I have no clear memory of the 9/11 attacks; not anything personal, anyway. Mine was the story of surprisingly many young New Yorkers at the time – one where we were thrust into a hushed and hyped world, called in one by one to our school’s main office to be picked up by our parents. I cannot claim that I have witnessed the towers crumble or the blankets of dust swallow the city whole. Nor can I say that I sprinted down several flights of stairs for my life. I can only pull out inspiration from fake memories, which I will not do. As such, this blog entry won’t be as tear-jerking or heartstring-puling as the others.

When I think back to it, there was no real reason for us to be taken home if our school was nowhere near ground zero. It was irrationality brought by fear that won over. This same irrationality plagues the protagonist of Jonathan Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Oskar Schells.

The novel starts off perhaps a year after the 9/11 attacks, which young Oskar’s father unfortunately does not get out of alive. Then comes a string of events: the boy finds a key within an envelope addressed to “Black”, takes it as his responsibility to return said key to said “Black”, and plans to do all this by walking through the streets of New York alone and ringing every door bell belonging to a family with last name Black. This quest might as well have been impossible to complete, yet the boy perseveres because he is afraid. He is afraid of forgetting about his father, that somehow all of the love and wonderful memories between them would just disappear if he did not return the key. To us the readers this seems very much an act of impracticality, but in Oskar’s mind, it’s absolutely necessary.

And the boy continues his journey with the solemnity of a widow at her deceased husband’s funeral. Never in his thoughts is the reality that there are many dangers in the city, including and not limited to muggings and abductions. He treks on, almost in a trance-like obsession to return the key. Luckily in the end, this romanticism does not cost Oskar anything other than the realization that a single action can be the difference between life or death.

“May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.”

Fighting words, indeed.

I love the fact that Rieff so candidly pointed out that these services of remembrance is one of the ways for the government to keep a hold on American society and our sentiments.  It forces us to remember that which we can so easily forget a decade later.  It forces us to continue to seek revenge. It forces hurt, hatred, war, and ultimately, even more deaths.

Yes, true 9/11 was a very traumatic experience for our our generation but, let’s be honest, it was most definitely not the only loathsome act committed in our time. The genocide in Darfur which has killed over 400,000 people does not seem to be remembered or discussed. Is it because it hasn’t occurred on our soil?

I remembered when I first heard about the 9/11 attack.  Of course, I was saddened but, mostly, I was surprised to see that many of my neighbors were shocked that this happened in America which, to them, was equivalent to paradise. If the rest of the world can suffer from such repulsive acts, then why exactly do we think that we can exclude ourselves and our country from such acts? United States of America is the world’s leading superpower, yet unfortunately, it does not mean we are inaccessible to harm.

The family members of all those whose loved ones died in the World Trade Center might not have the closure they’re looking for, however, stating forever that their loved ones died due to someone’s hatred and ignorance is not helping with the whole “moving on” concept.

Of the works we’ve read and discussed so far, the one that provoked the most thought (from me, at least) was The Limits of Remembrance.
The idea that 9/11 will be utterly forgotten about in the future is very powerful and hard to take in. One of our classmates, Joe V., said “it’s too soon for these kinds of thoughts.” In a way, he’s absolutely correct. We’re now approaching one decade since 9/11, and it still moves New Yorkers, Americans and much of the world very deeply.
However in another way, when will enough time have passed? Two decades? Five? Maybe ten? There’s no way of knowing what the future holds, and even though the events and deaths that took place on 9/11 may not be as remembered and mourned as they are today, I strongly doubt it will be entirely forgotten about.
The one thing that really stood out to me in the article was the writer’s reference to Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias. I read that sonnet in my senior year of high school and discussed how time changes everything. The 9/11 plaque reminds me of the words on Ozymandias’ pedestal, and it has made me think about the possibility of Manhattan not being here many decades from now, just like the great works not standing in the sonnet. Although cliche, only time will tell how future generations perceive and remember 9/11.

As a side not, one of my high school teachers rallied together support last year to raise money for a 9/11 memorial to be erected in Juniper Valley Park in Middle Village, Queens. The memorial was completed last week, and on 9/11 a candlelight vigil will be held at the park to remember and pay respect to the neighborhood’s fallen heroes as well as all victims of the attack. You can learn more about it HERE.

Of the literature that we have been exposed to this past week or two, John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls was, to me, the most powerful, and fully embraced the sorrow of the attacks on September 11th. Various musical tools are used by adams to capture the different tones and emotions of the day. The children’s Choir, often used in contemporary music, to evoke sadness, does just that. The tone of the music becomes much eerier when the adult choir enters and sings almost ‘Mozart’ like chords. Also, the sparse melodies of the orchestra give the piece tonality.
After hearing this piece i couldn’t help but think of Adams’ task in writing this piece. With 50 or so different parts, it is complicated, yet it is kept simple by the form of his writing. He also has the daunting task of writing a peace that serves homage to the dead, a sort of funeral or musical elegy for al of the victims of that terrible day. The piece is inspiring and beautiful, and, in my opinion does justice to emulate the events of the day.
In regards to the texts that we have read recently, I felt that “The Limits of Remembrance” was the most interesting. It made me think of the difference between first and second hand accounts of certain events. We, have the firsthand images of 9/11 burned into our minds and, when our generation passes there will no longer be a firsthand personal account of the events. The will go straight from our minds into the worlds new History Textbooks.

-John Cleary

A part of me wonders if only the people who have lost their loved ones in the 9/11 attack can truly understand the sadness of the event. Everyone knows that they are supposed to feel sad because it was a tragic event, but I don’t think one can truly understand the loss.

I remember getting out of school almost as soon as I had arrived. No one explained anything. There was a person on the loudspeaker telling the students that their parents would be arriving shortly. No one was told why.

