Falling Man - Don DeLillo

Ok, phew. Books dealing with 9/11. That's some heavy stuff, my friends, and I'm hesitant to say anything but positive stuff about this book, because I recognize what a bold move it is to start creating fiction about (fairly) recent, (extremely) tragic history, and even though DeLillo isn't the first to do it, I have to give him props.

Falling Man begins, appropriately enough, with the collapse of the Twin Towers. Rather than deal directly with the event of 9/11 itself, which we've all seen played and replayed on CNN, DeLillo chooses to address how it affected individual lives, which is far more to the point. Keith, a Tower employee, finds himself wandering dazedly through the ash, and eventually turns up at the doorstep of his estranged wife, Lianne. DeLillo follows their attempts to rebuild a semblance of marriage, as well as Lianne's philosophical conversations with her ailing mother and her mother's nomadic lover, Martin.

What DeLillo does well is illustrate how world events can dent our lives, but don't fundamentally change us as people. Neither Keith nor Lianne becomes a saint, and their marriage is hardly better for having nearly lost it. Keith's obsession with a suitcase he picked up from the Tower, with its unknown (and then known, if you know what I mean) owner, is heartbreakingly real in the confusion it portrays. This is not a world-wide fixation, but that of a single man.

Rather than try to document the effects of this event on the world (which would surely piss some people off, and be woefully inadequate at any rate) DeLillo illustrates public response in a microcosm. The fear that claimed most of the Western world is personified in the bodies of three small children, standing daily at the window, scanning the skies for more planes, sure that this 'Bill Lawton' (bin Ladin) they hear the grown-ups speak of in hushed tones isn't finished with them yet.

However. This book reminded me of nothing so much as a French film, full of long sighs and meaningful glances. It was good, if by 'good' you mean interesting and serious. If, by 'good,' you mean eventful or fast-paced or even satisfying, then...no. The dialogue felt terribly unnatural to me, although when I would read pieces out loud they sounded fine. It's just...Lianne and her mother's nomadic lover have these long, loopy conversations in which they don't seem to be talking to each other at all, but soliloquizing simultaneously. I want to quote this part for you, but I'd have to quote several pages in order for you to understand that when Martin says 'I lift my head from the washbasin,' that it has absolutely no relevance to the conversation, has no precedence, makes no sense, and I'm not sure how much copyright I'd be infringing on.

Also, DeLillo leads up to these interesting events, and then just drops them. Like, Lianne runs this support group for people with Alzheimers in which they write down all the things they can remember about the topic of the day, and then read them aloud to each other, and this one woman forgets where she lives and so stops coming to the group and then all the others want to write about her that day, and so they do, and 'for the first time since the sessions began, [Lianne] is afraid to hear what they will say' when they read their stuff out loud, and then what do they say? Who knows. That bit is dropped, and never picked up again. So, I guess, it's kind of like life, except that I don't want to read 'like life,' because I'm living life. I'd rather read something satisfying, with at least an attempt to tie up loose ends. I know. I'm childish. But this is my blog.

On the whole, parts of this book were extremely effectual (DeLillo's portrayal of the events inside the Towers, after the planes had hit but before the collapse, is breath-taking) but other bits left me flat.

Six caterpillars.