The NYT Is At It Again

In a fluffy piece about the French obsession for America and 9/11, the New York Times protects its gentle readers from the facts: French Feel the Anguish in Books Inspired by 9/11.

The article describes this nice French man and his nice book about 9/11:

Mr. (Frederic) Beigbeder's book is perhaps the most daring. He puts himself in the place of Carthew Yorston, a divorced real estate agent from Texas, who on the morning of Sept. 11 is breakfasting with his two young sons in Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 107th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. Each minute between 8:30 a.m. and 10:29 a.m. that day is recorded in a separate short chapter...

...In an interview with Elle magazine, though, he gave another reason for choosing this subject. "In the face of American self-censorship, I wanted to give form to this tragedy," he said, adding that American television viewers saw "an asceptic, almost clinical" version of events. He said he wanted "to reinject colors, smells, noises, to reintroduce the human dimension that has been carefully removed," adding, "A novel should enter forbidden territory."

Here's why the book is daring, and here's the "forbidden territory" (thanks to Merde In France):

In an excerpt from the book entitled 'Loving to death', published in a special edition of 'Technikart', the trapped office workers are portrayed as victims of the consumer society (and not as victims of those nice well behaved Muslim zealots) who decide to partake in some furious sex as their office burns and crumbles around them.

That's French "anguish" for you: an obscenity directed toward 3000 murdered people.

For the Times, this is probably just a detail. Disgusting.
- posted by total @ 9/03/2003 05:44:00 AM .