Název: When everything is about 9/11 : on reading contemporary fiction through 9/11 and the boundaries of the 9/11 novel
Zdrojový dokument: Brno studies in English. 2024, roč. 50, č. 1, s. 137-153
Rozsah
137-153
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Trvalý odkaz (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2024-1-8
Trvalý odkaz (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.81079
Type: Článek
Jazyk
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Přístupová práva
otevřený přístup
Upozornění: Tyto citace jsou generovány automaticky. Nemusí být zcela správně podle citačních pravidel.
Abstrakt(y)
This article examines the boundaries of the term 9/11 novel by exploring what we truly mean when we say a novel is about 9/11 and what are the issues in reading general twenty-first-century literature through 9/11. By taking a thorough look at 9/11 literary scholarship, I argue that the issue of defining the 9/11 novel has been largely overlooked; consequently, the label 9/11 has often been stamped too easily on twenty-first-century fiction. In the aim to establish the boundaries of 9/11 fiction, I compare the thematic, temporal, and spatial features of some of the most iconic 9/11 novels to two works which have been commonly read as 9/11 novels even though they do not explicitly discuss the attacks, Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. By building on this discussion, I offer a concise definition of what a 9/11 novel is and where 9/11 ends.
Note
This paper is the result of Metropolitan University Prague research project no. 104-1 "Political Science, Media and Anglophone Studies" (2024) based on a grant from the Institutional Fund for the Long-term Strategic Development of Research Organizations.
Reference
[1] Adams, Tim (2009) Cormac McCarthy: America's great poetic visionary. The Guardian 20 Dec. 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2009/dec/20/observer-profile-cormac-mccarthy Accessed on 9 July 2024.
[2] Banita, Georgiana (2012) Plotting Justice: Narrative Ethics and Literary Culture after 9/11. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
[3] Irom, Bimbisar (2012) Alterities in a time of terror: notes on the subgenre of the American 9/11 novel. Contemporary Literature 53 (3), 517–547.
[4] Beigbeder, Frédéric (2005) Windows on the World. 2004. London, Harper Perennial.
[5] Brearey, Oliver James. (2012) The technological paradox in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The Explicator 70 (4), 335–338.
[6] Cooper, Lydia R. (2011) Cormac McCarthy's The Road as apocalyptic grail narrative. Studies in the Novel 43 (2), 218–236.
[7] Cvek, Sven (2011) Towering Figures: Reading the 9/11 Archive. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
[8] DeLillo, Don (2008) Falling Man. 2007. New York, Scribner.
[9] Däwes, Birgit. (2011) Ground Zero Fiction: History, Memory, and Representation in the American 9/11 Novel. Heidelberg, Universitatsverlag Winter.
[10] Foer, Jonathan Safran (2018) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 2005. London: Penguin Books.
[11] Frow, John (2015) Genre. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis.
[12] Gray, Richard (2011) After the Fall: American Literature Since 9/11. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[13] Hamid, Mohsin (2018) The Reluctant Fundamentalist. 2007. London, Penguin Books.
[14] Holloway, David (2008) 9/11 and the War on Terror. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
[15] Johns-Putra, Adeline (2016) 'My job is to take care of you': climate change, humanity, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Modern Fiction Studies 62 (3), 519–540.
[16] Kalfus, Ken (2006§) A Disorder Peculiar to the Country. London, Simon & Schuster.
[17] Keeble, Arin (2014) The 9/11 Novel: Trauma, Politics and Identity. Jefferson: McFarland.
[18] Keniston, Ann, and Jeanne Follansbee Quinn (2008) Introduction: representing 9/11: literature and resistance. In: Keniston, Ann and Jeanne Follansbee Quinn (eds.) Literature after 9/11. New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis, 1–15.
[19] Kohari, Alizeh (2011) Is there a novel that defines the 9/11 decade? BBC News 28 Aug. 2011. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-14682741 Accessed on 9 July 2024.
[20] Lewis, Charles (2008) Real planes and imaginary towers: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America as 9/11 prosthetic screen. In: Keniston, Ann and Jeanne Follansbee Quinn (eds.) Literature after 9/11. New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis, 246–260.
[21] McCarthy, Cormac (2009) The Road. 2006. London: Picador.
[22] McInerney, Jay (2006) The Good Life. New York: Vintage Contemporaries.
[23] Melnick, Jeffrey (2009) 9/11 Culture: America under Construction. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[24] Mishra, Pankaj (2007) The End of Innocence. The Guardian 19 May 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/19/fiction.martinamis Accessed on 9 July 2024.
[25] Petrovic, Paul (2015) Introduction: emergent trends in post-9/11 literature and criticism. In: Petrovic, Paul (ed.) Representing 9/11: Trauma, Ideology, and Nationalism in Literature, Film, and Television. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, ix–xvii.
[26] Pöhlmann, Sascha (2010) Collapsing identities: the representation and imagination of the terrorist in Falling Man. In: Schneck, Peter and Philipp Schweighauser (eds.) Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. New York: Continuum, 51–64.
[27] Randall, Martin (2011) 9/11 and the Literature of Terror. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
[28] Roth, Philip (2004) The Plot Against America. London: Jonathan Cape.
[29] Roth, Philip (2004) The story behind 'The Plot Against America'. The New York Times 19 Sept. 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/books/review/the-story-behind-the-plot-against-america.html Accessed on 7 July 2023.
[30] Shostak, Debra (2016) Prosthetic fictions: reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close through Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. In: Morley, Catherine (ed.) 9/11: Topics in Contemporary North American Literature. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 21–40.
