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Falling Man
There is September 11 and then there are the days after, and finally the years.
Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-the-century America. It begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few people.
First there is Keith, walking out of the rubble into a life that he'd always imagined belonged to everyone but him. Then Lianne, his estranged wife, memory-haunted, trying to reconcile two versions of the same shadowy man. And their small son Justin, standing at the window, scanning the sky for more planes.
These are lives choreographed by loss, grief and the enormous force of history.
Falling Man is a magnificent, essential novel about the event that defines turn-of-the-century America. It begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few people.
First there is Keith, walking out of the rubble into a life that he'd always imagined belonged to everyone but him. Then Lianne, his estranged wife, memory-haunted, trying to reconcile two versions of the same shadowy man. And their small son Justin, standing at the window, scanning the sky for more planes.
These are lives choreographed by loss, grief and the enormous force of history.
246 pages, Hardcover
First published May 15, 2007
455 people are currently reading
10132 people want to read
About the author
Don DeLillo
102books6,252followersDonald Richard DeLillo is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, the advent of the Digital Age, mathematics, politics, economics, and sports.
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
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August 16, 2007Don DeLillo's novel Falling Man has more unspecified pronouns than I care to read.
It's written in that postmodern style that calls for rapidly changing vignettes; the reader bounces from one scene to another to another in just four pages, and as if to drive us mad, DeLillo hardly ever tells us who is speaking or acting. The sections begin with sentences like: "He missed the kid" or "She missed those nights with friends when you talk about everything." We're left in the dark, and the characters, as a result, feel far, far away.
Maybe this is the point. Maybe. This is, after all, a novel about a dysfunctional family (father, mother, son) and the impact of 9/11 on their lives. The novel begins in the cloudy streets after the attack, and it jumps around through the preceding events and the aftermath until it finally returns to the husband's experience inside the towers when the planes hit. The characters are already estranged from each other before they suffer this trauma, and the events that follow only further estrange them.
And so, it seems, nobody really knows anybody, and hardly anyone really wants to talk to anyone else about anything, and DeLillo, it seems, wants us to feel this emptiness and helplessness. Conversations between characters are abstract and oblique. They repeat lines often, as if in a trance. Their sentences fall short. They all fade away from each other. Sometimes they even talk about fading away from each other.
Maybe this is an accurate portrayal of the shock and confusion of what happened, but it doesn't make good reading.
The question it raises, though, is what DeLillo's intention is. Reading this was maddening; there's very little to grab onto. If his goal is for us to experience the same aimless wandering as the people who walked away from the rubble, then he has succeeded. We're confused, we don't know where we're going, but we keep turning the pages.
Unfortunately, doing so is a burden. I wanted again and again to abandon this book, but forced myself through it. The ending, however, did offer some reward. In the final pages DeLillo recreates what it was like to be in the towers when the planes struck. It offered something solid and new, and it helped explain the frustrating mood of the rest of the novel.
Could DeLillo have started with the crash? It might have explained the tone better in my mind, but he’d have been left without a clear ending. As it is, the attack does serve as a kind of climax.
Even so, I realize that some of my distaste also came from being unwilling to let myself into the novel. Already, I was skeptical of the sensationalism of the event. 9/11 still reeks of press and politics, and making a film or writing a book about it seems like a path to an easy buck, even if it is Don DeLillo.
As a treatment of 9/11, I appreciated Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close more. It gives us the distance from the attacks that time has allowed most readers. It takes us away from the immediacy of being in the towers and in the rubble, which most of us will never quite be able to relate to, and explores how that experience has become a part of our lives rather than the entirety of our lives.
Do I recommend it? No. Maybe for someone who wants to know what it feels like to be lost.
Would I teach it? No.
Lasting Impression: Reading this is like walking through fog. There are shapes that look like people moving around you, but you never really know who they are.
It's written in that postmodern style that calls for rapidly changing vignettes; the reader bounces from one scene to another to another in just four pages, and as if to drive us mad, DeLillo hardly ever tells us who is speaking or acting. The sections begin with sentences like: "He missed the kid" or "She missed those nights with friends when you talk about everything." We're left in the dark, and the characters, as a result, feel far, far away.
Maybe this is the point. Maybe. This is, after all, a novel about a dysfunctional family (father, mother, son) and the impact of 9/11 on their lives. The novel begins in the cloudy streets after the attack, and it jumps around through the preceding events and the aftermath until it finally returns to the husband's experience inside the towers when the planes hit. The characters are already estranged from each other before they suffer this trauma, and the events that follow only further estrange them.
And so, it seems, nobody really knows anybody, and hardly anyone really wants to talk to anyone else about anything, and DeLillo, it seems, wants us to feel this emptiness and helplessness. Conversations between characters are abstract and oblique. They repeat lines often, as if in a trance. Their sentences fall short. They all fade away from each other. Sometimes they even talk about fading away from each other.
Maybe this is an accurate portrayal of the shock and confusion of what happened, but it doesn't make good reading.
The question it raises, though, is what DeLillo's intention is. Reading this was maddening; there's very little to grab onto. If his goal is for us to experience the same aimless wandering as the people who walked away from the rubble, then he has succeeded. We're confused, we don't know where we're going, but we keep turning the pages.
Unfortunately, doing so is a burden. I wanted again and again to abandon this book, but forced myself through it. The ending, however, did offer some reward. In the final pages DeLillo recreates what it was like to be in the towers when the planes struck. It offered something solid and new, and it helped explain the frustrating mood of the rest of the novel.
Could DeLillo have started with the crash? It might have explained the tone better in my mind, but he’d have been left without a clear ending. As it is, the attack does serve as a kind of climax.
Even so, I realize that some of my distaste also came from being unwilling to let myself into the novel. Already, I was skeptical of the sensationalism of the event. 9/11 still reeks of press and politics, and making a film or writing a book about it seems like a path to an easy buck, even if it is Don DeLillo.
As a treatment of 9/11, I appreciated Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close more. It gives us the distance from the attacks that time has allowed most readers. It takes us away from the immediacy of being in the towers and in the rubble, which most of us will never quite be able to relate to, and explores how that experience has become a part of our lives rather than the entirety of our lives.
Do I recommend it? No. Maybe for someone who wants to know what it feels like to be lost.
Would I teach it? No.
Lasting Impression: Reading this is like walking through fog. There are shapes that look like people moving around you, but you never really know who they are.
September 5, 2019
I read Falling Man just after it appeared, and liked it well enough, thinking it pictured a moment in time, here today and gone tomorrow.
But time has gone on and on since this reflection on overfed, over-anxious, over-zealous humanity facing the concept of 9/11 and its aftermath was published. And we are still falling, and falling and falling. Our children are waiting for disaster on the news as a kind of entertainment in the way the little boy watched for planes in the sky in Falling Man. We are falling, falling, waiting to crash, and we are not free - free falling - as the song goes, but bound for solid earth with our fragile bodies.
We are stuck, stuck falling.
This novel could be read as a perpetuum immobile on the human condition in the modern world...
But time has gone on and on since this reflection on overfed, over-anxious, over-zealous humanity facing the concept of 9/11 and its aftermath was published. And we are still falling, and falling and falling. Our children are waiting for disaster on the news as a kind of entertainment in the way the little boy watched for planes in the sky in Falling Man. We are falling, falling, waiting to crash, and we are not free - free falling - as the song goes, but bound for solid earth with our fragile bodies.
We are stuck, stuck falling.
This novel could be read as a perpetuum immobile on the human condition in the modern world...
September 11, 2019
Never before have I returned days later to delete an entire review and rewrite it, even added a star, but that's the case with "The Falling Man." And it's because I'm still absorbing it and wrestling with it even though I finished days ago. I've never read DeLillo before and have had an unusual experience with this book in that I find the subtext more interesting than the text.
While reading I was questioning some of the decisions DeLillo made, especially one that I thought was a fail, the inclusion of Hammad, but days later I realize it was actually a perfect choice, forcing upon us that he is as human as anyone else. Main character Keith's poker game is a brilliant device to track Keith's life before and after he survives the towers. Some of the members of the weekly poker game don't survive, another is badly injured. Keith's new relationship with poker provides both an escape from reality and an honest forging of a new reality in whose confines he can feel safe again.
One could never "capture" 9/11 in a novel and if you're looking for that, there are documentaries and nonfiction books that come close. As a novel, "The Falling Man" is breathtaking, difficult, full of symbolism, a book to be haunted by. It's no easy read. I love that days after closing this book I'm still engaging with it and challenged by it.
While reading I was questioning some of the decisions DeLillo made, especially one that I thought was a fail, the inclusion of Hammad, but days later I realize it was actually a perfect choice, forcing upon us that he is as human as anyone else. Main character Keith's poker game is a brilliant device to track Keith's life before and after he survives the towers. Some of the members of the weekly poker game don't survive, another is badly injured. Keith's new relationship with poker provides both an escape from reality and an honest forging of a new reality in whose confines he can feel safe again.
One could never "capture" 9/11 in a novel and if you're looking for that, there are documentaries and nonfiction books that come close. As a novel, "The Falling Man" is breathtaking, difficult, full of symbolism, a book to be haunted by. It's no easy read. I love that days after closing this book I'm still engaging with it and challenged by it.
September 16, 2022
DeLillo's novel about 9/11. His earlier novels are so prescient about such a scenario that it's perhaps odd that this is the only one of his novels premised on a rather mainstream idea. A man escapes from one of the Towers and instinctively makes for the home of his estranged wife and son instead of going to his own new home. The concept of home very much an inspiration in the archaeological digging in this novel. Keith's wife runs a workshop with people in the early stages of dementia. Our home of homes our sense of identity. Continuity and estrangement are two of his favoured themes and both are present here but in a more domestic guise than usual. Continuity is often elusive in his books; he likes estranging us. We're not always sure where he's leading us. Some of the dots join up to form crisp clean shapes, others to form elusive indeterminate shapes.
As always there are passages when DeLillo can seem a poet who write novels. For me he's one of the very few living novelists who have moved the novel into unchartered territory. I admired this more on second reading.
As always there are passages when DeLillo can seem a poet who write novels. For me he's one of the very few living novelists who have moved the novel into unchartered territory. I admired this more on second reading.
March 18, 2023
Struggled to truly get into this, and had it not been for my strict rule of finishing a book once I've got pass the halfway point I would have likely abandoned it. Falling man will be the last 21st century DeLillo novel I will read, and it also made me realise that Cosmopolis wasn't so bad after all. His 14th novel is an exploration of America's recent history, namely 9/11. DeLillo deploys a set of intersecting narratives which begins on September 11, 2001, just as the Twin Towers are falling.
It starts with New York City office worker Keith Neudecker who survives the attack, returning to his ex wife Lianne, and their young son Justin, instead of his own apartment, and in short, almost cryptic fragments that move around in time, we learn of the couple’s past difficulties and nominal reconciliation, in relation to Lianne’s troubled closeness to her elegant mother Nina, memories of her father, volunteer work with a Alzheimer’s patients� support group, and the poker playing cronies with whom Keith has led a separate life with. DeLillo connects these and numerous other segments, including the figures of an Iraqi true believer preparing himself for martyrdom, a jaded European who predicts America’s impending downfall, and an eponymous performance artist whose daring suicidal plunges increasingly foreshadows and embodies the experience of free fall which the other characters are leaning towards. Falling Man is compassionately written, and constructed with a harrowing momentum that did occasionally keep my nerves on edge, but it's disconnected style and characters that really didn't do anything for me, left me feeling empty after closing pages. Falling Man for some could be seen as one of DeLillo's better efforts in the last twenty years, but unfortunately for me it was just a chore to read.
October 16, 2018
1 Star
Falling Man is an epic failure largely because Don Delillo tries to tell a story that is simply not his story to tell.
Often lauded as the “first 9-11 novel� this story starts with our MC, Keith, literally on the streets of Manhattan after the second tower falls� already a risky and weighted choice for a narrator. But then halfway through, Keith’s story is paralleled with Hammad’s, a man revealed to be one of the hijackers.
And I get it okay. I get the whole parallel between Keith’s apathetic existence and loveless marriage and Hammad’s intensely driven and dedicated existence. I get what Delillo is trying to do, but it falls dangerously flat and over-simplifies complicated people and a complicated tragedy. None of the characters have very much substance, but portraying a terrorist as a singularly focused almost cartoon villain type felt especially lazy.
Part of this oversimplification is the fault of the needlessly vague post-modern style. The whole avoiding-pronouns and descriptions has never been a tactic I’ve enjoyed. And the dialogue here was SO ridiculously on-the-nose and stilted. Example:
Does any part of that feel like a conversation between a mother and daughter?? Particularly a conversation that just starts out of the blue about the daughters failing marriage?? The narrative seems so focused on critiquing ‘hollow� American family life, that the characters never feel like anything real� which makes the critique lose all credibility.
I usually try to avoid speculating authorial intent (because let’s be real it’s pretty much irrelevant) but all of this feels really rushed and bland. And I can’t help but wonder if Delillo was in such a rush to get buzz for being the “first 9/11 novel� that no one stopped to consider if this was a story worth telling and if it did justice to the people involved.
Falling Man is an epic failure largely because Don Delillo tries to tell a story that is simply not his story to tell.
Often lauded as the “first 9-11 novel� this story starts with our MC, Keith, literally on the streets of Manhattan after the second tower falls� already a risky and weighted choice for a narrator. But then halfway through, Keith’s story is paralleled with Hammad’s, a man revealed to be one of the hijackers.
And I get it okay. I get the whole parallel between Keith’s apathetic existence and loveless marriage and Hammad’s intensely driven and dedicated existence. I get what Delillo is trying to do, but it falls dangerously flat and over-simplifies complicated people and a complicated tragedy. None of the characters have very much substance, but portraying a terrorist as a singularly focused almost cartoon villain type felt especially lazy.
