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DeLillo Confronts September 11

Submitted by Bruce Sheridan, May 4, 2007 13:51

I moved my family from New Zealand to the US less that 3 weeks before September 11, 2001. I am pleased I was in America because I experienced the inital quiet that my friends outside the country never saw. They remember only flag waving, jingoistic rhetoric, anger and a determination to reflect the aggression of the terrorists back at the world. In other words, they remember no more than what every news channel decided to show and that happened to add up to a convenient confirmation of long-held prejudices about loud, angry Americans. In contrast, I remember in those first days a stunned, wounded people seeking to give and receive comfort and struggling to comprehend rather than looking for targets. I know of no nation in the world that could be certain of such little initial loquacity, especially one as committed to chattering endlessly about everything however trivial as the US. Yes, "debating and planning and fantasizing" soon took over, but I think Adam Kirsch has accepted without question the course-grained media generalizations about that period. I have not yet read Falling Man but I have read all Don DeLillo's previous works and in New Zealand I directed a production of his plays The Day Room and The Rapture of the Athelete Assumed Into Heaven. I suspect Mr. DeLillo has not been so easily taken in by our collective, media-provided memory and has written in a way that is informed by those other forgotten aspects. I'll read Falling Man to find out.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
I think the idea that writers like Delillo perform a public service by interpreting events like 9/11 is risable. The... [MORE]	stuart munro	May 13, 2007 02:12
"Falling Man" extends the brilliant career of America's foremost novelist. He is the only American white male to have any... [MORE]	kl	May 28, 2007 17:56
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated) has also written a post 9/11 book that is very good. I will get... [MORE]	Leslie	May 12, 2007 22:20
Why do none of the major paper critics ever mention Paul West 's brilliant "The Immensity of the Here and... [MORE]	Dennis	May 4, 2007 21:02
Dennis's right-on comments about Paul West's The Immensity of the Here and Now, a novel of 9.11raise two points: 1)... [MORE]	Ronald Christ	May 5, 2007 13:33
I moved my family from New Zealand to the US less that 3 weeks before September 11, 2001. I am...	Bruce Sheridan	May 4, 2007 13:51
Delillo has always seemed like someone staring very hard at something I can't see. [MORE]	Mick Sherman	May 4, 2007 12:47
DeLillo's two best passages (ok, very subjectively, since I've only read four of his books) are 1. the baseball scene... [MORE]	Bill	May 4, 2007 10:16
The South suffered badly in the Civil War, and its fiction reflects that. I think you will begin to see... [MORE]	BH	May 4, 2007 12:42
With all due respect to Adam Kirsch, he needs to leave the library and inhale some fresh air. Spetember 11... [MORE]	Michael Anderson	May 4, 2007 09:36
I may be slow but I don't exactly get this piece. Kirsch is ordinarily a very fine writer. But the... [MORE]	Shalom Freedman	May 4, 2007 08:47
In response to trey. I'm unaware why disagreement with the country you live in necessarily means that one must move... [MORE]	middle	May 4, 2007 08:41
Carl Schurz put this more eloquently than I ever could over a century ago. The quote has been misused since... [MORE]	Ef	May 4, 2007 11:22
Have we heard, read, and seen in film (The Pawnbroker) scenarios of survivor culture shock and survivor guilt? -- at... [MORE]	Frank Joseph Routman	May 3, 2007 10:07
was attacked for once. the question that was never dealt with was "why do they hate us"... and the answer... [MORE]	michael roloff	May 2, 2007 10:02
america is certainly not innocent, of this we can agree. but it is the still the best country to live... [MORE]	trey	May 2, 2007 23:58
America is certainly the best country to live in? Only an American could say that without feeling any need to... [MORE]	sharon	May 5, 2007 17:26