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non american book that can be compared in some aspect to September 11th?

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2 Responses to “non american book that can be compared in some aspect to September 11th?”

1. 1
   D S Says:
   

   Ian McEwan’s Saturday:
   Saturday takes place in London after the September 11th attacks but before the 7 July 2005 London bombings. The novel shows how much the world has changed since the attacks in America.

   Saturday is partly a description of the pleasures of life, especially family and work, but also competitive sport, food and drink, cooking, and music, though McEwan makes Henry Perowne, a consultant neurosurgeon is a philistine when it comes to literature. Perowne has been very lucky in life: he has a long and happy marriage to a successful lawyer and a talented family. However, Perowne is aware of how lucky he is. Perowne’s day starts early, at 3.40 a.m., from the window of his bedroom he sees an aeroplane with one of its engines on fire, which later lands safely at Heathrow airport. This event casts a shadow over the whole day as the reasons given for this incident heard by Perowne on the television change and shift: is it an accident or connected with terrorism? Are the pilots islamist terrorists or unfortunate people who did their job well?

   He descends to the kitchen, meeting his 18 year old son Theo, a rising blues guitarist whose day is ending after a late gig. En route to his weekly squash game, a traffic diversion reminds him again of the anti-war protests. He collides with another car, damaging its wing mirror. At first the driver, Baxter tries to extort money from him but then threatens to beat him up. From Baxter’s behaviour, Perowne quickly recognises the onset of Huntington’s disease, though he receives a punch in the sternum he manages to leave escape without harm by describing new treatments for his disease.

   Perowne feels himself becoming older and feebler, though a sporting gentleman. He barely loses a hotly contested match, which forms a 17 page thrilling scence in the book. After buying some fish he visits his mother, suffering from vascular dementia, in a nursing home. Perowne contrasts her with her younger days as a champion swimmer and reflects on the degree to which his mother is no longer there.

   He returns home to cook a family dinner, the evening news again reminds him of the grander arc of events that surround his life. Daisy, his daughter a new poet in her early twenties arrives home from Paris first, and the two discuss the coming war in Iraq. His father-in-law, with whom he enjoys a cordial rather than close relationship, arrives next. Daisy reconciles an earlier literary disagreement that lead to a froideur with her maternal grandfather, remembering that he had inspired her love of literature. Theo returns next, warmly greeted by all.

   Rosalind, Perowne’s busy but caring wife, is the last to arrive home, but as she enters Baxter and an accomplice force their way in. Armed with knives, Baxter punches the old man, intimidates the family and orders Daisy to strip naked. When she does, Perowne notices that she is pregnant. Finding out she is a poet, Baxter makes her recite a poem. Rather than one of her own, she recites Dover Beach, which has the effect of disarming Baxter. Instead he becomes enthusiastic about Perowne’s renewed talk about new treatment for Huntington’s disease. His companion abandons him, and Baxter is overpowered and knocked unconscious falling down the stairs.

   That night Perowne is summoned to the hospital for an emergency operation on Baxter. This Perowne conducts successfully and professionally. He reflects that though this is the ‘right’ course to take, its effect will be to expose Baxter to the future agonies of his disease. Perowne’s Saturday ends at around 5:15 a.m., after he has returned from the hospital and made love to his wife again.

   Saturday attempts to set down the textures of everyday life, but winds them together into a plot that explodes larger issues. McEwan’s cataloguing of the local, brings the grander themes of life into clear focus. As he goes about his day, war and politics frequently enter his peripheral vision and brittlness of his bubble.

   The political demonstration of the day and the ubiquity of 24 hour news provide background noise to Perowne’s day, leading to him to ponder his relationship with these events

   "It’s an illusion to believe himself active in the story. Does he think he’s changing something, watching news programmes, or lying on his back on the sofa on Sunday afternoon, reading more opinion columns of undgrounded certainities, more long articles about what really lies behind this or that development, or what is surely going to happen next, predictions forgotten as soon as they are read, well before events disprove them?" Perowne’s own intelligence makes him apathetic, he can see both sides of the argument, and his beliefs are characterised by a series of hard choices rather than sure certainities.

   January 14th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
2. 2
   Lili Says:
   

   Your word "compared" is a bit puzzling. Do you mean a non-American book that DEALS in some way with 9/11?

   One is "Windows on the World," a novel by French writer Frederic Beigbeder. It is on the list below, under "Literature." It is available in English.

   January 14th, 2010 at 2:21 pm

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