Part of this oversimplification is the fault of the needlessly vague post-modern style. The whole avoiding-pronouns and descriptions has never been a tactic I’ve enjoyed. And the dialogue here was SO ridiculously on-the-nose and stilted. Example:
”You thought Keith would get you there.�
“What did I want?�
“To feel dangerously alive. This was a quality you associated with your father. But that wasn’t the case.�
Does any part of that feel like a conversation between a mother and daughter?? Particularly a conversation that just starts out of the blue about the daughters failing marriage?? The narrative seems so focused on critiquing ‘hollow� American family life, that the characters never feel like anything real� which makes the critique lose all credibility.
I usually try to avoid speculating authorial intent (because let’s be real it’s pretty much irrelevant) but all of this feels really rushed and bland. And I can’t help but wonder if Delillo was in such a rush to get buzz for being the “first 9/11 novel� that no one stopped to consider if this was a story worth telling and if it did justice to the people involved.
October 11, 2020
CRITIQUE:
The Mystery Behind and Between Words
Up until "Falling Man", I was road-testing a theory that Delillo was fascinated by language, words and numbers, and the belief that behind and between words and numbers there is mystery and mysticism.
However, in this novel, he seems to have been more interested in what happens when we have no words to describe an event or an occurrence, when we are awestruck and literally speechless.
"Falling Man" is one of DeLillo's two literary responses to 9/11, the other being the Harper's essay,
Before and After the Planes
In the novel, we are witness to the accounts of two fictitious people who were in the Twin Towers and survived (Keith and Florence). There are other characters (including Keith's estranged wife, Lianne) who were not in either of the towers at the time of the plane crashes.
The event marks a severance in time. For ever, time will either be before or after the (terrifying) day of the planes: "That was before, this is after."
For everybody who witnessed the event, it was dreadful, until people realised that the event wasn’t accidental, but a terrorist act. Initially, people couldn't believe that the act was real, they disbelieved it, but when the second crash occurred, they realised that it was actually an act of war against the U.S.A.
America's Irrelevance
Martin, a progressive German art dealer (and the long-term lover of Lianne's mother), says:
The Language of Religion
Martin echoes the views of the Jihadists, perhaps because he might have been a Marxist radical in the 60's and 70's:
So Vast and Terrible, and Too Real
In his essay, Delillo writes,
We could not catch up with it quickly enough to formulate a suitable language to define, describe and discuss it.
Outrage at the Spectacle
In the novel, a performance artist known as the "Falling Man" devises an act in which he dives head first from buildings and bridges (with an unseen safety harness). However, Americans aren't ready for him:
Not even membership of a crowd of spectators, the solidarity of a spellbound audience, could relieve the effects of the disturbance. As with the photo of the falling man, spectators don't want to imagine/learn/know what occurred the moment before the jump started or the moment after the jump came to an end, let alone what happened in between.
Intimacy after the Planes
Ironically, despite the many relationship problems before the planes, afterwards we see greater or rejuvenated intimacy. The characters are beings who experienced an horrific event. Now they want to work out who they are and how they fit into the world and the people around them.
This is almost DeLillo's attempt to map out the philosophical and metaphysical territory of being and event. Somehow, it manages to be resistant to language. Words are still not enough. Images, art and film play an increased role and function. DeLillo's characters (and, by extension, we readers) must find new ways of looking and seeing.
Keith finds comfort in still life painting and in "things he could not name." Lianne realises "there was something in the brushstrokes that held a mystery she could not name." Either way, they still encounter and confront a mystery beyond language.
VERSE AND WORSE:
Women Running in the Morning Street
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
I like the streets.
This time of morning
There's something
About the city,
Down by the river
Streets nearly empty,
Cars blasting by
On the Drive.
Simple as That
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
Go away,
Come back.
Simple as that.
Trampled Under Foot
Women without high heels
Holding up their skirts,
Trip in the crowd, trampled
Unless they get out first,
Water falling, water flowing
The pipes have all been burst,
A worker with a crowbar
The bent end held out first,
The equities trader pauses,
One of the ones who flirts,
The smoke turns the rest of us
Into such nervous introverts,
Men make improvised masks
Out of their torn off shirts,
Bottles of water pass up the line
To quench everybody's thirst.
Seconds to Come
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
You are wishing
For death
And now
It is here
In the seconds
To come.
The Final Jump of David Janiak,
Performance Artist and Dangling Man
Structured
Improvisation.
Detailed and
Looming.
Headlong
Free fall.
The Only Light
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
The only light
Was vestigial now,
The light of
What comes after,
Carried in the residue
Of smashed matter,
In the ash ruins of what
Was various and human,
Hovering in
The air above.
But God
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
Did God
Do this
Or not?
Rebut God
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
God is
The voice
That says,
"I am
Not here."
SOUNDTRACK:
The Mystery Behind and Between Words
Up until "Falling Man", I was road-testing a theory that Delillo was fascinated by language, words and numbers, and the belief that behind and between words and numbers there is mystery and mysticism.
However, in this novel, he seems to have been more interested in what happens when we have no words to describe an event or an occurrence, when we are awestruck and literally speechless.
"Falling Man" is one of DeLillo's two literary responses to 9/11, the other being the Harper's essay,
Before and After the Planes
In the novel, we are witness to the accounts of two fictitious people who were in the Twin Towers and survived (Keith and Florence). There are other characters (including Keith's estranged wife, Lianne) who were not in either of the towers at the time of the plane crashes.
The event marks a severance in time. For ever, time will either be before or after the (terrifying) day of the planes: "That was before, this is after."
For everybody who witnessed the event, it was dreadful, until people realised that the event wasn’t accidental, but a terrorist act. Initially, people couldn't believe that the act was real, they disbelieved it, but when the second crash occurred, they realised that it was actually an act of war against the U.S.A.
America's Irrelevance
Martin, a progressive German art dealer (and the long-term lover of Lianne's mother), says:
"We're all sick of America and Americans. The subject nauseates us...
"For all the careless power of this country, let me say this, for all the danger it makes in the world, America is going to become irrelevant...
"It is losing the centre. It becomes the centre of its own shit. This is the only centre it occupies."
The Language of Religion
Martin echoes the views of the Jihadists, perhaps because he might have been a Marxist radical in the 60's and 70's:
"They speak of lost lands, failed states, foreign intervention, money, empire, oil, the narcissistic heart of the West...
"They think the world is a disease. This world, this society, ours. A disease that's spreading...
"They strike a blow to this country's dominance. They achieve this, to show how a great power can be vulnerable. A power that interferes, that occupies...
"One side has the capital, the labour, the technology, the armies, the agencies, the cities, the laws, the police and the prisons. The other side has a few men willing to die...
"Forget God. These are matters of history. This is politics and economics. All the things that shape lives, millions of people, dispossessed, their lives, their consciousness...
"They use the language of religion, okay, but this is not what drives them...This is not an attack on one country, one or two cities. All of us, we are targets now."
So Vast and Terrible, and Too Real
In his essay, Delillo writes,
"The raw event was one thing, the coverage another. The event dominated the medium. It was bright and totalising, and some of us said it was unreal. When we say a thing is unreal, we mean it is too real, a phenomenon so unaccountable and yet so bound to the power of objective fact that we can't tilt it to the slant of our perceptions...
"This was so vast and terrible that it was outside imagining even as it happened. We could not catch up to it. But it was real, punishingly so, an expression of structural limits and a void in one's soul..."
We could not catch up with it quickly enough to formulate a suitable language to define, describe and discuss it.
Outrage at the Spectacle
In the novel, a performance artist known as the "Falling Man" devises an act in which he dives head first from buildings and bridges (with an unseen safety harness). However, Americans aren't ready for him:
"There were people shouting up at him, outraged at the spectacle, the puppetry of human desperation, a body's last fleet breath and what it held...The single falling figure that trails a collective dread...
"He brought it back, of course, those stark moments in the burning towers when people fell or were forced to jump."
Not even membership of a crowd of spectators, the solidarity of a spellbound audience, could relieve the effects of the disturbance. As with the photo of the falling man, spectators don't want to imagine/learn/know what occurred the moment before the jump started or the moment after the jump came to an end, let alone what happened in between.
Intimacy after the Planes
Ironically, despite the many relationship problems before the planes, afterwards we see greater or rejuvenated intimacy. The characters are beings who experienced an horrific event. Now they want to work out who they are and how they fit into the world and the people around them.
This is almost DeLillo's attempt to map out the philosophical and metaphysical territory of being and event. Somehow, it manages to be resistant to language. Words are still not enough. Images, art and film play an increased role and function. DeLillo's characters (and, by extension, we readers) must find new ways of looking and seeing.
Keith finds comfort in still life painting and in "things he could not name." Lianne realises "there was something in the brushstrokes that held a mystery she could not name." Either way, they still encounter and confront a mystery beyond language.
VERSE AND WORSE:
Women Running in the Morning Street
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
I like the streets.
This time of morning
There's something
About the city,
Down by the river
Streets nearly empty,
Cars blasting by
On the Drive.
Simple as That
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
Go away,
Come back.
Simple as that.
Trampled Under Foot
Women without high heels
Holding up their skirts,
Trip in the crowd, trampled
Unless they get out first,
Water falling, water flowing
The pipes have all been burst,
A worker with a crowbar
The bent end held out first,
The equities trader pauses,
One of the ones who flirts,
The smoke turns the rest of us
Into such nervous introverts,
Men make improvised masks
Out of their torn off shirts,
Bottles of water pass up the line
To quench everybody's thirst.
Seconds to Come
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
You are wishing
For death
And now
It is here
In the seconds
To come.
The Final Jump of David Janiak,
Performance Artist and Dangling Man
Structured
Improvisation.
Detailed and
Looming.
Headlong
Free fall.
The Only Light
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
The only light
Was vestigial now,
The light of
What comes after,
Carried in the residue
Of smashed matter,
In the ash ruins of what
Was various and human,
Hovering in
The air above.
But God
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
Did God
Do this
Or not?
Rebut God
[In the Words of Don DeLillo]
God is
The voice
That says,
"I am
Not here."
SOUNDTRACK:
April 9, 2023
He continually jumpcuts from one scene to another and then doesn’t identify who he’s talking about for a few sentences so it’s like a series of unnecessary and annoying puzzles figuring out who this is, who is that; so that was tiring. And although I think that the glazed, not-quite-making-sense feel to the numbed characters in their stunned cloud of post 9/11 horror was probably appropriate (and all due respect to DD for having the nerve to write a 9/11 novel in the first place), the cumulative effect was tentative, almost too respectful of the aftermath of the ghastliness, too elliptical, too considered, too polite. A room temperature novel about 9/11 seems wrong.
2.5
2.5
August 31, 2023
Who recommended this to me: Steven Godin
music: William Basinski � “The Disintegration Loops�
”But that’s why you built the towers, isn’t it? Weren’t the towers built as fantasies of wealth and power that would one day become fantasies of destruction? You build a thing like that so you can see it come down. The provocation is obvious. What other reason would there be to go so high and then to double it, do it twice? It’s a fantasy, so why not do it twice? You are saying, Here it is, bring it down.�
This is a story of what September 11th and its aftermath was like, in some lives: Keith Neudecker, a lawyer survivor who is slowly becoming more inwardly-looking, his wife Lianne, observing him and trying to make sense of life after; and son Justin, speaking little and watching the sky with his friends, thinking about Bill Lawton (Bin Laden). And other lives moving along with aftermath emotions. We also get a glimpse into the mind of one of the plane terrorists, Hammad, a minor person with less passion than his leaders.
This book has bookends: Keith walking home through the dust cloud with small pieces of glass in his hair, and then at the end where Hammad’s .
The story concentrates largely on the thought-worlds of Keith and Lianne. They have separated already before the day that changes things, but are brought back together because of it. Still, things are not the same: Keith retreats increasingly into himself, and Lianne’s thought-world grows richer as things in her life change: her mother’s .
“Even in Kyoto
longing for Kyoto
the cuckoo�
- Basho (the haiku partly mentioned in the book)
It’s a story of mood landscape; the one in the city, the ones that Keith and Lianne have, each in different way. Both move on, though one would probably say the latter one’s is more rich, while the other one’s is not necessarily a life, though it feels ‘protected� somehow.
The story was easy to follow, and it was easy pretty early on to catch that DeLillo feeling of the story again, which I love (when it goes right). I managed finally to read it on second attempt, guess I wasn’t ready the first time. There is a slight time-jump just before chapter 10 starts, not particularly noted so it might surprise you, though not badly, and the mid-sentence viewpoint switch at the end is subtle yet amazing, like one mind melting suddenly into another. So the book ends at just the right length, and the story having bookends makes it work the best. I got a feeling I might enjoy it even more on reread, especially if I go slower then. But even now it felt quietly � sometimes loud-confusedly � rich in things and moods.
music: William Basinski � “The Disintegration Loops�
”But that’s why you built the towers, isn’t it? Weren’t the towers built as fantasies of wealth and power that would one day become fantasies of destruction? You build a thing like that so you can see it come down. The provocation is obvious. What other reason would there be to go so high and then to double it, do it twice? It’s a fantasy, so why not do it twice? You are saying, Here it is, bring it down.�
This is a story of what September 11th and its aftermath was like, in some lives: Keith Neudecker, a lawyer survivor who is slowly becoming more inwardly-looking, his wife Lianne, observing him and trying to make sense of life after; and son Justin, speaking little and watching the sky with his friends, thinking about Bill Lawton (Bin Laden). And other lives moving along with aftermath emotions. We also get a glimpse into the mind of one of the plane terrorists, Hammad, a minor person with less passion than his leaders.
This book has bookends: Keith walking home through the dust cloud with small pieces of glass in his hair, and then at the end where Hammad’s .
The story concentrates largely on the thought-worlds of Keith and Lianne. They have separated already before the day that changes things, but are brought back together because of it. Still, things are not the same: Keith retreats increasingly into himself, and Lianne’s thought-world grows richer as things in her life change: her mother’s .
