Scan barcode
redfigure's review against another edition
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
laurenjpegler's review against another edition
2.0
I've done it. I've read the final book for my Terrorism & Modern Literature module. Each book I've read looks at terrorism in different time periods, and for the last novel it was only right I looked at the 9/11 attacks.
I cannot rely on my own words to summarise this for you. They would not do the novel justice. So, instead, I have taken the most relevant and important sentences out of the ridiculously long Goodreads summary: In the summer of 1999, Mohamed Atta defended a master's thesis that critiqued the introduction of Western-style skyscrapers in the Middle East and called for the return of the -Islamic-Oriental city. The novel's main concern is asking the question: what if 9/11 was as much a matter of architectural criticism as religious terrorism?
To be honest, I didn't hate this (surprisingly, considering I've hated all the others). It was interesting and very well written. I think the main reason I liked this was because it was (sort of) contemporary. I was five when this happened, so I have absolutely no recollection of the attack. But I do remember it was all people talked about for years, so I felt like I could connect to this narrative through that.
The reason I'm rating this down so much is because the first 2/3 of the novel was quite boring. It was interesting to get one of the attacker's backstory, but I didn't really care for it all that much? Why would I want to read and occasionally feel sympathy or understanding to a man who committed such an atrocious attack? I can't help but feel like this book removes some of the blame from the attackers, placing it on different people, capitalism, etc. etc. etc.
Essentially, the only reason I am giving it 2 stars is for the final third of the novel. Despite this being the most horrific part, it was interestingly depicted. It was brutal, violent and graphic, but it showed Kobek's writing abilities. I was drawn in by this part of the narrative, but I feel like I shouldn't have been? I'm not too sure, to be honest, I'm so conflicted right now. It was good, but raised a lot of issues for me, too.
But to summarise this review, I will refer back to the Goodreads summary: "ATTA is a brutal, relentless, and ultimately fearless corrective to ten years of propaganda and pandering".
I cannot rely on my own words to summarise this for you. They would not do the novel justice. So, instead, I have taken the most relevant and important sentences out of the ridiculously long Goodreads summary: In the summer of 1999, Mohamed Atta defended a master's thesis that critiqued the introduction of Western-style skyscrapers in the Middle East and called for the return of the -Islamic-Oriental city. The novel's main concern is asking the question: what if 9/11 was as much a matter of architectural criticism as religious terrorism?
To be honest, I didn't hate this (surprisingly, considering I've hated all the others). It was interesting and very well written. I think the main reason I liked this was because it was (sort of) contemporary. I was five when this happened, so I have absolutely no recollection of the attack. But I do remember it was all people talked about for years, so I felt like I could connect to this narrative through that.
The reason I'm rating this down so much is because the first 2/3 of the novel was quite boring. It was interesting to get one of the attacker's backstory, but I didn't really care for it all that much? Why would I want to read and occasionally feel sympathy or understanding to a man who committed such an atrocious attack? I can't help but feel like this book removes some of the blame from the attackers, placing it on different people, capitalism, etc. etc. etc.
Essentially, the only reason I am giving it 2 stars is for the final third of the novel. Despite this being the most horrific part, it was interestingly depicted. It was brutal, violent and graphic, but it showed Kobek's writing abilities. I was drawn in by this part of the narrative, but I feel like I shouldn't have been? I'm not too sure, to be honest, I'm so conflicted right now. It was good, but raised a lot of issues for me, too.
But to summarise this review, I will refer back to the Goodreads summary: "ATTA is a brutal, relentless, and ultimately fearless corrective to ten years of propaganda and pandering".
andrew_russell's review against another edition
2.0
Mohammed Atta, the infamous ringleader of the 9/11 terrorist plot that led to the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, provides the subject matter of Jarett Kobek's short work of fiction.
