On Being Sad About Iain Banks

[danieldwilliam]

Sad though I am about the premature, indeed early, death of Iain Banks I’m finding it difficult to connect with the collective mourning. Social media seems full of similar notes on his passing, my own included.  They seem sincere and respectful but a little distant. Lots of electronic glasses of whisky are being drunk in his honour.

Perhaps I don’t believe that all that many those glasses are being actually being drunk.

Would a Banks Dinner be well attended?

Comments

[andrewducker]

The deaths of people I don't know doesn't tend to cause much of an emotional response to me. And I do feel somewhat distant about this - it's somewhat sad, because there will never be any more Culture novels, but I guess I generally feel that people die - and while this seems like a shame in the abstract, unless I actually knew the person personally, it's not something which affects me overly-much.

So my reaction was more of a "That's sad" than a wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I'd go to a Banks Dinner, but largely to talk to other Banks Geeks :->

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'd go to a Banks Dinner, but largely to talk to other Banks Geeks :->

What other reason could there be?

Yeah, I mostly feel sad for myself. If Banks had worked till he was 70 I’d have had another ten books to enjoy. So, I’m sad that I’ve missed out on those.

I’m sad for him too and for people who knew him and no man is an island but you’re right, people die. They often die before they want to. That is sad but commonplace.


The grief seems like the genuine but not very strong grief of lots of separate people rather than the grief of a movement or a collective.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

At this end, the grief I'm surrounded by is the grief of people who have lost the centre of a precious community and a person they hugely respected. I think the flow of books is secondary, although not insignificant.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think I'm not part of a Banks community. The only person I have a relationship where a shared appreciation of Banks is part of it is my dad.