books (Falling Man)
by Don Delillo
Project Delillo continues.
I don't know this America anymore. I don't recognize it. There's an empty space where America used to be.
This statement is uttered late in this novel by one of the narrative's minor characters, but, it seems to me to be the heart and soul of this new work by America's most American writer.
I should preface my review by pointing out that the intentions of Project Delillo were to read every novel by this brilliant writer in the order that he published them. I got sidetracked by all the other books I've been trying to read and then this got published, a new novel for 2007, before I could resume my reading (by my count, I should be ready for Running Dog). So this novel was read out of order, but I think it's a good novel to work toward. I can now see how his early work builds up to this, a novel that I think is incredibly brilliant, cathartic, and sad.
The novel is about September 11. Some naysayers will cry "Too soon! Too soon!" but I believe that if any novelist is going to effectively take on such difficult and touchy subject matter, than it might as well be Delillo. Delillo's work paints a portrait of America that is second only to The Declaration of Independence.
Keith was there that day. In the building when the first plane struck. He manages, though, to find his way through the ensuing chaos to a stairwell and out the lobby doors to safety. In the stairwell, he finds an abandoned briefcase that, for reasons unknown to him at the time, he decides to rescue from its solitude. Once safe, he flags down a cab and heads to the apartment of his estranged wife. They're not divorced yet, but have been separated for quite some time.
Lianne sees his return to the fold as a sign that all will be right with the world. She accepts Keith back in. She tries, grateful that he is alive, to begin their life together anew. But she also battles her own paranoia that the world is changing faster than she can possibly keep up with. She begins to see Islam in everything--the music from a neighboring apartment, innocuous encounters with cab drivers and grocery clerks.
Meanwhile, Justin, their only child, has stolen Keith's binoculars and has taken to watching the skies for more airplanes, wanting to warn the world of the return of "Bill Lawton" should he decide to attack again.
Keith finds the owner of the rescued briefcase. He has a brief affair with her and then promptly quits his job to become a professional poker player. Lianne seeks refuge from her Alzheimer patients with Martin, a politically-active intellectual who has been sleeping with her mother Nina for as long as Lianne can remember. She becomes obsessed with David Janiak, aka The Falling Man, a performance artist who suspends himself from bridges and fire escapes and street signs in a mockery of the famous photo of a man plummeting to the ground after having jumped from the towers. In his performances, she finds catharsis, an ability to see what her husband saw, an ability to forgive and forget despite the urge to pummel and kill. Justin, for his part in this, becomes a political activist, though his efforts are misguided, since he isn't really old enough to understand the changed climate of the world. He is aware that something is wrong, but isn't really certain exactly what it is that needs fixing.
All of this, these three people wandering through their lives, is mirrored and intercut by the account of Hammad, an Islamic fundamentalist training and preparing for the "big event that will make America see."
This is a vastly superior novel to Delillo's last few efforts (namely Cosmopolis which I hated hated hated). Its a short novel, too. But Delillo manages to pack a thousand-page punch into a mere two hundred forty-six pages. Falling Man is also well realized. It snaps a Polaroid of a changed nation, a nation of new values, new morals, new faiths, and new fears. It reveals something we already knew but did not quite believe: there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is still possible to find peace and comfort in an era of fear.
The novel itself is somewhat obsessed with forcing you to think about where you were and what you were doing when you first heard the news of these events. It's an effective tool in drawing one into this novel. Be warned, however, that its depictions of Keith's escape from the building (and in Hammad's flight into the first tower) are quite harrowing. If you can, in fact, breathe during the final climactic pages, then there's something wrong with you. I couldn't breathe. I could feel the novel building to this and I was still unprepared. The image of Keith speaking to a friend who has already been crushed by debris, trying to convince him to get to his feet and move is not an image I will soon forget.
Not my favorite Delillo by a long shot. But my favorite of the ones I've read since Project Delillo began. This deserves a read. Maybe two.