In many ways, Atta's infamy is both the main selling point, as well as the main weak point of Kobek's novel. For those old enough at the time to recollect the aftermath of 9/11 and the subsequent media reports, Atta's photograph, showing a tight-lipped and stone faced young Middle Eastern man, is an image that is burnt into their memory. The activities of the terrorist cell that he led were exhaustively reported. All this adds up to a challenging task for any potential author. In essence, the challenge is 'what can I add to that which is already known?' Any such author has two main means of doing so - either revealing something novel about Atta's psyche, or using prose style to provide an aesthetic which so impresses the reader, that the events themselves prove to be of secondary importance.
I got the impression that Kobek employed both of these strategies, at varying intervals throughout the book. As far as the prose goes, it's at times almost dazzling, particularly when Kobek writes of Atta's disdain for the consumerism that is ever present in the US. These narrow vignettes almost leap off the page. The multiple Z's towards the end of the book serve little purpose other than to distract though, and for those segments of prose that do impress, they are just that - segments, that often prove all too brief.
But the events that Kobek relates through the eyes and mind of Atta also fall short. There isn't much in the way of anything new and original. And the leap from first person to third person narrative styles detracts from any attempt to construct a solid psychological portrait of Atta himself. Those sections that deal with Atta's religious ideology are challenging for anyone that doesn't already have at least a vague understanding of where it may have come from - a question that remains unanswered through the books short length.
Overall, this never really hits the sweet spot that a solid psychological portrait should but does have brief flourishes of poetic brilliance as far as the prose is concerned.
In many ways, Atta's infamy is both the main selling point, as well as the main weak point of Kobek's novel. For those old enough at the time to recollect the aftermath of 9/11 and the subsequent media reports, Atta's photograph, showing a tight-lipped and stone faced young Middle Eastern man, is an image that is burnt into their memory. The activities of the terrorist cell that he led were exhaustively reported. All this adds up to a challenging task for any potential author. In essence, the challenge is 'what can I add to that which is already known?' Any such author has two main means of doing so - either revealing something novel about Atta's psyche, or using prose style to provide an aesthetic which so impresses the reader, that the events themselves prove to be of secondary importance.
I got the impression that Kobek employed both of these strategies, at varying intervals throughout the book. As far as the prose goes, it's at times almost dazzling, particularly when Kobek writes of Atta's disdain for the consumerism that is ever present in the US. These narrow vignettes almost leap off the page. The multiple Z's towards the end of the book serve little purpose other than to distract though, and for those segments of prose that do impress, they are just that - segments, that often prove all too brief.
But the events that Kobek relates through the eyes and mind of Atta also fall short. There isn't much in the way of anything new and original. And the leap from first person to third person narrative styles detracts from any attempt to construct a solid psychological portrait of Atta himself. Those sections that deal with Atta's religious ideology are challenging for anyone that doesn't already have at least a vague understanding of where it may have come from - a question that remains unanswered through the books short length.
Overall, this never really hits the sweet spot that a solid psychological portrait should but does have brief flourishes of poetic brilliance as far as the prose is concerned.
mcmali_'s review against another edition
4.0
While it’s true that to read is to live a thousand lives, this is one POV that I didn’t think I would cross. A confronting yet equally compelling depiction that axiomatically confirms ALL tales have two sides.
nathansnook's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
5.0
"So that the reading was like a book only to the extent that the book is regarded as a porous, unstable, and provisional platform for the dissemination of information. We tend to think of books as interiorized devices, linked to solitude and self-enclosed spaces; and they deliver something, like meaning, up to the reader. But I’m not so interested in knowledge in that teleological sense; I’m more interested in the dissipation of knowledge, unfocused attention, and generic receptiveness. It would be nice if a book could reduce the amount of knowledge in the air. I’m equally interested in the public and communal architecture of reading practices as they intersect with individuals and park benches, the subway and the seminar room. Why can’t a book be more like a perfume? Or a door? Or the year after we graduated from college? A perfume is a communications medium just as literature is. Moods, furniture, restaurants, and books are communications mediums. What is it that Warhol said, 'I think the right hormones can make Chanel No. 5 smell very butch.' -- Tan Lin <a href="https://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/oct/24/interview-tan-lin/">rhizome.org</a>
Kobek made concrete speak. From the depths of Iraqi thought. From the depths of Disney and 𝘜𝘭𝘺𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 retellings. From Atta, the architect who piled the plane into the Twin Towers on September 11th. The buildings speak as much as land does to relay history. Each rock speaks for the human conscience. And for the American context, Kobek uses humor and concise prose that swirls and swirls to a dizzying effect. Perhaps the buzzing is everywhere. I too stopped to listen to the buildings and there was a voice in contemporary formations. Sloped and sullen, broken and rebuilt, lost and found in our contemporary voice that struggles to find footing in our positions of things and thoughts.
