of a banana. She
\n\tfelt so weak you could have tied her up with those stringy bits of banana
\n\tand she wouldn’t have been able to struggle free. That was how weak she
\n\tfelt. (220)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This comes as VG–Alban’s other<\/i> love interest–remembers swimming near
\na reef when the disastrous tsunami welled up from the Indian Ocean in ’04. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One more, on where are the numbers?<\/i>:<\/p>\n

\n\tVerushka and Aunt Clara are talking:
\n\t‘I don’t understand. What can that mean, "Where are the numbers?"’
\n\t‘I think it means, Do they exist as abstract entities–like physical laws,
\n\tas functions of the nature of the universe; or are they like cultural
\n\tconstructs? Do they exist without somebody thinking them?’
\n\t…
\n\t‘Alban got me thinking about it this way.’
\n\t‘Alban? Really?’
\n\t‘Yes. He said, "Where you left them," which is pretty much just flippant,
\n\tbut there’s a wee grain of possibility there and so my answer to the
\n\tquestion, "Where are the numbers?" is, "Where do you think?" See what I’m
\n\tdoing there?’
\n\t‘Not really. That sounds flippant too.’
\n\t‘Well, it sounds it at first, but if you take it out of the context of
\n\tflippancy and treat it as a new question in its own right, you’re asking,
\n\tWhere does your thinking happen?’
\n\t‘In your brain?’
\n\t‘Well, yes, so if you use one question as an answer to the first, you’re
\n\tsaying the numbers exist in your head.’
\n\t‘Mine feels rather tight at the moment. Like it’s about to burst with
\n\tnumbers and odd questions.’
\n\tYeah, I get that a lot. Anyway. It’s more interesting than just saying, "The
\n\tnumbers are in your head," because otherwise why put it in the form of a
\n\tquestion at all? Why not just say that?’
\n\t‘You mean, say, "The numbers are in your head"?’
\n\t‘Yes. Because then it becomes a question about boundaries.’
\n\t‘Boundaries.’
\n\t‘When you think about numbers, are you using a little bit of the universe to
\n\tthink about it, or is it using a little bit of itself to think about itself,
\n\tor, even, about something–about these entities called numbers–that might
\n\tbe said to exist outside of itself, if one uses one of the less ultimately
\n\tinclusive definitions of the word "universe"?’ Verushka sits back,
\n\ttriumphant. ‘See?’
\n\t‘Not really,’ Clara admits. ‘And my old head is rather starting to spin.’
\n\t‘Well, to be fair,’ Verushka agrees, ‘it’s an incomplete answer. But I like
\n\tthe direction it’s going in.’
\n\t‘That all sounds very fascinating,’ Graeme says.
\n\t‘It is, isn’t it?’ Verushka says brightly before turning back to Clara as
\n\tshe says,
\n\t‘And you do this for a living?’
\n\t‘Not this part, no; this is just for fun.’ (270)\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>I finished up Iain Banks’ The Steep Approach to Garbadale a couple of days ago. Took me about a week, and it felt like a faster-than-usual read, though it’s not like I spend all that much time reading fiction for the sport of it (at least not these days). Faster than expected, a surprisingly engaging…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[167],"tags":[823,824,825,426,826,827,828,477,425],"class_list":["post-6926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading_notes","tag-banks","tag-fiction","tag-imagery","tag-location","tag-math","tag-novel","tag-numbers","tag-philosophy","tag-place"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Steep Approach - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/01\/the-steep-appro\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Steep Approach - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 3 minsI finished up Iain Banks’ The Steep Approach to Garbadale a couple of days ago. 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Mieville\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Notes","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/reading_notes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/img\/tctc.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6991,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/02\/banks-race-rhet\/","url_meta":{"origin":6926,"position":4},"title":"Banks, Race, Rhetoric, and Technology","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"July 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Banks, Adam J. Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006. \"The questions remain, hauntingly: Is it possible to make this nation a just one for Black people? Is it worth the struggle? Can technologies really be used to serve liberatory ends, or is that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Technologies"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Technologies","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/writing_technol\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6312,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2005\/05\/23\/bellwether\/","url_meta":{"origin":6926,"position":5},"title":"Bellwether","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"May 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the weekend I finished up Connie Willis' 1996 novel Bellwether.\u00a0 It was the between-semesters pleasure-read I made space for.\u00a0 I overheard C. and M. chatting about it one day this spring; decided it'd be worth a quick read if it made both of their lists. 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