Customer Reviews

Windows on the World

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

It seems that not a lot of readers were as impressed by WINDOWS ON THE WORLD as I was. I found it compelling reading and very well done, but to tell the truth I wish I hadn't read it. Beigbeter does a great job; actually, too good a job. I felt like I was there with Carthew and his boys David, age seven, and Jerry, age nine.

At one point Carthew wonders what Bruce Willis would do if he were trapped on top of a burning building. And that's Beigbeder's point- that this isn't an amusement park ride and the flames and smoke aren't George Lucas special effects. It's real.

And worst of all, there's not going to be a happy ending to the story. These people are all- regardless of age or other factors- going to die in a very short period of time. Not because they're good or bad, just because they went to breakfast at a tourist landmark on the wrong sunny Tuesday morning.

I'll admit it, it was the fact of the kids being there that got to me. I've got two daughters, two granddaughters, two cats, and three dogs. If I had a farm Lord knows how many animals we'd have in the barnyard.

If we live long enough I guess we'll see stories coming out about 9-11 that have artificial happy endings for everybody. A few years ago there was a children's cartoon (thankfully it got almost no distribution) about the Titanic that had every passenger and crew member survive. A major studio did a cartoon that showed the murdered Russian Princess Anastasia grown to adulthood and haunted by the ghost of Rasputin the mad monk. Boys and girls, can you say historical blasphemy? The facts of history are facts and should be inviolate. End of rant.

If you read WINDOWS ON THE WORLD I hope you've got thicker skin than I do. It hurt.

I have only read this in the original French, so cannot directly comment on the quality of the translations, although seeing some of the quotations in other reviews, I feel some of the irony may have been lost. I do not think this it is great literature by any means, the gratuitous sex scenes for example, written in that queasy hardcore porn style so beloved of Beigbeder and Houllebecq, are as old fashioned and dull as when they were first introduced into 'literature' via 'American Psycho' many years ago. What I do think is sad is that I think Beigbeder was trying to forge an emotional link between Europeans and Americans in this book. The hostility towards France, as seen in some of the reviews here, was equally matched by anti-American feeling in Europe and he was going out on a limb to remind us that these people who died were human beings, not just Americans who have 'had it coming to them for some years'. The tragedy, as tragedies often do, inspired him and many others to reconsider their values, perhaps Beigbeder's style makes him appear flippant to some American readers, but I found a lot of his cynicism self-depreceating and frankly, funny. Also, why shouldn't he muse on capitalism? The Twin Towers were chosen as a target as they were a symbol of the capitalist system and the thought of America's involvement in all those 'distant' wars and 'strange' countries crosses the mind of the father who is about to die. As for its literary merits, in contrast to some of the more intellectual reviewers who appear to think it doesn't have any, I am of the opinion that the style is engaging and often witty, there were few passages I read which made me think, wow! that was brilliantly written, but plenty that me made feel, yes, perhaps that I would feel like in that dreadful situation. Maybe the translator wasn't good enough, maybe Beigbeder's style was just 'trop' French but it just feels to me like a lot of people have grasped the wrong end of the olive branch.

Windows on the World is a French novel, translated into English, about September 11th. It follows two parallel storylines: one, an American father named Carthew Yorston and his two sons trapped in the Windows on the World restaurant in the north tower; and the other, a French novelist named Frédéric Beigbeder ruminating on September 11th over breakfast in the tallest building in Paris. One's immediate reaction even to just hearing the premise is "how French." But if the story is a French one, it is so only because American novelists are still too close to the tragedy of 9/11 to fictionalize it. No one is more aware of the sensitive nature of his subject than Beigbeder himself: call it naïve, call it exploitative, but Windows on the World is emphatically not an "anti-American" novel.

It is a great novel, but a troubling one; or rather, its subject is troubling. Like any great novel, Windows on the World bores down through its grand backdrop (in other cases, war or revolution; in this case, the destruction of the World Trade Center) to focus on characters and tell their very human stories of love and redemption. In the final pages, the father in the burning building is able to tell his son he loves him-words that he was never able to say-just before they leap to their death; and the writer Frédéric, who throughout the text is cynical, alone, and all but unable to love, finds redemption and buys an engagement ring from Tiffany's to propose to his girlfriend.