This book is a sound, a solid, in historical fiction, a perfume of how ideology formulates and resolves through trauma and history to countdown to an unspeakable terror that we all know, one with mixed facts and fictions, an oblivion from text to life, from fiction to nonfiction, that crushes the very essence and idiocracy of autofiction.
Kobek made concrete speak. From the depths of Iraqi thought. From the depths of Disney and 𝘜𝘭𝘺𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 retellings. From Atta, the architect who piled the plane into the Twin Towers on September 11th. The buildings speak as much as land does to relay history. Each rock speaks for the human conscience. And for the American context, Kobek uses humor and concise prose that swirls and swirls to a dizzying effect. Perhaps the buzzing is everywhere. I too stopped to listen to the buildings and there was a voice in contemporary formations. Sloped and sullen, broken and rebuilt, lost and found in our contemporary voice that struggles to find footing in our positions of things and thoughts.
This book is a sound, a solid, in historical fiction, a perfume of how ideology formulates and resolves through trauma and history to countdown to an unspeakable terror that we all know, one with mixed facts and fictions, an oblivion from text to life, from fiction to nonfiction, that crushes the very essence and idiocracy of autofiction.
chronotope's review against another edition
5.0
Atta is a book that is hard to describe. Meticulous, fascinating, disturbing.
In some ways it might be best to go into this book with no knowledge of what is within, which is how I did it. To be so thoroughly introduced to the internal voice and thought process of a character who is often used to exemplify inhumanity, and whose acts are well deserving of revilement, is to repudiate dehumanization, generalization and demonization. Even our worst enemies are still people; their thoughts and motivations are not uniform, and may not even be what we suspect. Even the clearest of evils does not have the clearest of sources.
Jarett Kobek writes a well-researched historical fiction Few books will make you think more.
In some ways it might be best to go into this book with no knowledge of what is within, which is how I did it. To be so thoroughly introduced to the internal voice and thought process of a character who is often used to exemplify inhumanity, and whose acts are well deserving of revilement, is to repudiate dehumanization, generalization and demonization. Even our worst enemies are still people; their thoughts and motivations are not uniform, and may not even be what we suspect. Even the clearest of evils does not have the clearest of sources.
Jarett Kobek writes a well-researched historical fiction
Spoiler
from the point of view of one of the 9/11 plane hijackers, centered on the idea that for Atta the attack was as much an architectural statement as a religious one.frasersimons's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
An incredible portrait of the architect of one of the cells that flew a plane into one of the towers on 9/11. The voice crafted for this is as successful for me as Lolita. Not with the goal of seducing the reader to the point-of-view of Atta, but more the believable, organic nature of the voice being entirely embodied in every level of the prose work. You absolutely revile the man, who rails against those less puritanical than him even as he refuses to interrogate an inch of himself. Yet even in so doing, there is massive conflict present. Always bubbling and psychically driving his thoughts, emotions, and actions.
It’s actually an important work, I feel. When people do these things the gut reaction is to paint them as insane and dehumanize them and contrast them to us completely. But actually our creating a caricature of people who do these things only allows for us to continually misunderstand and often demonize entire groups which we ascribe the perpetrators of such actions. Similarly lacking the inward reflection and critical input from others, as well as the fostering of empathy everyone dearly, dearly needs to be and perceive and negotiate humanity.
At a systemic level, Atta here does actually perceive real issues and real harm coming from western society. And he’s not wrong about them. But that anger turning to fostered, active hatred coupled with shame that could easily be likened to those of western rearing and socialization is similarly present. He does see, at times, that God is Love. But can’t internalize it because the rhetoric of his turned masculinity can’t justify that.
