THE MYTH OF 9/11 Zoë Formby Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2011 Abstract Conceptualisations of modern literary history are premised upon a series of dynastic successions, whereby one is able to trace, albeit simplistically, the evolution of the novel through its realist, modernist and postmodernist manifestations. Considered in this linear manner, the emergence of altered cultural movements is ordinarily attributed to a crisis within the former mood; as society ruptures and alters, existing modes of representation prove inadequate to reflect, or else engage with, the emergent structure of feeling. As an event with far-reaching implications, many critics and cultural commentators have attributed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 with the inception of an altered global mood. Moreover, in the days and weeks following 9/11, the publication of a number of articles penned by authors emphasised the extent to which the event had precipitated a profound crisis in representation. As an ever greater number of articles and studies emerged proclaiming the final death knell of postmodernism and the emergence of a more anxious global mood, so the myth of 9/11 quickly developed. The thesis rests upon a very simple question: to what extent has 9/11 precipitated a change in the novel? Through examining a wide range of fictions published largely within Britain in the last fifteen years, the study explores and ultimately dispels the assumptions of the myth. Rather than examining the fictional representation of 9/11, the study’s focus is on assessing the significance of the novel after the event, and moreover on interrogating the manner in which the terrorist attacks might have engendered a shift in the contemporary mood that is reflected in the subsequent novels published. Through emphasising the novelistic concerns and themes that transcend the assumed cultural rift, the thesis proposes that the ‘post-9/11 mood’ might more usefully be interpreted as an exacerbation of an already existing structure of feeling that responds to the banal superficiality of the postmodern condition. i Acknowledgements There are many people who have offered support of various kinds over the last five years to whom I am indebted. My profound thanks, first and foremost, go to my principal supervisors, Professor Dominic Head and Doctor Sean Matthews who have provided me with continual intellectual and moral support throughout. I want to thank Sean particularly for his keen critical eye and his persistence (and patience) in helping to refine the many ideas of the thesis into something, which I hope, is largely coherent. His unremitting belief in both the project and my abilities has been invaluable, and his continual reassurance over the past ten years is something that I am hugely appreciative of. I am also immensely grateful to Doctor David James for his guidance within the latter stages of the thesis. It can’t have been easy picking up the project at such a late point in its development, but having a fresh pair of eyes to help further focus the critical and analytical aspects of the thesis has been extremely helpful. I am grateful to the various members of the Nottingham Contemporary Fiction Reading Group, whose discussions have both helped to refine my own critical perspective and have encouraged me to consider alternate ways of approaching texts. Particular thanks go to Peter Preston, Emily Horton and Caroline Edwards. There is a strong postgraduate community that has made my time at Nottingham both intellectually stimulating and enjoyable. Dawn Knight, Jo Pready and Sarah Grandage deserve special thanks for the support and advice they have provided over the years, and for being on-hand at those moments when I needed to distance myself from the thesis and gain a wider perspective. I am lucky to have a supportive family who have continued to encourage me throughout, and have been understanding when I have had to forego various family occasions. I’m particularly grateful to my mother, grandmother and two brothers for their unwavering support and reassurance. My wholehearted thanks go to my husband Mark – henceforth to be known as Saint Mark – whose enduring support, encouragement and belief over the past ten years has been nothing short of remarkable; my gratitude to him is boundless. My final acknowledgement goes to my late grandfather. An ardent reader of my earlier work, his ethics continue to inspire me, and it is to him that this thesis is dedicated. ii Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Introduction: The Myth of 9/11 5 1. Defining the Postmodern Moment 11 1.1 Naming the System: Looking Back at Postmodernism 11 1.2 Dropping the Postmodern Baton? Locating the British Tradition 24 1.3 Hesitation at the Crossroads: the ‘Problematic’ Novel 30 1.4 The End of History and Disintegration of Self 42 1.5 The ‘New’ Postmodern Tradition 56 2. ‘The Worldflash of a Coming Future’? 