As I left the school, I wondered what the reason was for this great fortune. I thought about how wonderful it was to be able to play with my friends. It wasn’t until much later that night that I was told what happened.

Naturally, or unnaturally, I didn’t really understand what was going on. My uncle was in the second tower that got hit, but I was told not to worry because he made it out ok. “Of course he made it out ok,” I thought. “He’s too young to die.” A naïve thought.

A few days later, he told me about what happened to him. Although it was a horrific event, he managed to make everything seem ok. He told me about how he lost a pair of new shoes when the tower went down, how women had to take off their heels so they could escape faster, how a lot of people made it out safely by using the elevator. “Aren’t people supposed to use the stairs if there’s any emergency?” Maybe it isn’t always safer. “Most people,” he said, “made it out using the elevator. They got down a lot faster.” I still don’t understand.

Although I didn’t lose anyone in the destruction, I was still worried about safety. Planes themselves don’t scare me, but there’s now a slight panic when my planes are about to land. I’ve been afraid of heights for most of my life, but now I’m even more afraid of being in tall buildings. Like Oskar, I started inventing in order to cope. One of the inventions I recognized was to have buildings shift, and not the elevator. Thinking back on that, I realize how impractical that is. Not to mention, if that were to happen, what would become of the people trapped underground?

I’ve never met anyone who has lost a loved one in the flames, so I feel like Oskar’s story is the closest I will get.  I still wonder how it feels to lose someone in that way.  How would I have reacted?  Would I understand the meaning of death?  Would I understand once we got to the funeral?  I’m not even sure if I would have been as affected as Oskar had been.  My uncle and I didn’t have the kind of relationship Oskar had with his father.  Would I have been heartless?  On the other hand, could I be so traumatized that the memory fades into my subconscious?

Rieff says that “remembrance is humanly necessary”.  This aspect of human thinking makes personal loss almost unbearable. Rieff makes it seem that we need to forget the events of 9/11. So why is it that even when we want to forget we still take part in memorials like the tenth anniversary of 9/11 that Rieff mentions? I believe it’s because when you are deeply connected to a person, losing that person creates an empty emotional space in your mind, a hole in your heart.

Memorials, though they remind you of your loss, allow you to have the satisfaction that even though that person is not in your life anymore, you have not entirely forgotten them. And maybe forgetting them is worse that remembering them because forgetting them might mean that they did not really mean that much to you. Does entirely forgetting your loved one and the way they died suggest that they did not make an impact on you life?

One of the main issues I had with this article was Rieff’s view towards memory. In a small way, I can understand his opinion on forgetting, how it does seem practical. If people could forget the events of September 11^th, then they could let go of the pain and the fear that come along with the memories. If Oskar could just forget, then perhaps he could sleep at night, he could stop inventing and he could stop giving himself bruises. But in every other way, it seems utterly preposterous that anyone should suggest that 9/11 is an event that must eventually be forgotten. Maybe my opinion is a product of the times that we live in, a time when, as Riess points out, people call out for everyone to remember as almost a battle cry.  But it seems like remembering and coping with those painful memories is the least we can do in honor of those who lost their lives, and of the families who have to live with the emptiness caused by the death of a loved one. Just take a look at Oskar Schell’s life (who, though he is a fictional character, could represent many children who lost a parent that day). Despite our opinions about Oskar and his precocious nature, it’s easy to see he had a very close, loving relationship with his father. It seems terribly insensitive to consign the memory of Thomas Schell and his son’s love for him to be forgotten within a short generation. We should take the old adage “He who does not remember the past is condemned to repeat it” to heart, instead of labeling it trite, because it could be helpful in the same way Rieff suggests forgetting is helpful. If we learn from the memories of September 11^th, and remember that it is painful and joyless to live in fear and anger, then we can live and peace and still pay respects to those who died on that day and the families that still miss them.

What struck me most about what Adams said about his composition “On the Transmigration of Souls” was how he used the children’s chorus in his piece unlike other composers have; that is, instead of using their voices to echo their innocence, Adams put them “in the thick of things”, as he said. In that way, Adams expressed the idea that not even children were spared from the horrors of September 11^th, which is a theme that Foer also explored in his work, with Oskar being only a young boy and having to deal with such tragedy. I also thought it was interesting that the soloists in Adams’ piece were a nine year old boy, like Oskar, and two middle aged women, like Oskar’s mother and grandmother.

Another thing that struck me was how poignantly both works make one remember what occurred on September 11^th, and how even though it is painful to remember, it’s important never to forget. In both Adams and Foer’s works, memory is an important theme. In Foer’s book, Oskar is on a quest in memory of his father, to understand and come to terms with his father’s death. Adams’ piece, composed of the names of those who died in the towers and quotes from missing person’s signs, is a tribute to the memory of those who perished. It makes the listener remember that it was individuals who died, each with their own story.

Without a doubt, 9/11 was a very jarring event. It was sudden and shocking and millions did not know how to deal with the plethora of feelings
inside them afterwards. Therefore, I found it quite interesting that both Foer and Adams used art to try to make sense of things, for themselves and others.

Both Foer and Adams (through writing and music, respectively) attempted to reach out to their audience and help them clear up the confusion and chaos within them (“give them a sense of serenity”, to paraphrase from Adams’ interview). Both works also place great emphasis on memory, and how these memories link all of us, who in some way were affected by the tragedy. In his interview, Adams suggests a connection between the living and the dead. Both were transformed by 9/11. Therefore the title of his song “On The Transmigration of Souls”, he means all of us as well, the individuals who have changed because of 9/11.

Since both Foer and Adams focus on memory, they use different mediums to get this point across. Foer’s work contains text, photography, and manipulation of words on the page. Adams’ work contains music, recitation, and photography as well. Both are firm believers in the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”.