Staggering skyscrapers

Many writers have written about the impact of 9/11 on the perception of modern metropolis by its inhabitants right from the years following the dramatic events. They all show, in their own particular way, that modern metropolis has changed beyond recall. New York, London, Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam, for instance, have become physically vulnerable The WTC building was the incarnation of the American dream, the unequaled symbol of Western ingenuity, and its destruction marks the end of capitalist utopia. The emotional and mental reactions to this new place of fear and terror are very diverse: paranoia (McEwan, Cunningham), fantasy (Foer, Beigbeder), and euphoria (Beigbeder, Moix). International terrorism also urges novelists to investigate the link between horror and artistic beauty (books are more solid than buildings),and between fiction and reality (the task of literature is to describe the indescribable).