Windows on the World

[fresh_a]

What follows is a loosly (google) translated article which appeared today on gastronomie.com. Looks interesting, though the book exists only in French for the moment, and I haven't yet seen any real reviews. Anyone read it?

11/09: Frederic Beigbeder counters Luc Lang PARIS, August 26 (AFP) - Frederic Beigbeder and Luc Lang tell on September 11 2001 in an opposite way: the energetic and narcissistic novel of the first, the feverish and committed account of the second who refuses, for such an event answers, to resort to the fiction. Former advertising executive, ex-organizer tele (Canal+), author of the best-seller "99 francs", always critical, Mr. Beigbeder is currently an editor at Flammarion. Its novel left at the end of August is entitled "Windows one the World", of the name of the restaurant which was located at the 107e stage of World Trade Center. "the only means of knowing what occurred in the restaurant (...), between 08H30 and 10H29, it is to invent it", known as the novelist by describing the last moments of a father and its two sons, small-lunching this morning "in the center of the universe". When the hell breaks out, the father made believe in Jerry and David who it is about a play: "say p' Pa, do not have you need to hide your superpowers longer", known as David. That is worth poignant pages on their ridiculous efforts to leave itself there. But what interests the author, it is the impact of the attacks on itself. To measure it, it from goes away, sometimes with his daughter, with the "Sky of Paris", the restaurant of the 56e stage of the Montparnasse tower. Of up there, it reflects on this tragedy, on New York, its childhood, its generation, expresses its admiration for the United States. "narcissism" the writing of the novel, which, admits the author, "uses the tragedy like a literary crutch", is fluid, inventive and Beigbeder is full with spirit. But the book, well party for success, will aggravate by the interest that the writer goes. Which, malignant or perverse, does not hesitate to be whipped, or to make seeming: "I show myself kindness in narcissism (...), I show myself to have gone on Canal+ to avenge me not to be a star (...), I show myself self-satisfaction disguised in denigration", writes it by thus enumerating 40 charges. "Windows one the World" hardly has relationship with "September 11 my love" of Luc Lang, published in August, which qualified the first work, in an interview with the New Observer, of "trick with large spectacle, advertising company". "And isn't your title, it advertizing? Why not will +Sabra and Chatila my chou+ or +Srebrenica my darling+?", Beigbeder answered. The work of Luc Lang - author of "Thousand six hundred bellies" (Goncourt of the high-school pupils) and who teaches esthetics in the Art schools - does not contribute in the same category: it is a road movie, a great report in extreme cases of the test and, with final, pitiless instantaneous of the United States. September 11, 2001, Mr. Lang travels in the sublimes landscapes of Montana, on the traces of the Blackfeet Indians. He discovers the images of the towers struck by the planes in a reserve of Browning. Missing its go with "the survivors of a génocide", it then sees America meurtrie, but also America "furbishing its weapons and building its revenge". "A speed light, the electric image precipitated us in same time, in loop, we were there and, let us be still buckled to us there, each one knowing precisely, in this Tuesday September 11, of what its life was made. We were sudden, alone and recluse in our banality, together and contemporaries ", writes it at the end of this "book of combat" where, often, it removed the word "I" of its sentences. ("Windows one the World ", éd Grasset, 374 pages, 18 euros; "September 11 my love", éd Stock, 248 pages, 18,05 euros)

Edited August 26, 2003 by fresh_a (log)

[John Whiting]

The translation creates a world which is almost as surreal as the destruction of the towers itself.

[badthings]

Sounds positively Houellebecq-ian.

What is up with French Lit.?

[hollywood]

I think the question is: Can anyone read this?

[fresh_a]

Sorry all. Although I have the capacity to translate the review, I haven't the time, although I hope it provided a small foretaste..

[hollywood]

Sorry all. Although I have the capacity to translate the review, I haven't the time, although I hope it provided a small foretaste..

No offense. Google translations are funny in small doses and if the topic's not too heady.

[fresh_a]

Yeah, and I couldn't be bothered to do an exhaustive translation, shame on me...

Well? Anyone read it?

[=Mark]

WTF?