The structure of the novel is simple, but it works well: each minute between 8:30 a.m. and 10:29 a.m. is recorded in a separate short chapter-this minute-by-minute account is also a "minute" account, replete with the little details of life that matter so much in a novel of this devastating a topic. The chapters alternate between the two storylines. As the minutes pile up, clear parallels between Carthew and Frédéric emerge, until we realize that the two men are the same (they are both divorced; they both have young children; they both see a woman named Candace and are reluctant to marry again; their memories are often identical; and, the crowning example, Frédéric's grandmother, an American who moved to Paris when she married Frédéric's grandfather, was named Grace Carthew Yorstoun). Of course, in other ways the two men are distinct: but such a contradiction is deliberate and consistent within the world of this novel, in which objectivity is elusive and truth indefinable.

Beigbeder has written a tour-de-force. Despite it's subject, it's not all grim. Humor-albeit of the black variety-abounds, giving the reader respites of laughter. And Beigbeder, in a nod to the reality of the 21st century, uses movie references like Milton might use biblical passages (there are well over fifty films mentioned in this book; modern life has become like the movies we watch, and our reality has fused with fiction). Appreciating Windows on the World requires the reader to distance himself from the actual tragedies of September 11th. Such a distancing isn't easy, of course, but if it can be done, the rewards are well worth it. This is a daring, and devastating, and brilliant novel.

If I could read French I would have picked up the ORIGINAL French copy of Windows on the World and I am sure it would be much much better. When works get translated only the idea comes out, without the emotion and difference between one writer and another. As hard as it must have been for Beigbeder to write such a controversial novel, it is even harder to critique such a work because it makes us take a tragedy as entertainment. I think the concept was very inspiring, the book did reach number 2 in France, but it bothered me sorely in the beginning to get past the even minutes and get to the fictional, but likely factual, eventual death of Jerry and David. However, toward the end the point of the book was to talk about everything but 9/11 because in the end that is the reason any of this happened, and any of this happens. His theories are emptily placed but not a concern since we all have our little theories to everything in life, except on life itself. I like the book, but the writing isn't best. It's nice to see Sigur Ros acknowledged, as well as the well being of the thousands that won't be able to read this.

so how can you look at a book like this? being as it is a fictionalised account of the last hour and a half of the world trade centre? i say look at it practically - it's nothing we haven't wondered, talked about, tried to write ourselves. maybe away from the US things are different, I know in the UK and Australia, in Europre and Asia the response was different. I was in Bangkok a few months after the attacks and i saw tshirts saying 'Bin Laden 1 USA Nil' - this shocked me but not as much as the mawkish Sean Penn short film about the attacks.

So the book - it's refreshing, it's challenging. Yes it fictionalises the last hour and a half but these passages are searing, they are evocative. The other chapters are from the author and he talks about his feelings, his reactions, his concerns. Reading someone openly discussing his thoughts on America and the attacks is better then the self sensoring we have all learned to do.

I can't recommend this book enough. It is not distasteful, it is respectful and honest.

It's a better tribute to a distaster then Titanic The Movie was ever going to be

It is nearly impossible to imagine how a book this bad could ever have been published by a major house (Miramax Hyperion) but for the race among fiction writers (Ian McEwan, Jonathan Safran Foer, Art Spigelman) to capitalize on its subject matter - 9/11. For countless reasons, the events of 9/11 should be approached cautiously (or arguably not at all), but certainly not with a work of fiction that would barely qualify as a C in an undergraduate writing class.

Structurally, WINDOWS ON THE WORLD offers a hypothetical minute-by-minute account of a father and his two sons (ages 7 and 9) who are having a tourist-style breakfast at Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor of the WTC on the morning of 9/11. This scenario alternates with observations and reflections in the author's voice, sitting initially at a restaurant atop the highest building in Paris, the Tour Montparnasse, but later flying to post-9/11 New York City via the Concorde to wallow in the tragedy and his own self-pity. This dual track device fails utterly, inserting an endless stream of nattering commentary when the events and characters should be speaking for themselves.

This book is filled with so many outrageous statements, condescending comments, stereotypical characters, overexplained discussions, Francocentric self-flagellation, and faux American dialog, it would take me 20 or 30 pages to catalog them all. Consider, for example, the small cast of stereotyped characters Beigbeder introduces atop the WTC: a divorced father with a name, Carthew Yorston, that sounds like a sneeze followed by a snort, two precocious but out of control boys, a Puerto Rican waitress, a black security guide who turns out to be Muslim (oh, the irony!), and a bisexual Jew. They are joined by two high finance types involved in an extramarital affair (identified only as the guy in the Kenneth Cole suit and the blonde in Ralph Lauren) who spout a steady stream of incomprehensible Wall Street jargon (about Enron and Worldcom, of course) and, at their darkest moment, blurt out nonsense like, "George Soros, pray for us" and "Ted Turner, come to our aid."