So he does as everyone does: build their own prison. Play architect to their own pain and, in turn, filter everything through that skewed lens.
Again, just as in Lolita, the reader should come away from this reflecting on their own lens. Where does our own motivated thinking take us? Where are we going? What are we doing? Harm? Or good?
It’s actually an important work, I feel. When people do these things the gut reaction is to paint them as insane and dehumanize them and contrast them to us completely. But actually our creating a caricature of people who do these things only allows for us to continually misunderstand and often demonize entire groups which we ascribe the perpetrators of such actions. Similarly lacking the inward reflection and critical input from others, as well as the fostering of empathy everyone dearly, dearly needs to be and perceive and negotiate humanity.
At a systemic level, Atta here does actually perceive real issues and real harm coming from western society. And he’s not wrong about them. But that anger turning to fostered, active hatred coupled with shame that could easily be likened to those of western rearing and socialization is similarly present. He does see, at times, that God is Love. But can’t internalize it because the rhetoric of his turned masculinity can’t justify that.
So he does as everyone does: build their own prison. Play architect to their own pain and, in turn, filter everything through that skewed lens.
Again, just as in Lolita, the reader should come away from this reflecting on their own lens. Where does our own motivated thinking take us? Where are we going? What are we doing? Harm? Or good?
piccoline's review
4.0
How does one rate such a book?
ATTA is Mohammed Atta, one of the leaders among the 9/11 hijackers. This novel is a fictionalized account of him, half in third person and half in first. For several days I could not begin the book, afraid of what it might ask of me. Is it an anti-American screed, some author ripping the US asunder through the mouth of this violent man? Or will it only present him as a mindless murderer, the novel itself yet one more coded message to this complacent land that, no, you need not reflect upon the treatment you give the rest of the world. Yet I believe in art, literary art, and is not this fear, this possible danger precisely what is missing from so much of what is now written and published? I wanted to be buffeted, I wanted to wrestle. This book brought that about, and must thus be viewed a success.
The short story included to fill out the last pages is well worth reading, too. It is entitled The Whitman of Tikrit, and allows us to learn of Saddam Hussein's (fictional? real? I don't even want to know) deep and abiding passion for the poetry of Walt Whitman.
I know nothing about Kobek. I do not know his politics, but I believe we should not flee from literary works merely because of the politics of the writer. I recommend this book for its bravery, its poetry, and how it unsettled me.
----------------------
One other word: This book also does very well one of the things that makes literature so valuable, and that is that it makes the world strange. To be placed in this mindset, to be shifted about by it, to be shown the western world in such a way, to be shown buildings and architecture and patterns of behavior from this outside viewpoint is all important, and very well done in this book.
ATTA is Mohammed Atta, one of the leaders among the 9/11 hijackers. This novel is a fictionalized account of him, half in third person and half in first. For several days I could not begin the book, afraid of what it might ask of me. Is it an anti-American screed, some author ripping the US asunder through the mouth of this violent man? Or will it only present him as a mindless murderer, the novel itself yet one more coded message to this complacent land that, no, you need not reflect upon the treatment you give the rest of the world. Yet I believe in art, literary art, and is not this fear, this possible danger precisely what is missing from so much of what is now written and published? I wanted to be buffeted, I wanted to wrestle. This book brought that about, and must thus be viewed a success.
The short story included to fill out the last pages is well worth reading, too. It is entitled The Whitman of Tikrit, and allows us to learn of Saddam Hussein's (fictional? real? I don't even want to know) deep and abiding passion for the poetry of Walt Whitman.
I know nothing about Kobek. I do not know his politics, but I believe we should not flee from literary works merely because of the politics of the writer. I recommend this book for its bravery, its poetry, and how it unsettled me.
----------------------
One other word: This book also does very well one of the things that makes literature so valuable, and that is that it makes the world strange. To be placed in this mindset, to be shifted about by it, to be shown the western world in such a way, to be shown buildings and architecture and patterns of behavior from this outside viewpoint is all important, and very well done in this book.
More...