[31] Sykes, Rachel (2014) A failure of imagination? Problems in 'post-9/11' fiction. In: Fanuzzi, Rober and Michael Wolfe (eds) Recovering 9/11 in New York. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 248–262.
[32] Updike, John (2007) Terrorist. 2006. London: Penguin Books.
[33] Versluys, Kristiaan (2009) Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. New York: Columbia UP.
[34] Walter, Jess (2006) The Zero. New York, Regan.
[35] Ward, Maggie (2018) Predicting Trump and Presenting Canada in Philip Roth's The Plot against America. Canadian Review of American Studies 48 (1), 17–37.
[36] Worthington, Marjorie (2011) The fleeting '9/11 effect' in The Good Life and Lunar Park. The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 44 (2), 111–125.
[2] Banita, Georgiana (2012) Plotting Justice: Narrative Ethics and Literary Culture after 9/11. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
[3] Irom, Bimbisar (2012) Alterities in a time of terror: notes on the subgenre of the American 9/11 novel. Contemporary Literature 53 (3), 517–547.
[4] Beigbeder, Frédéric (2005) Windows on the World. 2004. London, Harper Perennial.
[5] Brearey, Oliver James. (2012) The technological paradox in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The Explicator 70 (4), 335–338.
[6] Cooper, Lydia R. (2011) Cormac McCarthy's The Road as apocalyptic grail narrative. Studies in the Novel 43 (2), 218–236.
[7] Cvek, Sven (2011) Towering Figures: Reading the 9/11 Archive. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
[8] DeLillo, Don (2008) Falling Man. 2007. New York, Scribner.
[9] Däwes, Birgit. (2011) Ground Zero Fiction: History, Memory, and Representation in the American 9/11 Novel. Heidelberg, Universitatsverlag Winter.
[10] Foer, Jonathan Safran (2018) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 2005. London: Penguin Books.
[11] Frow, John (2015) Genre. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis.
[12] Gray, Richard (2011) After the Fall: American Literature Since 9/11. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[13] Hamid, Mohsin (2018) The Reluctant Fundamentalist. 2007. London, Penguin Books.
[14] Holloway, David (2008) 9/11 and the War on Terror. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
[15] Johns-Putra, Adeline (2016) 'My job is to take care of you': climate change, humanity, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Modern Fiction Studies 62 (3), 519–540.
[16] Kalfus, Ken (2006§) A Disorder Peculiar to the Country. London, Simon & Schuster.
[17] Keeble, Arin (2014) The 9/11 Novel: Trauma, Politics and Identity. Jefferson: McFarland.
[18] Keniston, Ann, and Jeanne Follansbee Quinn (2008) Introduction: representing 9/11: literature and resistance. In: Keniston, Ann and Jeanne Follansbee Quinn (eds.) Literature after 9/11. New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis, 1–15.
[19] Kohari, Alizeh (2011) Is there a novel that defines the 9/11 decade? BBC News 28 Aug. 2011. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-14682741 Accessed on 9 July 2024.
[20] Lewis, Charles (2008) Real planes and imaginary towers: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America as 9/11 prosthetic screen. In: Keniston, Ann and Jeanne Follansbee Quinn (eds.) Literature after 9/11. New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis, 246–260.
[21] McCarthy, Cormac (2009) The Road. 2006. London: Picador.
[22] McInerney, Jay (2006) The Good Life. New York: Vintage Contemporaries.
[23] Melnick, Jeffrey (2009) 9/11 Culture: America under Construction. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[24] Mishra, Pankaj (2007) The End of Innocence. The Guardian 19 May 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/19/fiction.martinamis Accessed on 9 July 2024.
[25] Petrovic, Paul (2015) Introduction: emergent trends in post-9/11 literature and criticism. In: Petrovic, Paul (ed.) Representing 9/11: Trauma, Ideology, and Nationalism in Literature, Film, and Television. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, ix–xvii.
[26] Pöhlmann, Sascha (2010) Collapsing identities: the representation and imagination of the terrorist in Falling Man. In: Schneck, Peter and Philipp Schweighauser (eds.) Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. New York: Continuum, 51–64.
[27] Randall, Martin (2011) 9/11 and the Literature of Terror. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
[28] Roth, Philip (2004) The Plot Against America. London: Jonathan Cape.
[29] Roth, Philip (2004) The story behind 'The Plot Against America'. The New York Times 19 Sept. 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/books/review/the-story-behind-the-plot-against-america.html Accessed on 7 July 2023.
[30] Shostak, Debra (2016) Prosthetic fictions: reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close through Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. In: Morley, Catherine (ed.) 9/11: Topics in Contemporary North American Literature. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 21–40.
[31] Sykes, Rachel (2014) A failure of imagination? Problems in 'post-9/11' fiction. In: Fanuzzi, Rober and Michael Wolfe (eds) Recovering 9/11 in New York. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 248–262.
[32] Updike, John (2007) Terrorist. 2006. London: Penguin Books.
[33] Versluys, Kristiaan (2009) Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. New York: Columbia UP.
[34] Walter, Jess (2006) The Zero. New York, Regan.
[35] Ward, Maggie (2018) Predicting Trump and Presenting Canada in Philip Roth's The Plot against America. Canadian Review of American Studies 48 (1), 17–37.
[36] Worthington, Marjorie (2011) The fleeting '9/11 effect' in The Good Life and Lunar Park. The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 44 (2), 111–125.