Thursday, August 10, 2006
Post 9/11 Books Part 3 / Terrorist
John Updike's Terrorist made me wonder if we really are living through the end of Western civilization as we know it. The two main characters of the novel, a high school guidance counselor and his Muslim charge, represent polar opposites. The "American" side of the equation is fat, lazy, decrepit, and morally equivocal, while the Muslim terrorist-in-training is slim, ambitious, pure, and convinced he is right on moral issues. The young Muslim is vain about his appearance, he is not a saint, but he does have some ground to stand on in his condemnation of American laxness. The neglect he sees all around him, from the ashheaps that surround his home to his mother's come-and-go lovers, confirms his belief that he is on the right path. The novel leaves open the terrifying possibility that the "American way of life" is being exposed as a fraud even among our own citizens, and that these neglected citizens could act out their revenge through terrorist acts. Updike tries to get inside the head of a potential homegrown terrorist, and he succeeds in this only so far. He repeats some phrases over and over, almost like a heroic epithet, in describing the terrorist mind. Other than that, the novel succeeds in painting a terrifying picture of neglect turned into tragedy.
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2 comments:
Scott, this seems like a good post to choose for a response. It touches on a notion implied in the comments you sent me about product placement in book publishing — in response to my remarks on the subject:
members.cox.net/theanteroom/booksarchive.html
Why They Hate Us seems to change every other week. Officially, Al Qaeda objects to our presence in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim lands. Bin Laden in 2004 scoffed at our administration's oft-repeated assertion that he and his followers want to destroy freedom: "…[W]hy we don’t strike, for example, Sweden?” (See James Fallows' "Declaring Victory" in the September Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200609/fallows_victory)
And of course we have the persistent Israel-Palestine quarrel. But I think most reasonable observers would agree that Western materialism is a primary irritant to devout Muslims.
The point of intersection with product placement in books for preteens is that marketing has become so pervasive that it has evaded the "sacred" precincts of literature. It almost does not matter whether or not kids are savvy or susceptible (and I lean toward the former), because the net effect is a culture that is about nothing but marketing. It has become a mainstream commonplace that we assemble identity from the media sellscape. So these questions then arise: Is this good or bad? Would you rather have an oppressive theocracy? And is something like simple envy really the motivation behind the piety of martyrdom?
I don't know, but it seems to me that Updike might have his finger on the central conundrum of our times, which is: How do we carve a life of meaning out of the marketing.
I agree with you that identity is a form of self-defense for a lot of kids. They don't realize it, but they cling to their ipods and cell phones and myspace.com because they are desperate to carve out a place for themselves in the midst of a media marketplace that entices them to consume products of all kinds. It is a problem that Western materialism has progressed so far that kids and adults have difficulty defining themselves without reference to a piece of technology, and it's a warning sign that our nation is heading toward a new era. We can fight the shift or embrace it, but it's coming no matter what. We're all a part of this Western materialism thing, so it's difficult to get our heads around whether the change is good or bad. I think it's by and large bad, because it leads to more disconnectedness and lack of respect for people as unique and valuable because of who they are, not what they do. Still, there are some good things about it -- kids are learning to think for themselves. They haven't learned all the tools they need to escape a Western materialist culture or even better to change that culture, but maybe they will.
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