Project Delillo continues.
I don't know this America anymore. I don't recognize it. There's an empty space where America used to be.
This statement is uttered late in this novel by one of the narrative's minor characters, but, it seems to me to be the heart and soul of this new work by America's most American writer.
I should preface my review by pointing out that the intentions of Project Delillo were to read every novel by this brilliant writer in the order that he published them. I got sidetracked by all the other books I've been trying to read and then this got published, a new novel for 2007, before I could resume my reading (by my count, I should be ready for Running Dog). So this novel was read out of order, but I think it's a good novel to work toward. I can now see how his early work builds up to this, a novel that I think is incredibly brilliant, cathartic, and sad.
The novel is about September 11. Some naysayers will cry "Too soon! Too soon!" but I believe that if any novelist is going to effectively take on such difficult and touchy subject matter, than it might as well be Delillo. Delillo's work paints a portrait of America that is second only to The Declaration of Independence.
Keith was there that day. In the building when the first plane struck. He manages, though, to find his way through the ensuing chaos to a stairwell and out the lobby doors to safety. In the stairwell, he finds an abandoned briefcase that, for reasons unknown to him at the time, he decides to rescue from its solitude. Once safe, he flags down a cab and heads to the apartment of his estranged wife. They're not divorced yet, but have been separated for quite some time.
Lianne sees his return to the fold as a sign that all will be right with the world. She accepts Keith back in. She tries, grateful that he is alive, to begin their life together anew. But she also battles her own paranoia that the world is changing faster than she can possibly keep up with. She begins to see Islam in everything--the music from a neighboring apartment, innocuous encounters with cab drivers and grocery clerks.
Meanwhile, Justin, their only child, has stolen Keith's binoculars and has taken to watching the skies for more airplanes, wanting to warn the world of the return of "Bill Lawton" should he decide to attack again.
Keith finds the owner of the rescued briefcase. He has a brief affair with her and then promptly quits his job to become a professional poker player. Lianne seeks refuge from her Alzheimer patients with Martin, a politically-active intellectual who has been sleeping with her mother Nina for as long as Lianne can remember. She becomes obsessed with David Janiak, aka The Falling Man, a performance artist who suspends himself from bridges and fire escapes and street signs in a mockery of the famous photo of a man plummeting to the ground after having jumped from the towers. In his performances, she finds catharsis, an ability to see what her husband saw, an ability to forgive and forget despite the urge to pummel and kill. Justin, for his part in this, becomes a political activist, though his efforts are misguided, since he isn't really old enough to understand the changed climate of the world. He is aware that something is wrong, but isn't really certain exactly what it is that needs fixing.
All of this, these three people wandering through their lives, is mirrored and intercut by the account of Hammad, an Islamic fundamentalist training and preparing for the "big event that will make America see."
This is a vastly superior novel to Delillo's last few efforts (namely Cosmopolis which I hated hated hated). Its a short novel, too. But Delillo manages to pack a thousand-page punch into a mere two hundred forty-six pages. Falling Man is also well realized. It snaps a Polaroid of a changed nation, a nation of new values, new morals, new faiths, and new fears. It reveals something we already knew but did not quite believe: there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is still possible to find peace and comfort in an era of fear.
The novel itself is somewhat obsessed with forcing you to think about where you were and what you were doing when you first heard the news of these events. It's an effective tool in drawing one into this novel. Be warned, however, that its depictions of Keith's escape from the building (and in Hammad's flight into the first tower) are quite harrowing. If you can, in fact, breathe during the final climactic pages, then there's something wrong with you. I couldn't breathe. I could feel the novel building to this and I was still unprepared. The image of Keith speaking to a friend who has already been crushed by debris, trying to convince him to get to his feet and move is not an image I will soon forget.
Not my favorite Delillo by a long shot. But my favorite of the ones I've read since Project Delillo began. This deserves a read. Maybe two.