[READ: September 24, 2001 & May 9, 2011] Talk of the Town
After 9/11, I read everything about the incident (like the multiple comics that came out). About a week after 9/11 my friend Al and I went down to Hoboken and absorbed the decay (and I can’t help but wonder if that’s why I’ve developed adult asthma). My 9/11 story is no more compelling than anyone else’s and may even be far less compelling (you can read a snippet at Al’s blog, should you care to). Anyhow, when this issue of The New Yorker came out (with the amazing cover that you can’t really see here–the towers are in a shiny black that reflects the light), I read all of these accounts and recollections.
I came upon them again recently when I was doing a New Yorker search for Jonathan Franzen. I recently read all of his New Yorker entries, but when I saw that he had one that was part of this 9/11 issue, I decided to put it off. It was reasonably close to the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, and I told myself I’d wait until then to reread and see what I thought.
And then President Obama gave the order to capture and kill Osama bin Laden (hooray!) and that seemed like a far more propitious reason to go back and re-read these articles. Now I can feel a bit lighter about the whole thing (just a bit, but a bit can be a lot). And so, here’s a somewhat facile reaction to these reactions.
I’ll preface by saying I can’t imagine what it must have been like to write something, anything at that time. Some people respond well to pressure and tragedy and perhaps that’s what happened here. I can’t help but wonder how paralyzing it must have been for other writers (as it was for most people). So that these writers had the wherewithal to write anything coherent is pretty amazing. And the fact that the could express the range of emotions that they do is extraordinary. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 