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White Rain: 9/11 and American Fiction

2015; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 45; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3138/cras.2014.013

1710-114X

Ira Nadel,

Comics and Graphic Narratives

Abstract: How have authors responded to 9/11? This article examines a variety of reactions in light of the need to construct a dominant narrative necessary to restore a sense of security and understanding. But no single work or group of works has so far managed to trump the tragedy, and a void remains. The phrase “white rain” expresses the blizzard of paper generated by authors attempting to make sense of the event. Authors as diverse as John Updike, Don DeLillo, Frédéric Beigbeder, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Thomas Pynchon are the focus of the analysis here, showing how newly opened textual spaces are filled with works alternating between history and fiction. Of particular importance is the role of film, the importance of fear, and the symbol of flags in evaluating the process of recovery. Of particular note is the unease that characterizes the reaction of writers to the challenge they face: how to unite 9/11 as it exists in our cultural imagination with the event itself. That is the new task of literature in the post-9/11 age which, ironically, seems to require conflict or catastrophe for its inspiration.