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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
novel that takes place 2 years after 9/11: an elite jury in NYC has selected a design for a 9/11 memorial through an anonymous design contest. They open the envelope to see that the winning architect is a Muslim American. Stories focus on the Muslim and Muslim activists, victims’ families, jury members and government officials, and a illegal Bangladeshi widow whose illegal alien husband worked and died at the World Trade Center.
Liked the premise and author's writing is terrific. Found myself wanting more action midway but ending was strong.
For such a provocative plot - a memorial contest for 9/11 is won by a Muslim - this book was unsatisfying. I didn't care for any of the characters and the first half was especially plodding.
This is a really extraordinary portrait of the state of cross-cultural (mis)understandings today. The premise - Muslim architect wins design contest for 9/11 memorial - begs for satire, but the genius of this novel is its humane groundedness. Instead of a parade of easy caricatures, Waldman presents an earnest array of well-rounded characters with knotty motivations, conflicting interests and complex loyalties, as paradoxical and occasionally opaque as real people. It reads like an Altman movie on the page, only with a more commanding master narrative voice. Will it resonate as strongly in a different era or be a time capsule of the early 21st century American zeitgeist? Ask me in 20 years.
Submission
a noun
1 the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person : they were forced into submission.
2 the action of presenting a proposal, application, or other document for consideration or judgment : reports should be prepared for submission at partners' meetings.
Ms Waldman has taken a hot button topic in today's reality and blown it up for examination. Not only is this about a submission, or entry, into a contest, it is also about how each character submits to someone or something else stronger than themselves. What they submit to they do not completely understand.
This book is about the powers and forces that work against us and our better judgements. Such a poignant story.
Oh, and by the way, the prose is absolutely beautiful!
a noun
1 the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person : they were forced into submission.
2 the action of presenting a proposal, application, or other document for consideration or judgment : reports should be prepared for submission at partners' meetings.
Ms Waldman has taken a hot button topic in today's reality and blown it up for examination. Not only is this about a submission, or entry, into a contest, it is also about how each character submits to someone or something else stronger than themselves. What they submit to they do not completely understand.
This book is about the powers and forces that work against us and our better judgements. Such a poignant story.
Oh, and by the way, the prose is absolutely beautiful!
Three quarters of the way through this book I was prepared to write a rather negative review of the book. But I do think it did do a good job really looking at what were to happen if a the situation in the book occurred. Interesting concept, but tough to read at times, both in style and content.
Interesting premise, would have liked it better had it focused on one person as opposed to several. Does create an intriguing scenario, what would happen if a Muslim entered a contest to build the 9/11 memorial and won, but doesn't fully live up to the potential
Mohammad Khan - the almost perfect anti-hero. He forces all of us to honestly rethink our knowledge, our beliefs, and our prejudices.
I'm a bit surprised that I can read a book about the aftermath of September 11. But I did, and I realize how much the theme of fear of the "other" resonates now, possibly more loudly. The plot dramatizes the scenario of selecting a design for the memorial, not unlike the controversies around the actual design and other lower Manhattan projects (e.g., proposed mosque). The characters are well-drawn, particularly as I didn't really "like" any of the main characters, as they reveal their weaknesses and struggle with what they want to do and what might be "right" to do.
There were parts of this book that really worked, but overall it suffered from the author's failure to decide what kind of book she was trying to write. Swaths of the book read like satire, and overall the satire is better than decent. But then the book turns in another direction, toward straight ahead drama and an examination of healing and hate, and that part of the book bounces between pedestrian and straight up ridiculous. The writer created characters like the Post "journalist" and the Governor who are pure satire, but then she plunks them down in the middle of an earnest allegory. It makes the whole sort of ridiculous. Imagine Buck Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove being featured in Saving Private Ryan. So reading this as satire there are situations and characters which are too straightforward and objective, and reading it as a serious novel which explores America's anti-Islam direction and the ways in which it isolates us it is a book filled with underdeveloped characters. Some of those characters are Snidely Whiplash level evil (Debbie Dawson, Alyssa Spier, the governor) and some are imbued only with everything good and noble (Asma, Leila), and not one reads like a real person. There are things to like here, its a fantastic premise, but a surer writer would have been very welcome.