Terror and the Novel
Windows on the World
by Frédéric Beigbeder
Hyperion, 2004, 307 pages
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Houghton Mifflin, 2005, 368 pages
Reviewed by Catherine MacLennan
Soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States articles appeared asking how writers would depict these events. These articles seemed too early…and were writers just vultures eager to prey on others’ misery? Couldn’t they use their own tragedies, or their imagination? Couldn’t they just make something up?
While the Hollywood or made-for-TV movie can be counted on to be exploitative, insulting and dumb, novels are capable of pausing; novels can deal with subtlety and complexity – or should be able to! In an “Author’s Note” at the end of Windows on the World, Beigbeder writes: “Novels, I believe, are a means of understanding history; they can be windows on our world. But merging fiction with truth - and with tragedy – risks hurting those who have already suffered...” A few pages earlier, the novelist character says: “ I truly don’t know why I wrote this book. Perhaps because I couldn’t see the point of speaking of anything else. What else is there to write? The only interesting subjects are those that are taboo. We must write what is forbidden.”
Originally published in French, Beigbeder’s Windows on the World was a huge bestseller in France. It tells the story of a father and two sons who happened to be in the restaurant at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks. It deals with their final moments before and after the attack, but also features another character, a French novelist, who is writing about the attack, who remembers living in New York, who mourns the end of the 1970s and writes about his shallow, unfulfilling existence and relationships.
As expected, there are the scenes of humanity and horror (not too much horror – in the author’s note he further states that he has “revised” some of the scenes for the English edition, the “language in which the tragedy happened”) - but less expected is the focus of the book. Intended primarily for a French, and most likely anti- American audience, the book is not only sympathetic to the Texan father character and his sons but wants to promote sympathy, understanding and solidarity between the French and the U.S. The historical French-US connections during American Independence era; the similarities of contemporary citizens - the American character agonizes about his relationships, as does the French author character; the French author sits in a restaurant atop the highest skyscraper in Paris (there were plans to build two side by side); and the French author is enthusiastic about American culture. He lists all the American writers, musicians and film directors he loves. He states: “American independent and underground cinema is the most subversive in the world” [True!] However, he is so pro-American that he goes over the top: “American culture dominates the planet not for economic reasons, but because of its quality.” Not only would sympathetic French people not agree with this, but even many in the U.S. would not either. The American culture that dominates the planet is not the best of the US, but the worst – and does so purely for economic reasons.
While the novel may have worked in France in its attempt to promote the author’s pro- American position, as a work of fiction it is less captivating, especially to English speaking audiences. The characters are a little thin, and the Texan sometimes sounds more like the French author than a convincing distinct character from another country. Beigbeder has the father wondering about his sons “Will they be successful artists, rock stars, Hollywood actors, TV presenters? Maybe industrialists, bankers, ruthless businessmen? As a father, I hope they choose the second option, but as an American, I can’t help but fantasize about the first.” This doesn’t really sound like the way an American father would think, but it does sound more like a French caricaturized idea of what an American would think (and no American would say “Hollywood actor” – it would simply be “actor’). Further, English-speaking readers, and especially American readers, have had access to accounts of individuals that were involved in the attack (such as the New York Times’s extensive coverage). After that, a novel about the attack can feel a bit superfluous.
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close does not directly depict the events of September 11 but it does depict related traumas – the surviving wife and child dealing with the loss of the father/husband killed on September 11, as well as to another era’s sudden, life-changing bombing (Dresden - that his grandparents experienced)- the search for people and answers and learning to live again. The hero of the novel, Oskar Schell, is a loveably humorous, precocious nine year old who hides a the tape recording of his father’s last phone call and sets out across the city to discover the mystery of a key he finds in his father’s belongings. Oskar has many activities and interests including appearing in a production of Hamlet, making jewelry, speaking French, playing the tambourine and jujitsu (“Mom thought it would be good for me to have a physical activity besides tambourining”). Foer depicts him as a wise child, but still very much a child – he says, “Don’t be mad at me” on more than one occasion.
As discussed above in Beigbeder’s Author’s Note – certainly any depiction that touches on real-life tragic events must be done sensitively. Foer does this for the most part, but the only thing that could be criticized is the inclusion of a photograph of someone falling from the World Trade Center. A number of photographs are included in the novel, but they all depict “fictional” aspects of the novel. The WTC photo is the only photograph from “real life.” It does seem unnecessary, and the book is strong enough not to require its inclusion. On the other hand, Beigbeder asks: “Why did the dead go unseen?…I’m not sure that all of the victims would consent to be expunged in this manner.”
Like his previous novel, Everything is Illuminated, Foer includes multiple viewpoints from different individuals, different ages, different countries and different eras. The effect of these complimentary but differing experiences is one that is the opposite of terrorism – for terrorism is not only brutal and murderous, but fundamentally incapable of perceiving another point of view.