http://www.theage.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-second-plane/2008/04/02/1206850969063.html
This book is a series of articles, essays and short stories written by English novelist Martin Amis since the attacks of September 11, an event that Amis says goes on with all its mystery, its instability and its terrible dynamism.
"Geopolitics may not be my natural subject," he writes, "but masculinity is."........
Amis also declares that he is not an "Islamophobe" but an "Islamismophobe". I'm not sure what the distinction amounts to since he also declares that moderate Islam exists only on the opinion pages of newspapers such as this one. That is, it is a historically irrelevant force. In Amis' view, the Islamists are coming. They're outbreeding us not only over there (in their countries) but back here (in Europe)......
Clearly, Amis' is a British view. The Brits have had the bombings of July 2005 to contend with. To date, mercifully, Australia has been spared such attacks. No doubt if they occur, a lot more people will think as Amis does, but, basically, to me, his is a hopeless position.
What happened on September 11 so affected Amis he was unable to write. Somehow, it had stolen his narrative. My guess is that the sense of horror that has always lurked within his fiction, fuelling some of its best humour, suddenly became manifest in the outer world.
Essentially, Amis views September 11 and the conflict going on around it as a matter of pathology, not politics. One example is Palestinian suicide bombings. For Amis, there is no serious consideration of whether a just peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians is a prerequisite for peace, not only in the region but in the world. Suicide bombing is a pathological cult that glorifies death and violence through religion.....
But who knows? The future may end up being as awful as Amis predicts. What I do know is that, in tone, this book resembles material written about the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I don't say this to endorse the IRA's activities, merely to point out that in the end, peace was only attained in Northern Ireland through dialogue. What is shriekingly obvious about Amis' book is that the only piece of dialogue it contains is with Tony Blair.
