Two Takes on the Post-9/11 World: A Pair of Book Reviews

I happened to serendipitously wind up reading two books in a row that dealt in very different ways with making sense of our post-9/11 world.  The first, On the Road to Kandahar, is the account of reporter Jason Burke's journey through Islamic societies over the past 15 years.  The second, Don DeLillo's latest novel Falling Man uses the art of fiction to examine how the collapse of the World Trade Centers impacted us.

Generally I feel I get my fill and then some through the news on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Al Queda, and other related issues.  So On the Road to Kandahar is the first nonfiction book I've actually read on these subjects.  I found it a worthwhile read largely because the book sheds light on Islamic societies through the author's extensive first-hand experience.  Not to say he doesn't have his opinions, but generally the book is written more to inform rather than to promote a political agenda.

Burke is about my age and began travelling around the time I was backpacking around Europe.  He was slightly more adventurous, crossing the Turkish border to join Kurdish separatists fighting against Saddam Houssein's forces.  This experience set him on a career path that took him across the Islamic world, from Algeria to Afghanistan. 

I won't try to recap his many adventures and insights here, rather I encourage you to read them for yourself.  The biggest take-away I had in reading this book is the incredible diversity of the Muslim world, and how ludicrious it is to try to make sweeping generalizations about over one billion people that live in such different circumstances.  He also emphasizes the importance of the vast majority of Muslims who want to raise their families in peace, with little interest in extremist agendas.  Creating conditions where such families can raise their children in peace and reasonable prosperity limits the potential for extremist messages to take hold.

Toward the end of the book, Burke struggles to make sense of the 7/7 bombings close to his London home.  He goes back to Pakistan after this terrorist attack, and after re-connecting with friends there, concludes:

To emphasize the differences when there is so much that binds, to emphasize divisions when there is so much the same, to emphasize distance when there is so much that is increasingly close, is not just dangerous but wrong.

DeLillo's fictional take on the post 9/11 world is darker than Burke's somewhat hopeful conclusion.  Falling Man's main character, Keith, managed to escape the World Trade Center with limited physical damage but with deep psychic scars.  The title directly refers to a bizarre street performer in the book who re-enacts the businessmen falling out of the towers after the plane crashed.  But it also seems to be a play on the concept of "fallen man", suggesting we have changed since the 9/11 attack and are still falling.

Right after the attack, Keith half-consciously directs a good samaritan to take him to the home of his estranged wife.  This at first seems like a positive instinct to rebuild his family, but we see in many ways Keith is not fully present in family life.  Much of the plot revolves around the individual struggle of each family member in the days after 9/11 and how that impacts their relationships.  The stories invented by their elementary school age son and his friends to make sense of things is both scary and funny.

As he does in other works, DeLillo writes compellingly about both personal issues and the broader social context.  He deftly uses the language to pack power into each sentence.  For instance, he introduces one character with, "He was the kind of man who is not old yet by strict count but who carries something heavier than hard years."

Both of these books, in their own way, provide insight into the hard years that have followed the 9/11 attacks.