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A review by piccoline
Atta by Jarett Kobek
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.
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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.