Perhaps it's best to let WINDOWS ON THE WORLD speak for itself.

"In a moment, they will all be horsemen of the Apocalypse..."
"...a tour of the fish market, just for the smell of it..."
"In two hours I'll be dead; in a way, I am dead already."
"Hell lasts an hour and three quarters. As does this book."
"American Trash? I'm a redneck, a member of the American Trashcan."
"...the smear of wet asphalt behind the cleaning trucks looks like the slime left by an aluminum slug on a piece of plywood."
"Everything important in America is magnolia."
"Maybe the Al Qaeda terrorists were simply sick to death of beige, orange uniforms, and the businesslike smile of the waitresses."
"Windows on the Planes. Windows on the Crash. Windows on the Smoke. Broken Windows."
"They suffered for 102 minutes, the average running time of a Hollywood film."
"Kof kof (he coughs)."
"...people were dying of starvation in America as they were in Russia, but those who were dying of starvation in America were free to do so."
"...later I'd go home drunk in a yellow contraption driven by a Haitian voodoo master."
"There's very little difference between a toddler's life and a Shakespeare play."
"...I didn't give a *** about wops [sic] and their homeless, drugged, raped kids with disgusting dung flies all over them..." (HUH?)
"The Tower of Babel was the first attempt at globalization. If, as millions of Americans do, we take Genesis absolutely literally, then God is opposed to globalization."
And from 7-year-old David Yorston, "...it was dope....it's a real bummer....the whole thing is skank....without having to beg the `rents...Like, duh!"

Enough! I'm not even halfway through the book yet, and I've already skipped dozens of others just as bad if not worse. The only reason I read this book cover-to-cover was to wallow in its audacity and sheer dreadfulness, like wandering through a literary disaster zone. Near the end, we're treated to the line, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a Saddam!" Then, to top it all off, an author's note at the end of the book tells us that some scenes in the book had been revised for the English language edition - to protect our feelings!

At one point, Beigbeder writes, "I feel empty, I want to get smashed...and read books that are not as good as mine." He'll have a very hard time finding anything that qualifies.

Don't be offended at the author's graphic details (many of which were left out of the English version). The premise is clearly stated and the idea of the two speakers (one in the WOTW and one visiting the US several years later to write about the WOTW)alternating memories does work.
While the author too often drifts into his personal artistic and political tastes, the scenes between Carthew and his children are often moving. The very fact he makes us think, "What would we do?" is worth the read. I would have liked greater attention in the description of the WTC, but the author chose to use the book as a metaphor of everything from religion to the future of the world. Regardless, the writing is creative and the book is a fast read. For those of us in the New York metropolitan area, we still look toward lower Manhattan say, "something's missing".

If you wanted an action story, or a story of heroic firefighters come to save the day, or a book avoiding touching the tough topics, then you've come to the wrong book.

Many of the other reviews here are judging this book extremely harshly. I believe that is not deserved - this book does what it claims to do very well.

Biegbeder tries here to understand how the destruction on 9/11 has affected both the american psyche, as well as his own personal life. It is both an intensely personal account and a public grieving at the same time.

Perhaps it takes a literary mind to understand what he is trying to achieve - or maybe it doesn't come across well to the average American. The novel was certainly popular in its original French, and I find that the translation is very good. There were only a couple of places where word choice tipped me off that it was a translation, but nothing major.

I think perhaps those who are rating this book harshly expected something to make them feel good. Sometimes, however, understanding does not bring happiness.