“Even in Kyoto
longing for Kyoto
the cuckoo�
- Basho (the haiku partly mentioned in the book)
It’s a story of mood landscape; the one in the city, the ones that Keith and Lianne have, each in different way. Both move on, though one would probably say the latter one’s is more rich, while the other one’s is not necessarily a life, though it feels ‘protected� somehow.
The story was easy to follow, and it was easy pretty early on to catch that DeLillo feeling of the story again, which I love (when it goes right). I managed finally to read it on second attempt, guess I wasn’t ready the first time. There is a slight time-jump just before chapter 10 starts, not particularly noted so it might surprise you, though not badly, and the mid-sentence viewpoint switch at the end is subtle yet amazing, like one mind melting suddenly into another. So the book ends at just the right length, and the story having bookends makes it work the best. I got a feeling I might enjoy it even more on reread, especially if I go slower then. But even now it felt quietly � sometimes loud-confusedly � rich in things and moods.
November 18, 2015
C'è qualcosa di opaco ne "L'uomo che cade". Il lettore è investito da un senso di disorientamento, di ottundimento, come dopo un grande trauma. La ferita dell'America, post 11 Settembre, è esposta. Meno in rilievo risultano molti dei tratti distintivi dell'autore: i dialoghi cerebrali, la riflessione sui media. Più respiro alla sofferta intimità dei personaggi. Credo che sia il più triste, il più dolente dei romanzi di DeLillo (tra quelli letti). Forse non è nemmeno un romanzo, sono dei frammenti di un immaginario distrutto. La crepa che minaccia le vite dei personaggi stavolta sembra troppo profonda per portare ad un nuovo equilibrio. Più onestamente, come il protagonista, ci convertiamo al gioco d'azzardo, ci rassegniamo a situazioni temporanee, ogni stabilità distrutta, ogni armonia da ricostruire.
May 30, 2019
Il futuro c'è appena stato
“I cieli che conservava nella memoria erano drammi di nuvole e mare in tempesta, oppure la lucentezza elettrica prima del tuono estivo in città, sempre legati alle energie dei fenomeni atmosferici, di ciò che c'era lassù, masse d'aria, vapore acqueo, venti da ovest. Questo era diverso, un cielo terso carico di terrore umano in quegli aerei sfreccianti, prima uno, poi l'altro, la forza dell'umana determinazione. Ogni singola disperazione impotente stagliata contro il cielo, voci umane che invocavano Dio, e che orrore immaginare tutto questo, il nome di Dio sulla lingua degli assassini e delle vittime al tempo stesso, prima un aeroplano e poi l'altro, quello dei due che sembrava quasi l'omino di un cartone animato, con occhi vividi e denti, il secondo aereo, la torre sud�.
World Trade Center, 11 settembre 2001, il crollo delle torri: Keith è un avvocato, è lì dentro, è un superstite. Esce vivo da quel mondo sospeso, quello spazio-tempo di cenere e oscurità, in caduta. In caduta come The falling man, la spaventosa e iconica fotografia della persona che si lancia nel vuoto, l'artista performativo che mise in atto per la città un vuoto di memoria, un'intersezione visiva, il racconto di tutto quello che non si poteva dire. New York quel giorno si trasformò in modo definitivo, divenne una città discensionale, una comunità che riversava all’esterno le sue voci, il suo grido immateriale, per spegnere le fiamme che scendevano tutto intorno ad essa. De Lillo ci ricorda che la gente, come una folla, leggeva poesie per opporsi al dolore; poi riflette sul male, sul terrore e gli uomini che lo scelsero, che vedevano la società come una malattia, che si sentivano minacciati, che agivano per panico. Quel momento determinò la consapevolezza di non poter andare oltre. Le sagome cadevano nel vuoto, si trovavano schegge organiche, i morti erano ovunque, nei venti che soffiavano sull'Hudson, nei legami recisi dal sanguinante senso di colpa dei sopravvissuti. Non esiste più separazione tra uomo e mondo; uomini nella sventura si sono misurati con martiri fanatici che hanno attuato fantasie di distruzione e morte. De Lillo ci pone davanti uno specchio: quello che vedi tu non è quello che vediamo noi. E poi ci fu il dopo, gli aerei sarebbero tornati.
“Durante quelle notti Lianne aveva l'impressione che si stessero allontanando dal mondo. Non era una forma di illusione erotica. Lei continuava a ritrarsi, ma con calma, mantenendo il controllo. Lui proseguiva il suo sequestro di sé, come sempre, ora però con una misura spaziale, fatta di miglia aeree e città, una dimensione di distanza letterale fra se stesso e gli altri�.
“I cieli che conservava nella memoria erano drammi di nuvole e mare in tempesta, oppure la lucentezza elettrica prima del tuono estivo in città, sempre legati alle energie dei fenomeni atmosferici, di ciò che c'era lassù, masse d'aria, vapore acqueo, venti da ovest. Questo era diverso, un cielo terso carico di terrore umano in quegli aerei sfreccianti, prima uno, poi l'altro, la forza dell'umana determinazione. Ogni singola disperazione impotente stagliata contro il cielo, voci umane che invocavano Dio, e che orrore immaginare tutto questo, il nome di Dio sulla lingua degli assassini e delle vittime al tempo stesso, prima un aeroplano e poi l'altro, quello dei due che sembrava quasi l'omino di un cartone animato, con occhi vividi e denti, il secondo aereo, la torre sud�.
World Trade Center, 11 settembre 2001, il crollo delle torri: Keith è un avvocato, è lì dentro, è un superstite. Esce vivo da quel mondo sospeso, quello spazio-tempo di cenere e oscurità, in caduta. In caduta come The falling man, la spaventosa e iconica fotografia della persona che si lancia nel vuoto, l'artista performativo che mise in atto per la città un vuoto di memoria, un'intersezione visiva, il racconto di tutto quello che non si poteva dire. New York quel giorno si trasformò in modo definitivo, divenne una città discensionale, una comunità che riversava all’esterno le sue voci, il suo grido immateriale, per spegnere le fiamme che scendevano tutto intorno ad essa. De Lillo ci ricorda che la gente, come una folla, leggeva poesie per opporsi al dolore; poi riflette sul male, sul terrore e gli uomini che lo scelsero, che vedevano la società come una malattia, che si sentivano minacciati, che agivano per panico. Quel momento determinò la consapevolezza di non poter andare oltre. Le sagome cadevano nel vuoto, si trovavano schegge organiche, i morti erano ovunque, nei venti che soffiavano sull'Hudson, nei legami recisi dal sanguinante senso di colpa dei sopravvissuti. Non esiste più separazione tra uomo e mondo; uomini nella sventura si sono misurati con martiri fanatici che hanno attuato fantasie di distruzione e morte. De Lillo ci pone davanti uno specchio: quello che vedi tu non è quello che vediamo noi. E poi ci fu il dopo, gli aerei sarebbero tornati.
“Durante quelle notti Lianne aveva l'impressione che si stessero allontanando dal mondo. Non era una forma di illusione erotica. Lei continuava a ritrarsi, ma con calma, mantenendo il controllo. Lui proseguiva il suo sequestro di sé, come sempre, ora però con una misura spaziale, fatta di miglia aeree e città, una dimensione di distanza letterale fra se stesso e gli altri�.
May 30, 2010
You pick up a book. You read the blurbs. Those in front, at the back and perhaps those in the first few pages. Then you form an impression. Maybe this book is good. Maybe this is about this and about that. Then you pay for the book and start reading at home.
We all know about The Falling Man. On September 11, 2001, a man was photograph falling, or some people say flying, from the north tower. He appeared to have, in his last instants of life, embraced his fate. He departed from this earth like an downward arrow. Five years after the attack, he was identified as Jonathan Briley, a a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant.
This 2007 novel, Falling Man by the master storyteller Don DeLillo, is not about him.
That may disappoint some people. I, too, was disappointed. I was already on the page 30 of this 246-page book waiting for that character to show up. The main male protagonist, Keith who works in the poker house in one of the towers, is seen in the opening scene walking - bleeding and scared and confused - aimlessly around the North Tower before it collapsed. So, where is the falling man? There is a falling man in the story but he was used by Mr. DeLillo as a symbol and not an active character. That falling man works in a circus or doing bungee jumps along the streets of New York.
I also thought that Mr. DeLillo would dwell on another dysfunctional American family: Keith, Lianne and Justin as described in the blurbs. That was another disappointment. This is no Home by Marilynne Robinson, nor Cost by Roxana Robinson, nor any other Robinsons, not even funny like the movie Meet the Robinsons. And that is where the magic of DeLillo's writing is anchored upon: being unpredictable. He brings you to a place you are not expecting to go or to accept a reasoning that you are not expecting or not ready to believe. He seems to know what you are thinking as a reader and he hates to be double-guessed.
As usual, writing is flawless. The characters, at times, felt like caricatures but I guess that it is the intention. Mr. DeLillo does not what the readers to focus on the family members. The story is about somethings bigger and looming above all of us: global terrorism, racial and religious beliefs and even the purpose of one's life.
I learned something new though gruesome: organic shrapnels - human flesh that got driven into the skin of the survivor; it only shows up months later after the bombing.
HEAVEN FORBID THAT YOU DIE WITHOUT READING THIS.
We all know about The Falling Man. On September 11, 2001, a man was photograph falling, or some people say flying, from the north tower. He appeared to have, in his last instants of life, embraced his fate. He departed from this earth like an downward arrow. Five years after the attack, he was identified as Jonathan Briley, a a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant.
This 2007 novel, Falling Man by the master storyteller Don DeLillo, is not about him.
That may disappoint some people. I, too, was disappointed. I was already on the page 30 of this 246-page book waiting for that character to show up. The main male protagonist, Keith who works in the poker house in one of the towers, is seen in the opening scene walking - bleeding and scared and confused - aimlessly around the North Tower before it collapsed. So, where is the falling man? There is a falling man in the story but he was used by Mr. DeLillo as a symbol and not an active character. That falling man works in a circus or doing bungee jumps along the streets of New York.
I also thought that Mr. DeLillo would dwell on another dysfunctional American family: Keith, Lianne and Justin as described in the blurbs. That was another disappointment. This is no Home by Marilynne Robinson, nor Cost by Roxana Robinson, nor any other Robinsons, not even funny like the movie Meet the Robinsons. And that is where the magic of DeLillo's writing is anchored upon: being unpredictable. He brings you to a place you are not expecting to go or to accept a reasoning that you are not expecting or not ready to believe. He seems to know what you are thinking as a reader and he hates to be double-guessed.
As usual, writing is flawless. The characters, at times, felt like caricatures but I guess that it is the intention. Mr. DeLillo does not what the readers to focus on the family members. The story is about somethings bigger and looming above all of us: global terrorism, racial and religious beliefs and even the purpose of one's life.
I learned something new though gruesome: organic shrapnels - human flesh that got driven into the skin of the survivor; it only shows up months later after the bombing.
HEAVEN FORBID THAT YOU DIE WITHOUT READING THIS.
September 27, 2007
Being clever, that's how DeLillo does it.
Falling Man, a sparse work that is better than The Body Artist and much much better than Cosmopolis, does about as much as it can hope to do. Don DeLillo's powers simply aren't up to the task of making a new statement about a national tragedy like 9/11. He is an assembler of words and sentences and paragraphs and - at times - chapters, but he is not a thinker. What, then, has made him considered such an important voice in American letters?
Being clever, that's how DeLillo does it.
Americana and White Noise, much more than the oddly over-praised Libra and Underworld, are when DeLillo is at his very best. When he is able to write interesting sentences about unimportant things, when he is able to lend unserious topics the full focus of his rich prose, in other words, DeLillo is doing what he was called to do.
But when he tries to use character-less personages to show us how important 9/11 was to New York's literary set, frankly, he's way beyond his talent's reach. Fundamentally, DeLillo is unable to lend gravity to a grave happening because such gravity would require characters that, in some way, resemble human beings.
DeLillo doesn't seem to know any persons in real life, and so he assembles collections of phrases and limbs and quirky qualities - like a character who speaks only in monosyllabic words - and then subjects them to detailed scenery. DeLillo's characters belong to science fiction more than literary fiction - and in this way DeLillo seems to have become a lightweight Thomas Pynchon (which is fine; Pynchon can't be taken in more than small doses).
Being clever, that's how DeLillo does it.
In the last 10 pages of this 246-page book, there's a sentence that goes like this:
She was arguing with herself but it wasn't argument, just the noise the brain makes.
This sentence more than any other may act as metaphor for DeLillo's recent works. Standing alone in its own paragraph, this sentence seems to say something important. But once a reader stops and looks at it from 360 degrees (what any artist should want), the reader realizes there's nothing there at all.
Better put, DeLillo is telling us a story but it isn't a story, just the noise a writer makes.
When this unseriousness is married to DeLillo's usual tricks of repeating one clever phrase in stand-alone paragraphs throughout a chapter, what is left is a meaningless work by an artist whose fundamental lack of gravity has finally outrun his ample talent.
Being annoying, that's how DeLillo did it.
Falling Man, a sparse work that is better than The Body Artist and much much better than Cosmopolis, does about as much as it can hope to do. Don DeLillo's powers simply aren't up to the task of making a new statement about a national tragedy like 9/11. He is an assembler of words and sentences and paragraphs and - at times - chapters, but he is not a thinker. What, then, has made him considered such an important voice in American letters?
Being clever, that's how DeLillo does it.
Americana and White Noise, much more than the oddly over-praised Libra and Underworld, are when DeLillo is at his very best. When he is able to write interesting sentences about unimportant things, when he is able to lend unserious topics the full focus of his rich prose, in other words, DeLillo is doing what he was called to do.
But when he tries to use character-less personages to show us how important 9/11 was to New York's literary set, frankly, he's way beyond his talent's reach. Fundamentally, DeLillo is unable to lend gravity to a grave happening because such gravity would require characters that, in some way, resemble human beings.
DeLillo doesn't seem to know any persons in real life, and so he assembles collections of phrases and limbs and quirky qualities - like a character who speaks only in monosyllabic words - and then subjects them to detailed scenery. DeLillo's characters belong to science fiction more than literary fiction - and in this way DeLillo seems to have become a lightweight Thomas Pynchon (which is fine; Pynchon can't be taken in more than small doses).
Being clever, that's how DeLillo does it.
In the last 10 pages of this 246-page book, there's a sentence that goes like this:
She was arguing with herself but it wasn't argument, just the noise the brain makes.
This sentence more than any other may act as metaphor for DeLillo's recent works. Standing alone in its own paragraph, this sentence seems to say something important. But once a reader stops and looks at it from 360 degrees (what any artist should want), the reader realizes there's nothing there at all.
Better put, DeLillo is telling us a story but it isn't a story, just the noise a writer makes.
When this unseriousness is married to DeLillo's usual tricks of repeating one clever phrase in stand-alone paragraphs throughout a chapter, what is left is a meaningless work by an artist whose fundamental lack of gravity has finally outrun his ample talent.
Being annoying, that's how DeLillo did it.
September 26, 2007
The thing with DeLillo is the what. The conversations. The sentence fragments. The writing style.
Of any list of candidates to write about the horrors of 9/11, DeLillo must have shown up. Underworld of course has the famous photo of the towers by Andre Kertesz. (Falling Man has another photo on its cover by Katie Day Weisberger. It is taken from the sky, where one sees a cyclopean vista of clouds but for the two towers peeking out, dwarfed. It's as breathtaking and emotive as the first, but with our renewed perspective in the post-9/11 world.) His novel The Names focuses on a blind search for terrorists, or a group of politically motivated abductors in Mao II. Likewise, Libra places the reader into Lee Harvey Oswald's mindset. Adding in his New York experiences places DeLillo into the cast of authors who come to this subject matter with some creative authority.
Falling Man seems at first to follow some regular DeLillo fare: a couple (Lianne and Keith) who had gone through a separation, and the clipped visuals of freeze-frame action. But as the novel bears down on the reader, they show greater depth and deeper pain. It's not about the day after. It follows them for what feels like the rest of their lives with 9/11 wrapped around their torsos. It captures the chronic trauma of it, and it leaves behind an emotional rift for an engaged reader.
We've all got jobs that we'd have to get back to--even after a tragic event--pacing around carpeted cubicles or sitting behind desks and carrels. For me, through the din I could hear the rattling in his characters' souls. DeLillo doesn't break his own conventions or introduce brand-new style switches in the literature, but he'll jerk your stride and remind you of what some of us must live with.
Of any list of candidates to write about the horrors of 9/11, DeLillo must have shown up. Underworld of course has the famous photo of the towers by Andre Kertesz. (Falling Man has another photo on its cover by Katie Day Weisberger. It is taken from the sky, where one sees a cyclopean vista of clouds but for the two towers peeking out, dwarfed. It's as breathtaking and emotive as the first, but with our renewed perspective in the post-9/11 world.) His novel The Names focuses on a blind search for terrorists, or a group of politically motivated abductors in Mao II. Likewise, Libra places the reader into Lee Harvey Oswald's mindset. Adding in his New York experiences places DeLillo into the cast of authors who come to this subject matter with some creative authority.
Falling Man seems at first to follow some regular DeLillo fare: a couple (Lianne and Keith) who had gone through a separation, and the clipped visuals of freeze-frame action. But as the novel bears down on the reader, they show greater depth and deeper pain. It's not about the day after. It follows them for what feels like the rest of their lives with 9/11 wrapped around their torsos. It captures the chronic trauma of it, and it leaves behind an emotional rift for an engaged reader.
We've all got jobs that we'd have to get back to--even after a tragic event--pacing around carpeted cubicles or sitting behind desks and carrels. For me, through the din I could hear the rattling in his characters' souls. DeLillo doesn't break his own conventions or introduce brand-new style switches in the literature, but he'll jerk your stride and remind you of what some of us must live with.
December 23, 2022
Aftermath. DeLillo's Falling Man isn't about 9/11, it's about the aftermath. It's not about initial trauma, but rather the subsequent unsettlement, an accounting of disheveled people living disheveled lives.
I'm unsure how to rate this book. On one hand, the author authentically conveys the shock and psychological disassociation that accompanies catastrophe. But on the other hand, it sometimes feels contrived, something that borders on exploitation. Is DeLillo opportunistic? I don't think so, at least not intentionally, but the prospect left me feeling a little uneasy and disconcerted.
I'm unsure how to rate this book. On one hand, the author authentically conveys the shock and psychological disassociation that accompanies catastrophe. But on the other hand, it sometimes feels contrived, something that borders on exploitation. Is DeLillo opportunistic? I don't think so, at least not intentionally, but the prospect left me feeling a little uneasy and disconcerted.
September 12, 2023
Non avevo troppa voglia di leggere “il romanzo di Delillo sulle torri gemelle�, motivo per cui l’ho rimandato all’infinito. Se si escludono i capitoli ai margini, più dentro la Storia, è un libro di atmosfere, spazi e stati d’animo, dove si rimbalza da una scena all'altra in una fuga dalla realtà più orientata all’indagine della condizione umana che all’azione. Ha dialoghi sfuggenti e personaggi poco decifrabili, che non sembrano mai voler davvero dire qualcosa. Nel mezzo ci sono manciate di pagine non proprio indimenticabili, ma ha quel tono obliquo e astratto che lo rende qualcosa da interpretare e a cui continuare a pensare.
Diversi riferimenti alle nature morte di Giorgio Morandi, possibile fonte di ispirazione.
[75/100]
� Forse era quello l’aspetto che avevano le cose quando non c’era nessuno che le vedesse.
� Potevano esserci dettagli non insopportabili?
� Forse esisteva una piega profonda nella trama delle cose, nel modo che hanno le cose di attraversare la mente, nel modo che ha il tempo di oscillare nella mente, che è poi anche l’unico posto in cui esiste in maniera significativa.
� Una cosa del genere la si costruisce soltanto per vederla crollare. La provocazione è evidente. Altrimenti perché spingersi cosí in alto, e poi raddoppiare, farlo due volte? In pratica è come dire: «Ecco qua, ora buttatela giú».
� Portava il solito abito non stirato, la sua divisa, una camicia in cui sembrava aver dormito, senza cravatta. Un individuo fuori posto, oppure molto confuso, smarrito nel tempo. L’aspetto pressurizzato di un uomo i cui occhi si sono rimpiccioliti nella testa.
Diversi riferimenti alle nature morte di Giorgio Morandi, possibile fonte di ispirazione.
[75/100]
� Forse era quello l’aspetto che avevano le cose quando non c’era nessuno che le vedesse.
� Potevano esserci dettagli non insopportabili?
� Forse esisteva una piega profonda nella trama delle cose, nel modo che hanno le cose di attraversare la mente, nel modo che ha il tempo di oscillare nella mente, che è poi anche l’unico posto in cui esiste in maniera significativa.
� Una cosa del genere la si costruisce soltanto per vederla crollare. La provocazione è evidente. Altrimenti perché spingersi cosí in alto, e poi raddoppiare, farlo due volte? In pratica è come dire: «Ecco qua, ora buttatela giú».
� Portava il solito abito non stirato, la sua divisa, una camicia in cui sembrava aver dormito, senza cravatta. Un individuo fuori posto, oppure molto confuso, smarrito nel tempo. L’aspetto pressurizzato di un uomo i cui occhi si sono rimpiccioliti nella testa.
June 5, 2010
This novel has a great backdrop: the 9-11 and how it affected the lives of several interesting characters (even two of the 9-11 terrorists are here). But this was overwhelmed by a lot of tricks which didn't work (for me):
a. sparse dialogues, words and phrases used instead of complete sentences. Instead, for example, of one character (Keith) telling his estrange wife (Lianne) that she did something stupid quarreling with a neighbor with the latter's vicious dog beside her, he would just utter: "That dog" (no ellipsis even, just a final period: "That dog.", making it sound as if robots, not humans, were conversing);
b. vague philosophical musings that could either be, take a guess, profound or nonsensical ("God would consume her. God would de-create her."); and
c. sudden change in time and characters so that the reader seems to be constantly being flogged while trying to read. The author has no respect for the reader. With an abrupt change of character in the narration, for example, he could have very well lessened the reader's difficulty by naming the character suddenly in the scene. Instead, however, he uses mere PRONOUNS so the reader has to take the extra effort figuring out first who this "he" or "she" now is.
Some novels would have stories so vivid, and characters so alive, that it's as if you are experiencing everything yourself (e.g., "Dangling Man" by Saul Bellow). This one by Don DeLillo, in contrast, is just like watching an old, poorly-directed film, in a black-and-white TV with a grainy screen and a very bad audio.
What a torture!
a. sparse dialogues, words and phrases used instead of complete sentences. Instead, for example, of one character (Keith) telling his estrange wife (Lianne) that she did something stupid quarreling with a neighbor with the latter's vicious dog beside her, he would just utter: "That dog" (no ellipsis even, just a final period: "That dog.", making it sound as if robots, not humans, were conversing);
b. vague philosophical musings that could either be, take a guess, profound or nonsensical ("God would consume her. God would de-create her."); and
c. sudden change in time and characters so that the reader seems to be constantly being flogged while trying to read. The author has no respect for the reader. With an abrupt change of character in the narration, for example, he could have very well lessened the reader's difficulty by naming the character suddenly in the scene. Instead, however, he uses mere PRONOUNS so the reader has to take the extra effort figuring out first who this "he" or "she" now is.
Some novels would have stories so vivid, and characters so alive, that it's as if you are experiencing everything yourself (e.g., "Dangling Man" by Saul Bellow). This one by Don DeLillo, in contrast, is just like watching an old, poorly-directed film, in a black-and-white TV with a grainy screen and a very bad audio.
What a torture!
October 20, 2023
Las catástrofes, guerras, tragedias que le suceden a miles, a millones, cuando son contadas a partir de esos números sueles paradójicamente ser impersonales, vagas e imprecisas a lo mejor porque en nuestra mente no cabe la idea de imaginarnos la magnitud de vidas que incluye, en oposición cuando estos eventos se desgranan individualmente, cobran tal sentido qué hay relatos que perduran como emblema de todos, pues no hay mejor manera de acércanos al dolor que mirarlo en una vida que impacta a todos las demás a su alrededor y convierte esa voz en una reverberación.
En este libro nos acercamos a Keith un hombre cerca de sus 40, con un trabajo estable, una vida cómoda, separado de su esposa pero siendo feliz, peor un día todo eso cambia, en un minuto estaba en una llamada con un cliente y al segundo era todo cristales, ruido y sangre, es Nueva York y es el 11 de septiembre.
Keith ha salido del edificio con un maletín en la mano, en estado de shock cubierto en sangre y cristales se dirige al departamento que compartía con su ex esposa Lianne y su hijo Justin, ella lo recibe sin preguntas.
A partir de aquí se deconstruye una familia, Lianne se encuentra parte aliviada y parte desconcertada, Keith ya nunca será el mismo, aunque ileso físicamente, en su interior algo se ha quebrado.
A través de estos 3 personajes y su interacción con los demás, vamos sintiendo como los efectos de la ola son distintos, cada persona que vive en Nueva York ha sido afectada en menor o mayor grado, dependiendo el alcance del daño, pero hay algo que se ha roto, la confianza de vivir en un entorno protegido de la guerra y sus consecuencias, es algo difícil de asimilar y de asumir. Es lógico y natural, casi como desbloquear un terror, pero al mismo tiempo existe la presunción de algunos personajes, sobre todo de los más grandes, que la fortaleza debe privar,.
En algún momento Lianne se confía a su madre, una intelectual que ante las dudas de su hija, de si debe abandonar la ciudad, le contesta:
�-Nadie se marcha —dijo su madre�. Los que se marchan nunca han estado aquí.�
Keith no habla sobre lo qué pasó hasta que conoce a una mujer que también escapó ilesa físicamente e inician una sombría aventura que se entiende como una especie de entendimiento mutuo de ser personas marcadas, que transitarán por la vida con una seña, que los hace distintos, es decir los seres humanos afrontamos las desgracias de una manera personal y aunque la familia y amigos tratan de ayudar, ellos son extraños porque no conocen tu dolor ni las repercusiones, solo quieren que vuelvas a estar bien, sin comprender que ese bien nunca llegará, porque la persona que conocieron ya no está, esa persona murió simbólicamente y a partir de los pedazos, se reconstruye una nueva identidad, a la cual deberán aprender a amar o simplemente alejarse, es duro si, pero la vida lo es.
Una figura que ronda la ciudad da voz a la parte artística que puede entenderse en el acto de un hombre que imprevistamente se lanza de alturas para emular a las personas que se aventaron de los edificios del WTC, esa parte artística yo no la entiendo, más bien me llevo a pensar en una broma macabra. Y motivada más bien por el mismo título del libro.
Tengo un problema con la traducción del título, El hombre del salto me remite a otro pensamiento, y no al expuesto en el título original Falling man, sin duda tiene todo el sentido del mundo, para empezar no alude a un hombre, sino en general al ser humano, y te da el sentido de esa caída infinita que significa el sinsentido de ver a una persona obligada a tomar una decisión trágica.
En este libro no hay un final propiamente dicho, pues conforme acompañamos a Keith por sus acciones sin sentido, sus recuerdos de la tragedia, su falta de emoción externa, vamos configurando que no habrá un término, que el acontecimiento y sus implicaciones permanecerán en el, de Lianne podemos atisbar que la tragedia le sirvió para revisar las tragedias personales que iba cargando, y en ese examen encontrar un lugar interior que le proporcionara cierta tranquilidad para de una vez, poder ser ella y tener la oportunidad de un nuevo comienzo junto a su hijo.
Aunque sin final, el libro es a la misma vez pesimista y esperanzador, porque de alguna manera te hace reflexionar que la vida es y que nosotros a partir de eso vamos siendo a veces de una forma, a veces de otra, pero que todo influye y confluye sin cesar.
En este libro nos acercamos a Keith un hombre cerca de sus 40, con un trabajo estable, una vida cómoda, separado de su esposa pero siendo feliz, peor un día todo eso cambia, en un minuto estaba en una llamada con un cliente y al segundo era todo cristales, ruido y sangre, es Nueva York y es el 11 de septiembre.
Keith ha salido del edificio con un maletín en la mano, en estado de shock cubierto en sangre y cristales se dirige al departamento que compartía con su ex esposa Lianne y su hijo Justin, ella lo recibe sin preguntas.
A partir de aquí se deconstruye una familia, Lianne se encuentra parte aliviada y parte desconcertada, Keith ya nunca será el mismo, aunque ileso físicamente, en su interior algo se ha quebrado.
A través de estos 3 personajes y su interacción con los demás, vamos sintiendo como los efectos de la ola son distintos, cada persona que vive en Nueva York ha sido afectada en menor o mayor grado, dependiendo el alcance del daño, pero hay algo que se ha roto, la confianza de vivir en un entorno protegido de la guerra y sus consecuencias, es algo difícil de asimilar y de asumir. Es lógico y natural, casi como desbloquear un terror, pero al mismo tiempo existe la presunción de algunos personajes, sobre todo de los más grandes, que la fortaleza debe privar,.
En algún momento Lianne se confía a su madre, una intelectual que ante las dudas de su hija, de si debe abandonar la ciudad, le contesta:
�-Nadie se marcha —dijo su madre�. Los que se marchan nunca han estado aquí.�
Keith no habla sobre lo qué pasó hasta que conoce a una mujer que también escapó ilesa físicamente e inician una sombría aventura que se entiende como una especie de entendimiento mutuo de ser personas marcadas, que transitarán por la vida con una seña, que los hace distintos, es decir los seres humanos afrontamos las desgracias de una manera personal y aunque la familia y amigos tratan de ayudar, ellos son extraños porque no conocen tu dolor ni las repercusiones, solo quieren que vuelvas a estar bien, sin comprender que ese bien nunca llegará, porque la persona que conocieron ya no está, esa persona murió simbólicamente y a partir de los pedazos, se reconstruye una nueva identidad, a la cual deberán aprender a amar o simplemente alejarse, es duro si, pero la vida lo es.
Una figura que ronda la ciudad da voz a la parte artística que puede entenderse en el acto de un hombre que imprevistamente se lanza de alturas para emular a las personas que se aventaron de los edificios del WTC, esa parte artística yo no la entiendo, más bien me llevo a pensar en una broma macabra. Y motivada más bien por el mismo título del libro.
Tengo un problema con la traducción del título, El hombre del salto me remite a otro pensamiento, y no al expuesto en el título original Falling man, sin duda tiene todo el sentido del mundo, para empezar no alude a un hombre, sino en general al ser humano, y te da el sentido de esa caída infinita que significa el sinsentido de ver a una persona obligada a tomar una decisión trágica.
En este libro no hay un final propiamente dicho, pues conforme acompañamos a Keith por sus acciones sin sentido, sus recuerdos de la tragedia, su falta de emoción externa, vamos configurando que no habrá un término, que el acontecimiento y sus implicaciones permanecerán en el, de Lianne podemos atisbar que la tragedia le sirvió para revisar las tragedias personales que iba cargando, y en ese examen encontrar un lugar interior que le proporcionara cierta tranquilidad para de una vez, poder ser ella y tener la oportunidad de un nuevo comienzo junto a su hijo.
Aunque sin final, el libro es a la misma vez pesimista y esperanzador, porque de alguna manera te hace reflexionar que la vida es y que nosotros a partir de eso vamos siendo a veces de una forma, a veces de otra, pero que todo influye y confluye sin cesar.
October 17, 2024
Don DeLillo es el retratista postmoderno de la sociedad americana desde la anomalía. Su prosa es provocadora en el sentido de la ruptura de esquemas narrativos. Y por eso ya en sí, su prosa es una anomalía (vista desde la tradición). Al menos lo fue en su tiempo. Con esta novela da una mirada desencajada que a la vez trata de encajar las piezas de todo lo que destruyó el ataque a las Torres Gemelas. Edificios, personas, creencias, sistemas de pensamiento. Todo. El protagonista es un sobreviviente del ataque y su vida es presentada en fragmentos. Él apareciendo en la puerta de su casa como un fantasma lleno de polvo y escombros, aquel que sobrevivió y no sabe por qué. Y es casi un alma en pena la que va recorriendo la narración, fragmentaria, polifónica en cierto sentido (no desde el narrador), con personajes que se ramifican del tronco anómalo que es él desde aquel día. El único personaje que no es una ramificación es el hombre que cae. Un personaje desdoblado, un acróbata del riesgo y el absurdo por un lado, y una imagen icónica del hombre cayendo en una posición específica desde una de las torres, por otro. La imagen que tenemos grabada en la mente por antonomasia, y la imagen que tiene la esposa de Keith, el protagonista, que en este juego laberíntico de causas y razones, ya no sabe si es que vio al acróbata del absurdo un día saltar hacia las vías del tren. Esto y la ausencia/presencia de Dios, del cristiano y el musulmán, que debería ser el mismo, aunque eso no se discute aquí, sino la oquedad enorme que la caída de las torres dejó en el espíritu. Una inquietud en forma de pregunta, una respuesta desde el vacío: la soledad verdadera es la ausencia de Dios en la tierra (está afuera, en otra parte, piensa/siente uno de los personajes). También hay un acercamiento al otro lado, al del terrorista, pero como ecos de algo que alguien más ha contado, con la lejanía de lo inminente. El final lo dice todo, lo explica todo, lo conecta todo (el avión antes de estrellarse, al estrellarse, luego de estrellarse y Keith sintiendo el impacto y huyendo en medio de los escombros con un maletín). Sin duda, un cierre apoteósico con una frase final fulminante: "Luego vio una camisa cayendo del cielo. Andaba y la veía caer, agitando los brazos como nada en esta vida". Poesía.
February 19, 2019
I started out hating this book; but this is turning out to be extremely thought-provoking. I hope to keep updating my notes on this as I process, and maybe revisit some of Delillo’s more political works (or maybe other new ones.)
This book starts out torturously slow, and confusing. You don’t know who is related to whom, or what is happening. You’re vaguely aware of this pervasive fog of confusion immediately after the 9/11 attack. Delillo jumps from character to character without any transition or contextualizing. To make it worse, you don’t get any distinctive linguistic tics that help you tell the interior monologues of Uncle Charles from Dedalus. They all more or less sound the same.
The confusing snail pace gradually accelerates to a very tense “ending,� which is actually the beginning. This is the kind of books that demand to be reread... like Finnegans Wake. (I’m not kidding, Delillo is a Joyce fan, and the association is pretty weak, but I thought I saw some textual allusions to FinWake as well.)
After the 9/11 attack, a dazed cast gropingly finds ways to deal with the wound as though suspend in a fog, slowly, very slowly falling, declining, acquiesced. They’re entrapped in a cycle of ... well, not exactly terror, just constant helpless decline. Individuals submit to old age, to religion, to infidelity, to gambling, to Alzheimer’s, mostly without a fight, or they fight those who jolt them out of their mindless existence, those whom are insensitive enough to remind them of their trauma, to reopen wounds. The things they encounter, their thoughts, their coping are so disjoint, so dislocated, so insular, I wanted to abandon the book.
But time is not linear in this book, the infuriatingly slow descent accelerates into the big bang that started it all � at the very end, we get a glimpse of the terrorist’s existential thoughts as he crashes into the Tower; which quickly cuts into Keith and others who got jolted out of their average everydayness, and struggle to survive the inferno, or else witness their mates brutally killed amidst the confusion. The terrorist welcomes his death, he thinks it brings him closer to eternity, to God. This is the end for him. For the rest of the cast, this is simply the beginning of their aimless, confused, slow decline.
The plot is simple enough; but I think what this book asks us to consider is what arts and language can do in face of hypercapitalism, inequality, deep resentments, insular thinking, radicalism, ennui, aging, mental decline, meaninglessness. If poetry is barbaric after Auschwitz, then what is a novelist to do after 9/11? Can the event be represented with language or photographs or performance arts or music or paintings at all? [In case if you’re wondering, I don’t have an answer. I think Delillo is trying to say something about that, but I need time to figure out what.]
Lianne’s father committed suicide to escape Alzheimer’s; Lianne runs a writing workshop for a group of patients coping with Alzheimer’s. Lianne is blunt about it � there’s no therapeutic value, it saves no one, they will continue to decline, this will not stave off the disease.
Through Lianne’s project, Delillo seems to be signaling his own awareness of the limitation of arts and narratives.
Lianne also assaults a neighbor who plays some kind of foreign music that could be Greek or Middle Eastern; the neighbor explains the music represents peace to her; but Leanne accuses her of being insensitive to traumatized people after the event. She calls her music “noise� and she’s provoked. I initially read that as representing xenophobia, and maybe it does, but as I read on, it seems to signal a pervasive walling-off response, people want to be left alone and allowed to drift along unseeing, unhearing. They don’t want still life paintings that remind them of the Twin Towers; they don’t want musics that sound vaguely middle eastern, they don’t want performance artists or photographs that represent the man who jumped. There’s a consensus of indecency and indictment against artistic response to process, to cope, to generate dialogue.
Lianne ultimately turns to the Church (but not the faith):
There’s irony in the fact that she dismissed her neighbor’s (perhaps religious/ devotional) music as noise, years later, she gradually accepts the decline of her own life, her own aging, her own ennui, and she turns to a tone, a word, a voice � which she calls a noise � but that’s what she turns to. She wants safety, she can’t have safety, and this is all she can get.
What’s Delillo’s verdict? Can words give us anything after such a “fall�? Or are they merely ... White Noise?
This book starts out torturously slow, and confusing. You don’t know who is related to whom, or what is happening. You’re vaguely aware of this pervasive fog of confusion immediately after the 9/11 attack. Delillo jumps from character to character without any transition or contextualizing. To make it worse, you don’t get any distinctive linguistic tics that help you tell the interior monologues of Uncle Charles from Dedalus. They all more or less sound the same.
The confusing snail pace gradually accelerates to a very tense “ending,� which is actually the beginning. This is the kind of books that demand to be reread... like Finnegans Wake. (I’m not kidding, Delillo is a Joyce fan, and the association is pretty weak, but I thought I saw some textual allusions to FinWake as well.)
After the 9/11 attack, a dazed cast gropingly finds ways to deal with the wound as though suspend in a fog, slowly, very slowly falling, declining, acquiesced. They’re entrapped in a cycle of ... well, not exactly terror, just constant helpless decline. Individuals submit to old age, to religion, to infidelity, to gambling, to Alzheimer’s, mostly without a fight, or they fight those who jolt them out of their mindless existence, those whom are insensitive enough to remind them of their trauma, to reopen wounds. The things they encounter, their thoughts, their coping are so disjoint, so dislocated, so insular, I wanted to abandon the book.
But time is not linear in this book, the infuriatingly slow descent accelerates into the big bang that started it all � at the very end, we get a glimpse of the terrorist’s existential thoughts as he crashes into the Tower; which quickly cuts into Keith and others who got jolted out of their average everydayness, and struggle to survive the inferno, or else witness their mates brutally killed amidst the confusion. The terrorist welcomes his death, he thinks it brings him closer to eternity, to God. This is the end for him. For the rest of the cast, this is simply the beginning of their aimless, confused, slow decline.
The plot is simple enough; but I think what this book asks us to consider is what arts and language can do in face of hypercapitalism, inequality, deep resentments, insular thinking, radicalism, ennui, aging, mental decline, meaninglessness. If poetry is barbaric after Auschwitz, then what is a novelist to do after 9/11? Can the event be represented with language or photographs or performance arts or music or paintings at all? [In case if you’re wondering, I don’t have an answer. I think Delillo is trying to say something about that, but I need time to figure out what.]
Lianne’s father committed suicide to escape Alzheimer’s; Lianne runs a writing workshop for a group of patients coping with Alzheimer’s. Lianne is blunt about it � there’s no therapeutic value, it saves no one, they will continue to decline, this will not stave off the disease.
Through Lianne’s project, Delillo seems to be signaling his own awareness of the limitation of arts and narratives.
Lianne also assaults a neighbor who plays some kind of foreign music that could be Greek or Middle Eastern; the neighbor explains the music represents peace to her; but Leanne accuses her of being insensitive to traumatized people after the event. She calls her music “noise� and she’s provoked. I initially read that as representing xenophobia, and maybe it does, but as I read on, it seems to signal a pervasive walling-off response, people want to be left alone and allowed to drift along unseeing, unhearing. They don’t want still life paintings that remind them of the Twin Towers; they don’t want musics that sound vaguely middle eastern, they don’t want performance artists or photographs that represent the man who jumped. There’s a consensus of indecency and indictment against artistic response to process, to cope, to generate dialogue.
Lianne ultimately turns to the Church (but not the faith):
“She thought that the hovering possible presence of God was the thing that created loneliness and doubt in the soul and she also thought that God was the thing, the entity existing outside space and time that resolved this doubt in the tonal power of a word, a voice.
God is the voice that says, “I am not here.�
She was arguing with herself but it wasn’t argument, just the noise the brain makes.�
There’s irony in the fact that she dismissed her neighbor’s (perhaps religious/ devotional) music as noise, years later, she gradually accepts the decline of her own life, her own aging, her own ennui, and she turns to a tone, a word, a voice � which she calls a noise � but that’s what she turns to. She wants safety, she can’t have safety, and this is all she can get.
What’s Delillo’s verdict? Can words give us anything after such a “fall�? Or are they merely ... White Noise?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 1, 2016
"These were the days after and now the years, a thousand heaving dreams, the trapped man, the fixed limbs, the dream of paralysis, the gasping man, the dream of asphyxiation, the dream of helplessness.�El 11 de septiembre del 2001 es una fecha que no solo tiene su marca en la Historia, sino que viene acompañada de imágenes de aviones que se estrellan, cenizas, lágrimas, gritos desesperados, personas cayendo y dos torres solitarias, al borde de una fantasía empírea que no pudo continuar. Las Torres, ahora invisibles, son el síndrome del miembro fantasma de la humanidad: todavía las sentimos, todavía nos duelen, están ahí, tan cerca de nosotros pero a la vez inalcanzables, como un sueño apunto de ser recordado en la mañana.
El 11 de septiembre del 2001 el mundo murió un poco más; fue una fecha de gritos desatados que dejaron silencios compartidos, la incapacidad de entender por qué nos pasó esto y qué fue lo que hicimos mal. ¿Por qué recibimos este castigo? DeLillo no intenta encontrarle una respuesta a esa pregunta. DeLillo nos acompaña, nos retrata en un montón de palabras, para decirnos que estamos aquí, seguimos aquí, con vida, heridos pero más sabios, más fuertes, y nos hace recordar que somos humanos, y que no debemos ignorar la muerte, porque sin la muerte no sabríamos cómo vivir.
Es cierto, en momentos DeLillo falla. El autor toca con demasiada sutileza las vidas de sus personajes, y eso hace que sean casi caricaturescos. Están muy mal desarrollados, no tienen valor, no lograron transmitirme mucho. Existe una sensación de soledad y de vacío a lo largo de toda la novela, sin embargo, no va más allá de eso. Asimismo, la interpretación de los terroristas, para mí, estuvo completamente de más. A pesar de lo dicho, es un libro que vale muchísimo la pena, que nos da consuelo cuando hemos caído en un foso imposible de llenar.
September 19, 2024
Titulo: El hombre del salto
Autor: Don DeLillo
Motivo de lectura: #PSM2024
Lectura / Relectura: Lectura
Fisico / Electronico: Electronico
Mi edicion: -
Puntuacion: 2/5
Un libro que me aburrio de principio a fin.
Al principio la trama se va tanto por las ramas que nunca capto mi atencion, los dialogos parecen "rotos" intercalandose de mala manera con otros topicos, una verdadera desilucion.
Autor: Don DeLillo
Motivo de lectura: #PSM2024
Lectura / Relectura: Lectura
Fisico / Electronico: Electronico
Mi edicion: -
Puntuacion: 2/5
Un libro que me aburrio de principio a fin.
Al principio la trama se va tanto por las ramas que nunca capto mi atencion, los dialogos parecen "rotos" intercalandose de mala manera con otros topicos, una verdadera desilucion.
April 29, 2013
Detriti. Polvere. Macerie. Morte. Sopravvissuti. Attentato terroristico. 11 settembre. America. Crollo. Twin Towers.
Sono solo alcuni dei termini che DeLillo usa per descrivere la paura, l'orrore, l'attentato terroristico che ha sconvolto l'America e il mondo. DeLillo analizza tutto ciò adottando un punto di vista narrativo diverso: da un lato racconta le paure, le angosce dei sopravvissuti, come Keith che è riuscito a sfuggire al crollo e che tenta di reagire perdendosi al tavolo da poker, oppure Lianne, l'ex moglie che segue le imprese di un uomo appeso a testa in giù oppure di Justin, il figlio, che scruta il cielo in attesa che i nuovi aerei compaiano; dall'altro racconta la tragedia da parte di chi l'ha organizzata, ovvero Hammad, l'artefice del crollo.
"L'uomo che cade" è la storia di chi cerca di esorcizzare la paure dell'11 settembre, cercando di far sì che tutto ciò che è successo non cada nell'oblio.
Sono solo alcuni dei termini che DeLillo usa per descrivere la paura, l'orrore, l'attentato terroristico che ha sconvolto l'America e il mondo. DeLillo analizza tutto ciò adottando un punto di vista narrativo diverso: da un lato racconta le paure, le angosce dei sopravvissuti, come Keith che è riuscito a sfuggire al crollo e che tenta di reagire perdendosi al tavolo da poker, oppure Lianne, l'ex moglie che segue le imprese di un uomo appeso a testa in giù oppure di Justin, il figlio, che scruta il cielo in attesa che i nuovi aerei compaiano; dall'altro racconta la tragedia da parte di chi l'ha organizzata, ovvero Hammad, l'artefice del crollo.
"L'uomo che cade" è la storia di chi cerca di esorcizzare la paure dell'11 settembre, cercando di far sì che tutto ciò che è successo non cada nell'oblio.
September 12, 2013
This book reads like 250 pages of great poetry. The prose is beautiful, moving, and breathtaking. The tragedy and trauma is felt poetically. The complex issues are dealt with all their complexity, and the tragedy is presented with all its force and yet subtly. The book never falls into sentimentality, reducing the touchy subject of 9/11 to a simple tear-jerker, it doesn't act "inspirational". It would be very easy for this book to suck, but it doesn't. It is a masterpiece. It is a worthy ode to 9/11, its victims, and the aftermath of that tragedy, and it makes you live the tragedy yourself. No better elegy is needed. It is like Yeats's "Easter 1916", heartfelt, moving, sublime, and yet not glorifying in a stupefying manner. To me, it is one of the best novels ever written.
March 9, 2015
On September 11th, 2001, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. was living several streets away at the time and wrote a of the entire horrific incident.
I recommend you read her story rather than this artsy, detached piece of crap.
I recommend you read her story rather than this artsy, detached piece of crap.
April 26, 2016
This is as severe as it gets, insofar as it opens with “figures in windows a thousand feet up, dropping into free space� (4), jumping to avoid death, ruled nevertheless homicide, from the burning WTC.
Confirmed that trauma is transformative to the extent that narrator “began to see things, somehow, differently� after the “second fall� (5). As with the narrator, so with the setting: “Everything was gray, it was limp and failed, storefronts behind corrugated steel shutters, a city somewhere else, under permanent siege� (emphasis added) (25). We are in a different place, after the event. Confirmed, the decentering of the setting by partial quotation of a Basho haiku: “Even in Kyoto—I long for Kyoto� (32).
As is normal for a Delillo novel, horrific trauma is juxtaposed with “the eventual extended grimness called their marriage� (7). Despite this, “she liked the spaces he made� (18). He is an “ex-husband who was never technically ex, the stranger you married in another lifetime� (35); “It was a mark of the distance between them that she listened so eagerly� (41). Dude is “a model of dependability to his male friends, all the things a friend should be, an ally and confidant, lends money, gives advice, loyal and so on, but sheer hell on women� (59).
She works with persons afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease:
All somewhat self-reflexive in the analysis of the ‘Falling Man,� a performance artist who recreates the famous non-fictional photograph of the same name, who’d “appeared several times in the last week, unannounced, in various parts of the city, always upside down, wearing a suit, a tie and dress shoes� (33); some were “shouting at him, outraged by the spectacle, the puppetry of human desperation, a body’s last fleet breath and what it held�: “the gaze of the world,� which nevertheless had an “awful openness� to it (id.). Wife “wished she could believe this was some kind of antic street theater, an absurdist drama that provokes onlookers to share a comic understanding of what is irrational in the great scheme of being� (163) when confronted with the Falling Man. In interpreting his act, she wonders “if this was his intention, to spread the word this way, by cell phone, intimately, as in the towers and in the hijacked planes� (165)—“or she was dreaming his intentions. She was making it up, stretched so tight across the moment that she could not think her own thoughts� (id.), which is a beautiful little summation of the position of all reading and how the intentional fallacy/death of the author arguments are omnipresent. (Nice joke here, as next paragraph is dude telling her “what I’m trying to do� (id.), which is “I’m trying to read her mind”—so doubly the intentional fallacy.)
‘Falling� itself is an oddity, contingent upon the movement from one place to another, which is, as the title might plausibly suggest, the master figure of thought here. It’s probably worth recalling Zeno’s paradoxes in these circumstances:
Fine debate between wife’s mother and the mother’s lover, which boils down respectively to the positions (heh) of “they think the world is a disease� v. “They strike a blow to this country’s dominance� (46). Three sections detail the internal monologue of one of the 9/11 hijackers, whose own opinion is more or less all that is solid melts into air: “A feeling of lost history. They were too long in isolation. This is what they talked about, being crowded out by other cultures, other futures, the all-enfolding will of capital markets and foreign policies� (80), which mediates somewhat between the two positions aforesaid. (NB: wife’s patients await reassurance from her “where what is solid does not melt� (127).) Lover’s position is similar to mine:
Not uninvolved in this connection is wife’s understanding that “religion makes people compliant […] to return people to a childlike state� (62). Significant, then, that her Alzheimer’s patients develop elaborate mythologies regarding 9/11, such as “I don’t forgive God for what He did� (63) and so on. As it happens, her own kid participates in an elaborate mythology of how one “Bill Lawton� “flies jet planes and speaks thirteen languages but not English except to his wives. What else? He has the power to poison what we eat but only certain foods� (74). The tragic and the traumatic must invite childish mythologies, and it’s fair to say that the state’s official narrative about 9/11 is likely to be a self-serving mythology only believable by political children (just as the truthers� counter-mythology also flatters those immature mythopoets� political preferences, which are not worthy of a serious leftist’s attention).
The Hegelian interest, as always: hijacker “had to fight against the need to be normal. He had to struggle against himself� (83). Wife notes at one point that “I could hear myself speaking. My voice was like it was coming from somebody else� (124) (as we have otherwise noted, of course, ‘voice� is always already “from elsewhere thrown,� the same aporia as in the etymology of position). One of wife’s patients is “two women simultaneously� (125); her mother has “thoughts I can’t identify, thoughts I can’t claim as mine� (id.). Of course, “everybody has two brains� (126). In developing a post-apocalyptic affair, dude decides to tell his wife about it, “a way to stop being double in himself, trailing the taut shadow of what is unsaid� (161), which is probably the primary significance of Poe’s “William Wilson.� (Wife similarly “was doubled over, like there were two of her� (169).) Hijacker is similarly “not here, it was not him� (175).
Some involvement with dude’s poker game, which passes from liberal at its inception to a rigorously regimented affair, a display of “how disciplined can we be� (97): “no food [...] no gin, no vodka, no wan liqueurs […] they agreed to limit themselves to one game only, five card stud.� (98); “The fact of self-imposed restriction, all the more unyielding for being ordered from within� correlates well with the increasingly “large sums they bet� (id.), if one considers it all from the perspective of Geertz’s “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight�:
The wrinkle with mother’s lover is that he may have been some sort of Red Brigades bomber himself in his youth (146), and now operates legitimately under a different name; “Maybe I don’t know his real name� (145). “He’s somewhere. I’m somewhere else� (id.). Dude regrettably “thinks these people, these jihadists, he thinks they have something in common with the radicals of the sixties and seventies. He thinks they’re all part of the same classical pattern. They have their theorists. They have their visions of world brotherhood� (147). This is kinda gross, I think; there shall be little ideological overlap between medievalists and marxists.
The hijacker’s lacanian mirror stage is itself satirized by a discussion of wife’s mother’s lover’s face:
Punchline of the entire text is granted to mother’s lover, who explains at length how “we’re all sick of America and Americans� (191), “America is going to become irrelevant,� “It is losing its center� (id.). As if this radical decentering were insufficient to make the point (Jingo rejoinder: “If we occupy the center, it’s because you put us there� (192)), lover ties it back, perhaps too tidily:
Develops otherwise the interest from Mao II and other loci the misanthropic notion of “being a crowd, this was a religion in itself� (185). Marks out this ugly topos, however, as specifically “a white person’s thoughts, the processing of white panic data� (id.). Probably a bit more severe than Bleeding Edge.
Recommended for those who develop bumps caused by small fragments of the suicide bomber’s body ('organic shrapnel'), readers for whom God would be a presence that remained unimaginable, and white persons, white their fundamental meaning, their state of being.
Oh, on the first edition.
Confirmed that trauma is transformative to the extent that narrator “began to see things, somehow, differently� after the “second fall� (5). As with the narrator, so with the setting: “Everything was gray, it was limp and failed, storefronts behind corrugated steel shutters, a city somewhere else, under permanent siege� (emphasis added) (25). We are in a different place, after the event. Confirmed, the decentering of the setting by partial quotation of a Basho haiku: “Even in Kyoto—I long for Kyoto� (32).
As is normal for a Delillo novel, horrific trauma is juxtaposed with “the eventual extended grimness called their marriage� (7). Despite this, “she liked the spaces he made� (18). He is an “ex-husband who was never technically ex, the stranger you married in another lifetime� (35); “It was a mark of the distance between them that she listened so eagerly� (41). Dude is “a model of dependability to his male friends, all the things a friend should be, an ally and confidant, lends money, gives advice, loyal and so on, but sheer hell on women� (59).
She works with persons afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease:
Sometimes it scared her, the first signs of halting response, the losses and failings, the grim prefigurings that issued now and then from a mind beginning to slide away from the adhesive friction that makes an individual possible. (30)NB: etymology for latinic translations of slide:
from Middle French laps "lapse," from Latin lapsus "a slipping and falling, flight (of time), falling into error," from labi "to slip, slide, sink, fall; decline, go to ruin." Meaning "moral transgression, sin" is c. 1500; that of "slip of the memory" is 1520s; that of "a falling away from one's faith" is from 1650s.(I think that means the patient is a ‘falling man.�) One of wife’s patients is “not so much lost as falling, growing fainter� (94). Even as the patient is falling, so too the patient’s condition is ready to fall: “They approached that was impending� (id.): impend as in in- "into, in, on, upon" + pendere "hang.� Loss of memory is therefore a mutually falling together, a gravitation of sorts between afflicted and affliction.
All somewhat self-reflexive in the analysis of the ‘Falling Man,� a performance artist who recreates the famous non-fictional photograph of the same name, who’d “appeared several times in the last week, unannounced, in various parts of the city, always upside down, wearing a suit, a tie and dress shoes� (33); some were “shouting at him, outraged by the spectacle, the puppetry of human desperation, a body’s last fleet breath and what it held�: “the gaze of the world,� which nevertheless had an “awful openness� to it (id.). Wife “wished she could believe this was some kind of antic street theater, an absurdist drama that provokes onlookers to share a comic understanding of what is irrational in the great scheme of being� (163) when confronted with the Falling Man. In interpreting his act, she wonders “if this was his intention, to spread the word this way, by cell phone, intimately, as in the towers and in the hijacked planes� (165)—“or she was dreaming his intentions. She was making it up, stretched so tight across the moment that she could not think her own thoughts� (id.), which is a beautiful little summation of the position of all reading and how the intentional fallacy/death of the author arguments are omnipresent. (Nice joke here, as next paragraph is dude telling her “what I’m trying to do� (id.), which is “I’m trying to read her mind”—so doubly the intentional fallacy.)
‘Falling� itself is an oddity, contingent upon the movement from one place to another, which is, as the title might plausibly suggest, the master figure of thought here. It’s probably worth recalling Zeno’s paradoxes in these circumstances:
Zeno makes a mistake in reasoning. For if, he says, everything is always at rest when it occupies a space equal to itself, and what is moving is always ‘in the now,� the moving arrow is motionless. […] the arrow is stopped while it is moving. This follows from assuming that time is composed of ‘nows.� If this is not conceded, the deduction will not go through. (Aristotle, Physics, 6.9239b)Similarly, Simplicius reports Zeno as arguing “If place exists, where is it? For everything that exists is in a place. Therefore, place is in a place. This goes on to infinity. Therefore place does not exist� (Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 562.3-6). Good stuff. Silly, but fun. Thing is, we might locate (!) an aporetic in the notion of position itself. Position etymology:
late 14c., as a term in logic and philosophy, from Old French posicion "position, supposition" (Modern French position), from Latin positionem (nominative positio) "act or fact of placing, situation, position, affirmation," noun of state from past participle stem of ponere "put, place," from PIE *po-s(i)nere, from *apo- "off, away" (see apo-) + *sinere "to leave, let". [emphasis added]We should note the diremptive effect of this etymology: a ‘leaving� ‘away’—i.e., position is linguistically always already away from itself, always already a falling, i.e., place as already a thing in motion—ergo, the contrapositive of Zeno’s paradox, which denies the possibility of motion in extended space? So this would be a double double-bind: the master figure of the text is simultaneously contingent upon two statements that contradict each other, that are themselves internally aporetic�stasis is both necessary and impossible; kinesis is likewise both necessary and impossible. It’s fuckin� crazy, yo.
Fine debate between wife’s mother and the mother’s lover, which boils down respectively to the positions (heh) of “they think the world is a disease� v. “They strike a blow to this country’s dominance� (46). Three sections detail the internal monologue of one of the 9/11 hijackers, whose own opinion is more or less all that is solid melts into air: “A feeling of lost history. They were too long in isolation. This is what they talked about, being crowded out by other cultures, other futures, the all-enfolding will of capital markets and foreign policies� (80), which mediates somewhat between the two positions aforesaid. (NB: wife’s patients await reassurance from her “where what is solid does not melt� (127).) Lover’s position is similar to mine:
It went on for a time and Lianne listened, disturbed by the fervor in their voices. Martin sat wrapped in argument, one hand gripping the other, and he spoke about lost lands, failed states, foreign intervention, money, empire, oil, the narcissistic heart of the West. (113)Mother’s point is by contrast “It’s a misplaced [!] grievance� (112). Hijacker believes that “what they hold so precious we see as empty space� (177).
Not uninvolved in this connection is wife’s understanding that “religion makes people compliant […] to return people to a childlike state� (62). Significant, then, that her Alzheimer’s patients develop elaborate mythologies regarding 9/11, such as “I don’t forgive God for what He did� (63) and so on. As it happens, her own kid participates in an elaborate mythology of how one “Bill Lawton� “flies jet planes and speaks thirteen languages but not English except to his wives. What else? He has the power to poison what we eat but only certain foods� (74). The tragic and the traumatic must invite childish mythologies, and it’s fair to say that the state’s official narrative about 9/11 is likely to be a self-serving mythology only believable by political children (just as the truthers� counter-mythology also flatters those immature mythopoets� political preferences, which are not worthy of a serious leftist’s attention).
The Hegelian interest, as always: hijacker “had to fight against the need to be normal. He had to struggle against himself� (83). Wife notes at one point that “I could hear myself speaking. My voice was like it was coming from somebody else� (124) (as we have otherwise noted, of course, ‘voice� is always already “from elsewhere thrown,� the same aporia as in the etymology of position). One of wife’s patients is “two women simultaneously� (125); her mother has “thoughts I can’t identify, thoughts I can’t claim as mine� (id.). Of course, “everybody has two brains� (126). In developing a post-apocalyptic affair, dude decides to tell his wife about it, “a way to stop being double in himself, trailing the taut shadow of what is unsaid� (161), which is probably the primary significance of Poe’s “William Wilson.� (Wife similarly “was doubled over, like there were two of her� (169).) Hijacker is similarly “not here, it was not him� (175).
Some involvement with dude’s poker game, which passes from liberal at its inception to a rigorously regimented affair, a display of “how disciplined can we be� (97): “no food [...] no gin, no vodka, no wan liqueurs […] they agreed to limit themselves to one game only, five card stud.� (98); “The fact of self-imposed restriction, all the more unyielding for being ordered from within� correlates well with the increasingly “large sums they bet� (id.), if one considers it all from the perspective of Geertz’s “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight�:
Bentham’s concept of ‘deep play� is found in his The Theory of Legislation. By it he means play in which the stakes are so high that it is, from his utilitarian standpoint, irrational for mend to engage in it at all.The card players “banned sports talk�; “Rules are good, they replied, and the stupider the better� (99). This stupid is good is placed (ha) into juxtaposition (!) with hijacker, who “spent time at the mirror looking at his beard, knowing he was not supposed to trim it� (82); Indeed, “the beard would look better if he trimmed it. But there were rules now and he was determined to follow them� (83). Later, hijacker is “looking past the face in the mirror, which is not his� (178). Is this mutually satirizing? Are the poker rules preface to the hijacker rules, or the converse? Which the tragedy, which the farce?
The wrinkle with mother’s lover is that he may have been some sort of Red Brigades bomber himself in his youth (146), and now operates legitimately under a different name; “Maybe I don’t know his real name� (145). “He’s somewhere. I’m somewhere else� (id.). Dude regrettably “thinks these people, these jihadists, he thinks they have something in common with the radicals of the sixties and seventies. He thinks they’re all part of the same classical pattern. They have their theorists. They have their visions of world brotherhood� (147). This is kinda gross, I think; there shall be little ideological overlap between medievalists and marxists.
The hijacker’s lacanian mirror stage is itself satirized by a discussion of wife’s mother’s lover’s face:
“Who is that man? You think you see yourself in the mirror. But that’s not you. That’s not what you look like. That’s not the literal face, if there is such a thing, ever. That’s the composite face. That’s the face in transition.�So, by simple mathematical reasoning: hijacker beard buries hijacker face, which is also the hijacker life. The Falling Man also has a “blankness in his face, but deep, a kind of lost gaze� (167); wife “thought the bare space he stared into must be his own, not some grim vision of others falling�; “he turns his head and looks into it (into his death by fire) and then brings his head back around and jumps� (id.). Falling Man is accordingly absent, not here, in the manner of other dislocated persons in the novel, and emblematic of same. Wife in seeing this “could have spoken to him but that was another plane of being, beyond reach� (168) (i.e., not here); she saw “no sign� of another witness previously present (id.); a third witness, “attached to this spot for half a lifetime,� “was seeing something elaborately different from what he encountered step by step in the ordinary run of hours,� as he had learned “how to see it correctly, find a crack in the world where it might fit� (id.) (something out of place, then?). As she fled, she thought of Falling Man, “back there, suspended, body set in place, and she could not think beyond this� (169). Falling Man is otherwise likened to a “Brechtian dwarf� (223), a reference perhaps to Life of Galileo:
“Don’t tell me this.�
“What you see is not what we see. What you see is distracted by memory, by being who you are, all the time, for all these years."
“I don’t want to hear this,� he said.
“What we see is the living truth. The mirror softens the effect by submerging the actual face. Your face is your life. But your face is also submerged in your life. That’s why you don’t see it. Only other people see it. And the camera of course.�
He smiled into his glass. Nina put out her cigarette, barely smoked, waving away a trail of smeary mist.
“Then there’s the beard,� Lianne said.
“The beard helps bury the face. (114-15)
I, as a scientist, had a unique opportunity. In my days astronomy reached the market-places. In these quite exceptional circumstances, the steadfastness of one man could have shaken the world. If only I had resisted, if only the natural scientists had been able to evolve something like the Hippocratic oath of the doctors, the vow to devote their knowledge wholly to the benefit of mankind! As things now stand, the best one can hope for is for a race of inventive dwarfs who can be hired for anything.Not sure if the thesis is that Falling Man was market driven rather than principled, or if the reference is more generally to Brechtian verfremdungseffekt. Whichever way, is the Falling Man forming the counter-narrative of 9/11 that Delillo describes in his well-known 9/11 essay (“In the Ruins of the Future,� Ჹ’s, December 2001 at 35)? Is it true, as in the same essay (loc. cit. at 34) that “the terrorists want to bring back the past�? If so, is the counter-narrative of the Bush regime aptly described by Benjamin’s sixth thesis, insofar as “even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins, and this enemy has not ceased to be victorious�?
Punchline of the entire text is granted to mother’s lover, who explains at length how “we’re all sick of America and Americans� (191), “America is going to become irrelevant,� “It is losing its center� (id.). As if this radical decentering were insufficient to make the point (Jingo rejoinder: “If we occupy the center, it’s because you put us there� (192)), lover ties it back, perhaps too tidily:
“I don’t know this America anymore. I don’t recognize it,� he said. “There’s an empty space where America used to be.� (193)The United States is according the Falling Man, no? (“God is the voice that says, ‘I am not here’� (236).) The US as indispensable impossibility, stasis, kinesis--but also lapsed, fallen into amnesia, its own crimes forgotten even as it itself is victim of crimes in unlawful response thereto.
Develops otherwise the interest from Mao II and other loci the misanthropic notion of “being a crowd, this was a religion in itself� (185). Marks out this ugly topos, however, as specifically “a white person’s thoughts, the processing of white panic data� (id.). Probably a bit more severe than Bleeding Edge.
Recommended for those who develop bumps caused by small fragments of the suicide bomber’s body ('organic shrapnel'), readers for whom God would be a presence that remained unimaginable, and white persons, white their fundamental meaning, their state of being.
Oh, on the first edition.
March 18, 2025
Gli attentati alle Torri Gemelle furono un evento di portata storica ed un trauma che colpì profondamente l'Occidente e l'America in particolare, irrompendo con violenza nella vita dell'americano medio.
Crollò l'assoluta certezza di essere sempre al sicuro, un senso di invincibilità che l'America aveva coltivato per anni.
DeLillo ci mostra questo cambiamento, la perdita di certezze individuali e collettive.
L'ombra di questo trauma che si estende sulla vita di ogni personaggio, stravolgendo la quotidianità e provocando un terrore e un'angoscia diffusi .
Keith cerca rifugio nell'oblio del poker, Lianne si impegna con la memoria attraverso il suo lavoro e la sua indagine sul passato familiare, il piccolo Justin tenta di dare un senso a questo caos attraverso il suo gioco distorto nel nome di "Bill Lawton".
La fragilità individuale e collettiva emerge con forza e sempre Keith, all'inizio descritto come un uomo fatto di futuro, si perde nel gioco d'azzardo, arrendendosi all'evidenza che la maggior parte delle vite non ha senso.
E poi c'è lui, "L'uomo che cade" che è uno degli elementi più potenti del romanzo, l'artista performativo che imita la tragica caduta delle vittime dalle Torri Gemelle e che provoca diverse reazioni nel pubblico che assiste, reazioni che vanno dall'indignazione al tentativo di comprensione e che evidenziano le differenti modalità con cui il trauma può essere elaborato e interpretato . Un tentativo di dare forma e significato all'orrore, oscillando tra un atto di commemorazione e una spettacolarizzazione della sofferenza .
Entra nella top 5 dei miei DeLillo preferiti di sempre.
-Che cosa ci riserva il futuro? Tu non te lo chiedi? Non dico il mese prossimo. Gli anni a venire.
Non ci riserva niente. Non c'è. Il futuro era questo. Otto anni fa misero una bomba in una delle torri. Allora nessuno ci disse che cosa ci avrebbe riservato il futuro. Il futuro c'è appena stato. Il momento in cui bisogna aver paura è quando non c'è motivo di averne. Ora è troppo tardi.
Aveva vari bastoni tra cui scegliere, e a volte, nelle ore meno affollate e nei giorni di pioggia,andava a piedi fino al Metropolitan Museum e guardava i quadri. Ne guardava tre o quattro in un'ora e mezza. Guardava ciò che non mutava. Amava le grandi sale, gli antichi maestri, tutto ciò che esercitava una presa immutabile sull'occhio e sulla mente, sulla memoria e sull'identità. Poi tornava a casa e leggeva.
Leggeva e dormiva.
Cosí aveva detto Nina Bartos.
- È puro e semplice panico. Attaccano per panico.
Su questo posso anche darti ragione. Perché loro pensano che il mondo sia una malattia.
Questo mondo, questa società, la nostra. Una malattia che va diffondendosi, - disse lui.
- Non esistono obiettivi che possono sperare di raggiungere. Non stanno liberando un popolo o cacciando un dittatore. Ammazzano persone innocenti, tutto qua.
- Infliggono un colpo al dominio di questo paese. Ecco l'obiettivo che raggiungono, dimostrare che una grande potenza può essere vulnerabile. Una potenza che interferisce, che occupa.
Lianne aveva un rapporto conflittuale con l'idea di Dio. Le avevano insegnato a credere che la religione rende le persone ubbidienti. È questo lo scopo della religione, riportare la gente a una condizione infantile. Timore e soggezione, diceva sua madre. Ecco perché la religione si esprime in modo cosí potente, mediante leggi, rituali e castighi. E si esprime anche attraverso la bellezza, ispirando musica e arte, elevando le coscienze di alcuni, schiacciando quelle di altri. La gente cade in trance, c'è chi letteralmente si prostra, chi strisciando percorre grandi distanze, oppure marcia in mezzo a una folla ferendosi e fustigandosi. E altri, il resto di noi, che vengono dondolati forse piú delicatamente, fissati a un cardine interiore nel profondo dell'anima. Potenza e bellezza, diceva sua madre. Noi vogliamo trascendere, vogliamo oltrepassare i limiti della comprensione innocua, e quale modo migliore di farlo se non tramite la creazione di fantasia.
C'era la religione, e poi c'era Dio. Lianne avrebbe tanto voluto non credere. Lo scetticismo era il percorso che conduceva alla chiarezza di pensiero e di intenti. O forse era solo un'altra forma di superstizione? Avrebbe voluto credere nelle forze e nei processi del mondo naturale, solo in quelli, nella realtà percepibile e negli sforzi scientifici, nel fatto che gli uomini e le donne fossero soli sulla terra. Sapeva che non esisteva conflitto tra la scienza e Dio. Si poteva avere l'una e l'altra cosa. Ma lei non voleva. C'erano i pensatori e i filosofi che aveva studiato a scuola, libri che aveva letto come dispacci entusiasmanti, indirizzati a lei personalmente, che a volte la scuotevano in profondità, e poi c'era l'arte sacra che aveva sempre amato. Opere create da persone che dubitavano, e da persone che credevano con fervore, e anche da persone che avevano prima dubitato e poi creduto, e lei era libera di pensare e di dubitare e di credere simultaneamente. Però non voleva. Dio l'avrebbe invasa e indebolita. Dio sarebbe rimasto sempre e comunque una presenza inimmaginabile. Ecco che cos'avrebbe voluto, spegnere una volta per tutte il battito della fede incerta che aveva nutrito per buona parte della sua vita.
Ma è possibile? La mia domanda è questa, - disse lei. - È davvero possibile che io e te abbiamo chiuso con i conflitti? Sai a cosa mi riferisco. L'attrito quotidiano. In ogni parola, ogni respiro, come prima di lasciarci. Possibile che tutto questo sia finito? Non ne abbiamo piú bisogno. Possiamo vivere senza. È cosí? - Siamo pronti a sprofondare nelle nostre piccole vite, - disse lui.
Il mondo cambia innanzitutto nella mente dell'uomo che vuole cambiarlo. Il momento è quasi giunto, la nostra verità, la nostra vergogna, e ogni uomo diverrà l'altro, e l'altro un altro ancora, finché non esista piú separazione.
Un tempo Keith aveva desiderato piú mondo di quanto avesse tempo e mezzi di acquisire. Ora non lo voleva piú, qualsiasi cosa fosse ciò che aveva voluto, in termini di realtà, di cose reali, perché in definitiva non l'aveva mai saputo davvero. Adesso si chiedeva se fosse nato per diventare vecchio, destinato a essere vecchio e solo, pago di una vecchiaia solitaria, e se tutto il resto, tutti gli sguardi feroci e gli sproloqui che aveva lasciato rimbalzare tra quelle pareti, non fossero stati altro che un veicolo per arrivare fin lí.
Presto verrà il giorno in cui nessuno piú penserà all'America, se non in virtú dei pericoli che crea. Sta perdendo la sua centralità. Sta diventando il centro della sua stessa merda. È l'unico centro che occupa.
Crollò l'assoluta certezza di essere sempre al sicuro, un senso di invincibilità che l'America aveva coltivato per anni.
DeLillo ci mostra questo cambiamento, la perdita di certezze individuali e collettive.
L'ombra di questo trauma che si estende sulla vita di ogni personaggio, stravolgendo la quotidianità e provocando un terrore e un'angoscia diffusi .
Keith cerca rifugio nell'oblio del poker, Lianne si impegna con la memoria attraverso il suo lavoro e la sua indagine sul passato familiare, il piccolo Justin tenta di dare un senso a questo caos attraverso il suo gioco distorto nel nome di "Bill Lawton".
La fragilità individuale e collettiva emerge con forza e sempre Keith, all'inizio descritto come un uomo fatto di futuro, si perde nel gioco d'azzardo, arrendendosi all'evidenza che la maggior parte delle vite non ha senso.
E poi c'è lui, "L'uomo che cade" che è uno degli elementi più potenti del romanzo, l'artista performativo che imita la tragica caduta delle vittime dalle Torri Gemelle e che provoca diverse reazioni nel pubblico che assiste, reazioni che vanno dall'indignazione al tentativo di comprensione e che evidenziano le differenti modalità con cui il trauma può essere elaborato e interpretato . Un tentativo di dare forma e significato all'orrore, oscillando tra un atto di commemorazione e una spettacolarizzazione della sofferenza .
Entra nella top 5 dei miei DeLillo preferiti di sempre.
-Che cosa ci riserva il futuro? Tu non te lo chiedi? Non dico il mese prossimo. Gli anni a venire.
Non ci riserva niente. Non c'è. Il futuro era questo. Otto anni fa misero una bomba in una delle torri. Allora nessuno ci disse che cosa ci avrebbe riservato il futuro. Il futuro c'è appena stato. Il momento in cui bisogna aver paura è quando non c'è motivo di averne. Ora è troppo tardi.
Aveva vari bastoni tra cui scegliere, e a volte, nelle ore meno affollate e nei giorni di pioggia,andava a piedi fino al Metropolitan Museum e guardava i quadri. Ne guardava tre o quattro in un'ora e mezza. Guardava ciò che non mutava. Amava le grandi sale, gli antichi maestri, tutto ciò che esercitava una presa immutabile sull'occhio e sulla mente, sulla memoria e sull'identità. Poi tornava a casa e leggeva.
Leggeva e dormiva.
Cosí aveva detto Nina Bartos.
- È puro e semplice panico. Attaccano per panico.
Su questo posso anche darti ragione. Perché loro pensano che il mondo sia una malattia.
Questo mondo, questa società, la nostra. Una malattia che va diffondendosi, - disse lui.
- Non esistono obiettivi che possono sperare di raggiungere. Non stanno liberando un popolo o cacciando un dittatore. Ammazzano persone innocenti, tutto qua.
- Infliggono un colpo al dominio di questo paese. Ecco l'obiettivo che raggiungono, dimostrare che una grande potenza può essere vulnerabile. Una potenza che interferisce, che occupa.
Lianne aveva un rapporto conflittuale con l'idea di Dio. Le avevano insegnato a credere che la religione rende le persone ubbidienti. È questo lo scopo della religione, riportare la gente a una condizione infantile. Timore e soggezione, diceva sua madre. Ecco perché la religione si esprime in modo cosí potente, mediante leggi, rituali e castighi. E si esprime anche attraverso la bellezza, ispirando musica e arte, elevando le coscienze di alcuni, schiacciando quelle di altri. La gente cade in trance, c'è chi letteralmente si prostra, chi strisciando percorre grandi distanze, oppure marcia in mezzo a una folla ferendosi e fustigandosi. E altri, il resto di noi, che vengono dondolati forse piú delicatamente, fissati a un cardine interiore nel profondo dell'anima. Potenza e bellezza, diceva sua madre. Noi vogliamo trascendere, vogliamo oltrepassare i limiti della comprensione innocua, e quale modo migliore di farlo se non tramite la creazione di fantasia.
C'era la religione, e poi c'era Dio. Lianne avrebbe tanto voluto non credere. Lo scetticismo era il percorso che conduceva alla chiarezza di pensiero e di intenti. O forse era solo un'altra forma di superstizione? Avrebbe voluto credere nelle forze e nei processi del mondo naturale, solo in quelli, nella realtà percepibile e negli sforzi scientifici, nel fatto che gli uomini e le donne fossero soli sulla terra. Sapeva che non esisteva conflitto tra la scienza e Dio. Si poteva avere l'una e l'altra cosa. Ma lei non voleva. C'erano i pensatori e i filosofi che aveva studiato a scuola, libri che aveva letto come dispacci entusiasmanti, indirizzati a lei personalmente, che a volte la scuotevano in profondità, e poi c'era l'arte sacra che aveva sempre amato. Opere create da persone che dubitavano, e da persone che credevano con fervore, e anche da persone che avevano prima dubitato e poi creduto, e lei era libera di pensare e di dubitare e di credere simultaneamente. Però non voleva. Dio l'avrebbe invasa e indebolita. Dio sarebbe rimasto sempre e comunque una presenza inimmaginabile. Ecco che cos'avrebbe voluto, spegnere una volta per tutte il battito della fede incerta che aveva nutrito per buona parte della sua vita.
Ma è possibile? La mia domanda è questa, - disse lei. - È davvero possibile che io e te abbiamo chiuso con i conflitti? Sai a cosa mi riferisco. L'attrito quotidiano. In ogni parola, ogni respiro, come prima di lasciarci. Possibile che tutto questo sia finito? Non ne abbiamo piú bisogno. Possiamo vivere senza. È cosí? - Siamo pronti a sprofondare nelle nostre piccole vite, - disse lui.
Il mondo cambia innanzitutto nella mente dell'uomo che vuole cambiarlo. Il momento è quasi giunto, la nostra verità, la nostra vergogna, e ogni uomo diverrà l'altro, e l'altro un altro ancora, finché non esista piú separazione.
Un tempo Keith aveva desiderato piú mondo di quanto avesse tempo e mezzi di acquisire. Ora non lo voleva piú, qualsiasi cosa fosse ciò che aveva voluto, in termini di realtà, di cose reali, perché in definitiva non l'aveva mai saputo davvero. Adesso si chiedeva se fosse nato per diventare vecchio, destinato a essere vecchio e solo, pago di una vecchiaia solitaria, e se tutto il resto, tutti gli sguardi feroci e gli sproloqui che aveva lasciato rimbalzare tra quelle pareti, non fossero stati altro che un veicolo per arrivare fin lí.
Presto verrà il giorno in cui nessuno piú penserà all'America, se non in virtú dei pericoli che crea. Sta perdendo la sua centralità. Sta diventando il centro della sua stessa merda. È l'unico centro che occupa.
April 8, 2021
Romance sobre as consequências do 11 de setembro na vida de dois sobreviventes, em particular, e dos nova-iorquinos em geral.
September 11, 2015
”These are the days after. Everything is now measured by after.�
As I write this, on the 13th anniversary of 9/11 -- one of the most tragic and revered days in American History -- I reflect back on Delillo’s “Falling Man� and what I got from this fictional text based on a time and place that is still fresh in many minds and hearts as if it happened, in a figurative sense, yesterday.
Outside of the death of loved ones and grief-stricken friends and family, “Falling Man� tells of a time after the tragedy. How a family that was once broken becomes closer; an anonymous briefcase given back to its owner and a healing ensues between two people; the question of ‘why?� and the reminiscence of a time prior to the incident; the symbolism of the street artist ‘The Falling Man� disparate from who was labeled ‘Falling Man�; the point of view from both sides, enemy vs. foe.
To be honest and literal, all of these thoughts, while being engrained in our minds at the time, slowly recede, grains of sand by hourglass, from our memory as we age and get older, looking at death in the mirror as it closely arrives to its destination, like Pearl Harbor is no longer on many minds until the anniversary.
Delillo’s story fails, at times, to share the emotional side of these people, but brings forth the emotion in the read itself. This is my fifth book in two years by Delillo and it might be my last for awhile. I’m sure there’s been better stories written about this topic, yet I can only recount what I’ve read from this one.
Giving it a 3, but would give it a 2.5 if possible.
As I write this, on the 13th anniversary of 9/11 -- one of the most tragic and revered days in American History -- I reflect back on Delillo’s “Falling Man� and what I got from this fictional text based on a time and place that is still fresh in many minds and hearts as if it happened, in a figurative sense, yesterday.
Outside of the death of loved ones and grief-stricken friends and family, “Falling Man� tells of a time after the tragedy. How a family that was once broken becomes closer; an anonymous briefcase given back to its owner and a healing ensues between two people; the question of ‘why?� and the reminiscence of a time prior to the incident; the symbolism of the street artist ‘The Falling Man� disparate from who was labeled ‘Falling Man�; the point of view from both sides, enemy vs. foe.
To be honest and literal, all of these thoughts, while being engrained in our minds at the time, slowly recede, grains of sand by hourglass, from our memory as we age and get older, looking at death in the mirror as it closely arrives to its destination, like Pearl Harbor is no longer on many minds until the anniversary.
Delillo’s story fails, at times, to share the emotional side of these people, but brings forth the emotion in the read itself. This is my fifth book in two years by Delillo and it might be my last for awhile. I’m sure there’s been better stories written about this topic, yet I can only recount what I’ve read from this one.
Giving it a 3, but would give it a 2.5 if possible.
January 26, 2016
Fabulously written, quite frankly devastating a read, DeLillo's Falling Man is a haunting retelling of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America with such poetic force as to shatter, whilst memorialising, the American subject, changed forever by the cataclysmic impact of globalised modernity.
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