/lit/ - Literature

Narrative

A novella by Jarett Kobek, ATTA is a partly biographical, partly fictionalized account of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta's life. The narrative alternates chapter-by-chapter between Atta's "past" (chapters eight, seven, six...), told in the first person present, and Atta's "present" (chapters 8, 7, 6, ...), told in the third person present. The "past" narrative (moving forward) depicts Atta's boyhood, family life, move to Hamburg, time in Aleppo, brief romantic contact, and ultimate meeting with Bin Laden. The "present" narrative depicts the group's immediate actions in America pertinent to the attack itself: acquiring the necessary flight training, and constantly moving throughout the United States and internationally. Both narratives converge on "ZERO", the day of the attack. This cohesive, scene-by-scene alternation is both a straightforward literary experiment, and also makes a sharp overall narrative which is easy to imagine as a film in its own right, especially given its subject matter and alternation of scenes. Kobek's novella could indeed be adapted as a screenplay for a film, if there are producers and creatives ballsy enough to tackle the project. The length of the work itself, about 160 pages, is about right for a screenplay (or a two-hour, major motion picture).

Themes

The central theme of the book is that a significant motive for Atta was a personal aesthetic hatred of modern, western architecture. Kobek's Atta speaks of the background noise of modernity as being emanated by buildings themselves, "the sound of buildings talking". In the finale, the towers become "the 2 prongs of a tuning fork"; Atta is plagued by their noises.

Since it's easy for the average, everyman reader to also hate modern architecture, and since the book necessarily humanizes Atta by spending time with him and his various facets, the work's real transgression is that it makes Atta if not a sympathetic character, than one whose motives can be understood in their humanity. /lit/ today speaks of BURGERPUNK. ATTA is a work of Burgerpunk. I cite one passage, for demonstration, depicting Atta's travels during preparation:

"Strip malls. Limitless chancres on the American landscape. The countless, fathomless Niagara of strip malls. They are all the same. Dunkin' Donuts. Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's. Radio Shack, Long John Silver's, Arby's, Hardee's, Krispy Kreme, Baskin-Robbins, Dippin' Dots, Carvel."