69 2.1 On or About September 11, 2001… 72 2.2 Impatient Periodisation: Defining the Post-9/11 Mood 76 2.3 Framing Post-9/11 Fiction: The Four Prophecies of Mao II 81 2.4 The Function of Literature After 9/11 91 2.5 Boredom and Arbitrary Acts of Terror 110 2.6 The Dawning of the Age of Anxiety? 123 3. Species Consciousness and Post-9/11 Subjects 134 3.1. Species Consciousness and the ‘Return of an Ancient Human 134 Universal’ 3.2 The Human in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility 141 3.3 Lost in the City: The Dislocated Urban Subject 162 3.4 Cognitive Social Mapping: The Relocation of the Subject 166 3.5 Cataloguing the Self: Urban Archiving 176 4. ‘Chimerical Monstrous Others’? The Representation of the 184 Muslim in the Post-9/11 Novel 4.1 The Reluctant Ostraciser and the Fundamentalist 184 4.2 Tracing the Post-Migrant Tradition 187 4.2.1 The Post-Migrant Tradition 189 4.2.2 The ‘New’ Post-Migrant Tradition 198 4.3 The Burden of Representation 212 4.4 ‘The Start of the Madness’? Brick Lane, 9/11 and the Muslim 224 4.5 Radical Fictions: The Fundamentalist in Post-9/11 Literature 230 4.5.1 The ‘Real’ Fundamentalist 230 4.5.2 The ‘Ambiguous’ Fundamentalist 237 5. Conclusion: Zadie Smith and the Deconstruction of the Myth 245 5.1 Smith at the Crossroads 245 5.2 Naming the Systems: Multiculturalism and Cosmopolitanism 249 5.3 The Speculative Multiculturalism of White Teeth 255 5.4 Anticipating Cosmopolitanism: The Autograph Man 276 5.5 The Revitalisation of Forsterian Humanism in On Beauty 282 Bibliography 292 Introduction: The Myth of 9/11 Myths […] purport to relate one’s experience to grand beginnings and ends.1 On or about September 2001 Western culture changed. The change was sudden and definite, and since one need not be arbitrary, let us date it to September 11, 2001. The first signs of it are recorded in the newspaper articles penned by Western authors, Ian McEwan’s ‘Beyond Belief’ in particular; their fictions continue to record it. In society one can see the change, if I may use a socio-cultural illustration, in the assumed responsibilities of the author. The pre-9/11, postmodern writer of fiction is an eclectic creator of alternate realities; playfully in and out of the literary tradition, now to borrow from modernism, now to pastiche and deconstruct ‘reality’; the fictions exuberantly challenge conventions, and the author revels in his lack of mimetic responsibility. The post-9/11 writer lives like a leviathan at the forefront of the public consciousness; revelment ended, he is called upon to explain, and interpret faithfully, the incomprehensible reality of the emerging landscape; formal experimentation is discarded as mimesis is demanded by the reading public. All cultural relations have shifted – those between authors and society, fiction and reality, East and West. And when cultural relations change there is at the same time a change in perceptions of religion, conduct, politics and literature. Let us agree to place one of these changes about September 11, 2001. So might be envisaged the contemporary cultural mood: a period of transition precipitated by an event of such magnitude that the established tools of perception are unable to make comprehensible the emergent post-9/11 reality. Following the events of September 11, politicians and cultural commentators alike were quick to announce the inception of a new global era. In the days and weeks that followed, articles penned by novelists attempting to make sense of the new global reality, saturated the broadsheets. While many proclaimed an impending crisis within representation – what meaningful role could fiction have within a climate where reality had taken on a heightened potency? – that society turned to its authors as a means to decipher the events is significant, and seemingly imbues the writer with a social responsibility at 1 Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (1967; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.35 5 odds with his positioning as an agent of postmodern vacuity. Indeed, in demanding a clarity of perception beyond the grasp of mere mortals, the post-9/11 author is apotheosized, having been resurrected from his postmodern death. For many such writers, the increased burden of expectation served to stifle creativity. Martin Amis is perhaps the most notable instance, temporarily abandoning a work in progress (Yellow Dog would later be published in 2003), and hyperbolically declaring that following 9/11, ‘all the writers on earth were reluctantly considering a change in occupation’2 (a statement that, having itself been published, contains an inherent incongruity). That, however, the immediate response to the cultural impact of 9/11 is the instinctive proclamation that ‘things will never be the same again,’ may be just that: an immediate reaction, rather than a considered analysis documenting a lasting shift in the cultural mood.