Four years after the disastrous events of 11 September 2001, a wave of literary novels appeared which critics dubbed “post 9/11 fiction.” One striking example was by young American author Jonathan Safran Foer.

‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ by Jonathan Safran Foer uses September 11 more directly than other examples of post 9/11 fiction. The book centers around a little boy whose father perished in the fall of the World Trade Center towers. But ironically, it was not a subject Foer was particularly interested in writing about.

“I was working on a very different book,” explains the author. “But the book kept changing. I had a draft where there was this 9 year old protagonist who had the same flamboyant imagination as the boy in the book now and a lot of the same anxieties: fear of flying, fear of skyscrapers. But there was no 9/11 in the book whatsoever.”

Heavy boots

By the time Foer finished writing many drafts later, 9/11 was central to his story. Some critics have said not enough time has passed since such a catastrophic event to produce a great book. “There are things more important than good books,” says Foer, who believes the more people who write about it the better.

“We need as many voices as possible because unfortunately our national storytellers about the event have been politicians and they’ve been telling a story so different than most people I know experienced the day.” For Foer, the overriding feeling was of profound sadness, or “heavy boots,” as his young protagonist would say.

“In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York was in heavy boots. And when something really terrible happened – like a nuclear bomb, or at least a biological weapons attack – an extremely loud siren would go off, telling everyone to get to Central Park to put sandbags around the reservoir.”

Historical perspective

Foer was also criticized for prominent references in his novel to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima during World War II. “The way September 11 is talked about in America is entirely without any kind of global or historical context,”  he explained. “It’s talked about in absolutes - absolute good and evil, absolute terror and justice – with no perspective… I thought including these two events was not only a way of introducing a kind of historical perspective but also to reiterate how awful it is when these things happen. ”

‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ is much more than a history lesson. It’s the story of people trying to communicate with each other in any way possible – with words written, signed or spoken; in letters never sent, messages unanswered or papers floating out the windows of a burning skyscraper. It’s also about the conflict between reality and imagination.

Sharing stories 

“Imagination is the instrument of compassion” is a line by Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert which resonates deeply with Foer. “Books have a very important function in the world – a function more important now than it was before September 11th – which is to tell stories of individuals, stories in which people in other cultures can recognize themselves… We share who we are by telling stories.”

Imagination is the Instrument of Compassion was originally broadcast in September 2005 as part of the series Vox Humana. The program was produced and presented by David Swatling.   

Producers Note: The program above references an edition of Aural Tapestry which was broadcast two weeks after the events on 11 September 2001 called Tragedy in Five Movements. It featured music by Shostakovich, poetry by Walt Whitman and emails from New Yorkers sent in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. The audio is here: