Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel

New
Paperback
2009
$31.98

Writers have represented 9/11 and its aftermath with varying degrees of success. In Out of the Blue, Kristiaan Versluys focuses on novels that move beyond patriotic cliches and cheap sensationalism and provide new insights into the emotional and ethical impact of these traumatic events--and what it means to depict them. Versluys focuses on Don DeLillo's Falling Man, Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Frederic Beigbeder's Windows on the World, and John Updike's Terrorist. He scrutinizes how these writers affirm the humanity of the disoriented individual, as opposed to the cocksure killer or politician, and retranslate hesitation, stuttering, or stammering into a precarious act of defiance. Versluys also discusses works by Ian McEwan, Anita Shreve, Martin Amis, and Michael Cunningham, arguing for the novel's distinct power in rendering the devastation of 9/11.

Synopsis

Writers have represented 9/11 and its aftermath with varying degrees of success. In Out of the Blue, Kristiaan Versluys focuses on novels that move beyond patriotic cliches and cheap sensationalism and provide new insights into the emotional and ethical impact of these traumatic events--and what it means to depict them. Versluys focuses on Don DeLillo's Falling Man, Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Frederic Beigbeder's Windows on the World, and John Updike's Terrorist. He scrutinizes how these writers affirm the humanity of the disoriented individual, as opposed to the cocksure killer or politician, and retranslate hesitation, stuttering, or stammering into a precarious act of defiance. Versluys also discusses works by Ian McEwan, Anita Shreve, Martin Amis, and Michael Cunningham, arguing for the novel's distinct power in rendering the devastation of 9/11.

$31.98

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 22 Sep 2009
ISBN 10: 0231149379
ISBN 13: 9780231149372
Book Overview: From the often moving simplicity of victims' telephone messages to immediate and persistent political uses and abuses and the complex variations of literary 'counter-narratives' and theoretical reflections, this book explores the possibilities and pitfalls of trauma theory in trying to account for catastrophic events and the attempts to come to terms with them, their voids, and their aftershocks. -- Dominick LaCapra, Cornell University, and author of History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence One of this study's key strengths lies in its confident and mature voice, which can be discerned both in Kristiaan Versluys's ease and breadth of reference to earlier twentieth-century works and in his intimate and informed understanding of the geographical and cultural landscapes of New York. Out of the Blue undoubtedly has the potential to become a defining work and an invaluable point of reference. -- Anne Whitehead, Newcastle University, and author of Trauma Fiction In a series of elegant readings, Kristiaan Versluys probes the paradox at the heart of all literary responses to traumatic events: the impossibility of expressing the inexpressible and the necessity of bearing witness to extreme violence. Combining ethical intelligence and nuanced analyses, Versluys provides a readable introduction to a rapidly emerging genre. This insightful book will interest all who are struggling to make sense of the trauma of September 11 and its aftermath. -- Michael Rothberg, author of Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization

Media Reviews

Illuminating. -- Nigel Rodenhurst Times Higher Education Supplement Highly recommended. Choice

Author Bio

Kristiaan Versluys is a professor of American literature and culture at Ghent University, Belgium, and a regular visiting professor at Columbia University. He is the author of The Poet in the City: Chapters in the Development of Urban Poetry in Europe and the United States and the editor of Neo-Realism in Contemporary American Fiction.