Updike's Terrorist
From Safran Foer to Auster, America's novelists have begun to try and find ways to assimilate and incorporate the tragedy of 9/11 in fiction. And now, it's the turn of John Updike to do the same. A report informs us that his next novel, simply titled Terrorist, "confronts the emotional issue of changes in America after the September 11, 2001, attacks with a culturally charged twist: Updike's terrorist is a U.S. teenager given a sympathetic treatment."
Says the author, who's just published a book of art criticism: "It's my attempt, in a way, to cope with today's world. Terrorism is one of our themes that has changed the texture of American life in a noticeable way. And of course it makes you fearful because you think 'well I'm not a terrorist but somebody could be'."
On changing expectations from the novel, he says: "Now people want to believe that this is just what happens, how it feels and how it looks. The fiction writer has less freedom to invent."
Says the author, who's just published a book of art criticism: "It's my attempt, in a way, to cope with today's world. Terrorism is one of our themes that has changed the texture of American life in a noticeable way. And of course it makes you fearful because you think 'well I'm not a terrorist but somebody could be'."
On changing expectations from the novel, he says: "Now people want to believe that this is just what happens, how it feels and how it looks. The fiction writer has less freedom to invent."
posted by PrufrockTwo at
15.12.05
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