Post-9/11

The 9/11 generation.  That’s what they call us.  The first time I heard that our generation is “defined by 9/11” was freshman year.  I remember feeling oddly offended.  Surely we are more complex than that, I thought.  One event, no matter how horrific it was, cannot be the defining moment of our generation, especially not one that happened when I was 11 years old.  I still have so many experiences ahead of me.  How can scholars or marketing executives or whoever it is who makes these decisions tell me what defined my identity and the identity of the rest of the people in my age group?

I am currently taking a class on the contemporary American novel.  All of the books we’re reading were written after 2001.  Only about a third of the novels we read dealt with 9/11 directly, but the tragedy left its mark on all of the books in one way or another.  The Lovely Bones, a novel set in an entirely different decade, still grapples with issues of mortality and unspeakable acts of violence.  Zone One is a straight-up zombie novel, but the imagery evokes pictures of destruction– ash-filled skies and unstable skyscrapers.  As we begin our final weeks of the semester, I am coming to certain conclusions about the state of the American novel.  Many of these conclusions are related to 9/11 and what a pre- and post- 9/11 American novel looks like.  If novels are supposed to reflect society, as I believe most good novels do in one way or another, it only follows that these same conclusions are indicative of our culture and identities.

We are more paranoid.  We are more concerned with what the societal structures we’ve depended so heavily on mean and how much we can trust them.   We worry about the legacy we’re leaving for our children.  Dying parents or other authority figures crop up time and time again.  We’re scared, we’re in a constant state of change, and we are looking for something to believe in.  In the case of many of these novels, the characters turn to books.  Before they may have searched for help in the Bible, but their faith has been shaken and they are looking for another outlet.

I sympathize with these characters.  As I’ve gotten older, religion has taken a backseat in my life.  At the moment, it is sort of a nonentity.  I don’t think about it one way or another.  Where some might “cling to guns and religion,” I “cling to text and art.”  They might not leave me with hope or reassurance, but through characters and masterful writing, I am given the supreme gift of faith in humanity.  According to Jonathan Franzen, a good novel should teach us how to live in this world.  I don’t need an author to teach me how to live, but at the very least they should make me want to learn how to live.

The authors we’ve been reading are certainly not in my generation.  They are my parents’ generation.  Some are a bit younger.  I like to believe that they are cynical and only see our generation as distant outsiders.  Many of them try to tackle the voice of our generation by bringing in younger narrators or central characters.  While the way they speak may not be realistic, there is something in the tone that feels right.  I still remember George W. Bush declaring war on Iraq a couple days after my 13th birthday and feeling indescribable fear because I did not know what was next.  They’ve got that uncertainty down.

As I’ve learned about the contemporary American novel, I’ve learned about contemporary American society.  We’ve got a ways to go.  For the time being, I’m reluctantly agreeing that my generation is the 9/11 generation.  Our adolescence was colored by uncertainty and fear.  As we move forward, I am excited to see what sort of novels we produce.  Maybe we will complete Franzen’s goal and learn how to live.  You know what?  Let’s do him one better.  Let’s learn how to thrive.