The Second Plane: September 11, 2001-2007 [Hardcover]

Martin Amis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2008

Martin Amis first wrote about September 11 a week later in a piece for "The Guardian" beginning, 'It was the advent of the second plane, sharking in low over the Statue of Liberty: that was the defining moment.' And he has kept returning to September 11, in essays and reviews, and in two remarkable short stories, 'In the Place of the End' and 'The Last Days of Muhammad Atta'. All are collected here, together with an expanded account of his travels with Tony Blair in 2007 - to Belfast, to Washington, and to Baghdad and Basra. 'We are arriving at an axiom in long-term thinking about international terrorism,' he writes: 'the real danger lies, not in what it inflicts, but in what it provokes. Thus by far the gravest consequence of September 11, to date, is Iraq ...Meanwhile, September 11 continues, it goes on, with all its mystery, its instability, and its terrible dynamism.'

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Amis is a] writer who is arguably the most gifted stylist of his generation, and who may be genetically incapable of a dull sentence . . . The Second Plane and the furor surrounding its inception represent the debate an open and confident society should be willing to sustain about such fundamental, if difficult, matters." -"Toronto Star
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"The Second Plane is an essential snapshot of a moment in time, of private reactions to a world in transition set against a collective anger and despair." -"Edmonton Journal
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"Novelist Martin Amis's bent for punchy sentences and reason-as-the-only-fit-yardstick geopolitical analysis both surface early in this provocative collection of non-fiction essays, reviews and short stories. . . . Tough, and controversial, stances abound in The Second Plane. . . . Amis's command of language is a joy to read." -"Winnipeg Free Press
""The great value of this book is that it does not permit us the armchair luxury of relativizing or compartmentalizing the War on Terror. By shifting the stage from the local to the global and raising the bar from the actual to the potential, Amis holds both sides to the same standards." -"The Gazette"
"Amis is a highly intuitive writer. . . . The views Amis presents are worth reading for their wit, their vibrant phrasing, their ring of conviction." -"National Post"
"[V]erbal thrill . . .[Amis's] writing remains capable of anything" -"The Observer
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"What Amis [has] really done, as the chronologically ordered pieces in this collection demonstrate, was to go on a political journey. . . . [P]ossibly the most fully engaged writer of our age." -"The Times
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"Amis is famously audacious, sardonic, andexcoriating. But in this bracing and corrective collection of intense and perceptive responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 . . . Amis is doing far more than performing literary pyrotechnics or playing provocateur. . . . [He] writes with vehemence, daring, and verve because he schools himself in harsh truths, and because he cares." -"Booklist"

"From the Hardcover edition."

About the Author

Martin Amis is the author of ten novels, two collections of stories and six collections of non-fiction. He lives in London.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape; First North american Edition edition (January 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0224076108
• ISBN-13: 978-0224076104
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,340,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provocative and Rewarding, March 27, 2008

By 

Ethan Cooper (Big Apple) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Second Plane: September 11, 2001-2007 (Hardcover)

THE SECOND PLANE is made up of 12 essays and two short stories, all exploring the issue of Islamism. To paraphrase Wikipedia, this is the belief that "...Islam is not only a religion but a political system. Its proponents believe that western military, economic, political, social, and cultural influences in the Muslim world are un-Islamic and should be replaced by purely Islamic influences." For Amis, Islamism has these features. But its primary characteristic is violent extremism.

The subtitle for this book, September 11: 2001-2007, explains what Amis is up to. In his own words, he is presenting a "narrative of misery, and also of desperate fascination" on the currents flowing into and out of 9/11. What was surprising to me is that his essays don't read like yesterday's news. Instead, his pieces, many appearing first in The Times or The Guardian, are built on fundamentals that, in America, are often obscured as our politicians and their hacks justify or attack policy for short-term political gain. Here's a sample of Mart's thoughts:

o "We are arriving at an axiom in long-term thinking about international terrorism: the real danger lies, not in what it inflicts, but in what it provokes. Thus by far the gravest consequence of September 11, to date, is Iraq."

o "Why, in our current delirium of faith and fear, would Bush want things to become more theological rather than less theological? The answer is clear enough in human terms: to put it crudely, it makes him feel easier about being intellectually null. He wants geopolitics to be less about the intellect, and more about gut-instincts and beliefs--because he knows he's got them."

o "We may compare radical Islam with ... Bolshevism and Nazism (to each of which Islamism is indebted). Of the many affinities that emerge, we may list, to begin, some secondary characteristics. The exaltation of a godlike leader; the demand, not just for submission to the cause, but for utter transformation in its name; a self-pitying romanticism; a hatred of liberal society, individualism, and affluent inertia; an obsession with sacrifice and martyrdom; a morbid adolescent rebelliousness combined with a childish love of destruction...But these are incidentals. Thanatism derives its real energy, its fever and its magic, from something far more radical.... I mean the rejection of reason."

As a Yank living in New York, I don't see Amis much on TV in his role of wise man and commentator. Instead, Mart, for me, largely remains a novelist. As a result, I was also happy to see Amis make a few literary asides in THE SECOND PLANE. Here's one:

o "Commentators respond, not to the novel, but to its personnel, whom they want to `care about', in whom they want to `believe'. Such remarks as `I didn't like the characters' are now thought capable of settling the hash of a work of fiction. This critical approach will eventually elicit what it fully deserves--a literature of ingratiation."

This is very high-level and interesting work and recommended.

4.0 out of 5 stars Essays forming both the time and place, September 6, 2011

By 

Solly - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Second Plane: September 11, 2001-2007 (Hardcover)

This book is a series of published essays relating to the September 11 attacks. It provides a short, easy to read summation of the pulse of the world at the time and details the atrocities in such a manner as to bring the motives of the Taliban and their forebears into view. In one clever essay, Amis fictionally brings to life the final days of the terrorist who flew the second plane into the twin towers, masterfully using his literary genius to display the human and inhumane fortitude. Light reading, but nonetheless a significant book in the study of post September 11.