Far greater authors than Beigbeder must have considered the option of writing a novel on 9/11. And each of them must have concluded that there were (as yet?) few good reasons why to do it, and many good reasons not to. Thus, this unknown French opportunist could claim it for himself. Of course Beigbeder knew quite well he would have to explain why. And he does. "The only interesting subjects are those that are taboo. You have to write what is forbidden." It's only one of the many feeble excuses Beigbeder comes up with to justify this shameless piece of exploitation; though probably the cleverest, as it allows him to defuse all criticism - those who do not like the book are the guardians of a taboo. He has other excuses too: 9/11 is the only important thing that has happened in his generation's lifetime; it signifies the end of capitalism; the suffering of the victims must not be disguised... etc. If this weren't the man who once said that his only motivations in writing are fame and fortune, you might almost fall for it.
It might have been acceptable in the end had he at least written a good novel. But, to quote Kerman on Tosca, this basically is a "shabby little shocker". Beigbeder puts us in the Windows on the World restaurant on the WTC North Tower's top floors, with a Texan real estate agent and his two young sons on the morning of 9/11, and intercuts scenes of their agonizing deaths with his own search for meaning in a vapid and sex-obsessed life. The undisguised narcissism with which the author, who has no particular connection to the events at all, downgrades 9/11 to a symbol for his own vain little existential crisis is probably the most tasteless aspect of this book. As a result, it keeps meandering between attempt at a novel, tangled political pamphlet, an essay for an undergraduate philosophy assignment, and an adolescent diary, and remains, as the Dutch saying has it "meat nor fish".
Literary metaphors are of the crudest kind - the airco roars like a plane-engine, the hamburgers are of raw meat, that kind of thing. Beigbeder's depiction of America is self-consciously laboured and at the same time cliché-ridden, and when it comes down to describing the catastrophe itself he takes refuge in quoting blockbuster disaster movies. Quotations from the Tower of Babel texts from Genesis are inserted as a lame attempt to suggest higher meaning.
The writing is sloppy too. Things go "completely dark", yet the Texan father goes on describing what he sees. He stares at the door handle of the emergency exit, that in fact had been destroyed several scenes earlier. And it seems rather unlikely that a Texan real estate agent would refer to a fifties French movie about the holocaust in search of a metaphor. But of course, the Texan IS Beigbeder, as he over-emphatically points out at the end.
The characters are sketchy and uninvolving, yet a welcome relief from Beigbeder's whining, self-pitying self-analyses, that are puerile and tedious at best, and often utterly laughable. A flashy advertising guy who made 30,000 euros a month needs to come up with better than this to sell himself off as a tragic hero.
And if only, then, in Brett Easton Ellis fashion, he had succeeded in communicating the utter horror of the events - but even at that he fails; not surprisingly, because what is there to tell that we haven't all already heard, seen or imagined many times? There is no taboo about what exactly happened on 9/11. To suggest that there is, the author applies a facile trick that at the same time defuses his attempt at iconoclasm: as soon as the final minutes of his protagonists arrive, he starts omitting paragraphs that would be "insuperable" to the reader. The text is strewn with blanks headed "paragraph omitted". I doubt they were ever written. Typically, the scene that he doesn't omit and turns out to be the climax of the novel, is a hardcore pornographic encounter between two business executives who want to have one last go at it before they die, and are watched with lustful relish by the Texan father whose young son died only minutes ago. Puh-lease! You can just imagine the author gleefully penning this scene, thinking it quite risqué - but it is merely stale, absurd, and in bad taste - the sex and death cliché all over again. Had Beigbeder been as passionate about his characters as he is about four-letter words, this novel might have amounted to something. As it is I would advise you to wait until a real writer is ready to tackle this subject.

French author Frederic Beigbeder's novel "Windows on the World" has certainly garnered quite a wide range of reviews as posted on AmazonUSA. I came to this novel relatively late; six years after its initial publication in French and subsequent translation to English for sale in the US and the UK.

I have never been able to read a fiction work about the attacks of September 11th, 2001. I start them - and most are very good - but can never seem to stick with the book after the first chapter or two. I realise I have missed many good books on the subject. Curiously, I have no trouble reading non-fiction on the subject. Beigbeder's book is the first fictional work I've been able to read through.

Frederic Beigbeder's novel is a minute-by-minute account - in two voices - of the time between the plane strike on the North Tower and its ultimate collapse. One voice is that of an American man breakfasting at Windows on the World with his two young sons. He states early on that he and his sons will not survive the day and, indeed as with all the diners and workers in the restaurant that day, they do not. The other voice is that of a French writer, who uses the name "Frederic Beigbeder", writing about a year or so after the attacks. The two voices are somewhat complicated but, in the end, echo each other. The difference is, of course, one voice is alive and the other has died with his sons in the wreckage.

The attacks nine years ago have been the subject of many works of both fiction and non-fiction. Non fictional work may be a little easier to quantify; the writer and the reader are dealing with the facts. Fiction often deals with the personal effects of the attacks. And when a writer is dealing with personal feelings all bets are off on how the work will be accepted by the reader. Looking at the range of reviews on this book prove this.

I felt the book was well-written and I enjoyed it about as much as it is possible for ME to enjoy a book about 9/11. It's one of those subjects, like the Holocaust, which are REALLY not "feel good" topics. Begbeider writes a good and interesting story about that terrible day. I really cannot recommend it or not recommend it. It's a tough book written well on a very tough subject.