Review of: Don DeLillo’s Falling Man
Name of Reviewer: Meg Maultsby
Description:
 Synopsis:
DeLillo, in stream of consciousness narration, gives the reader insight into the lives of
a New York family following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade
Center. Keith Neudecker, an estranged husband and poker enthusiast, is in his law firm
office in the south tower when the planes hit. In the aftermath, he manages to find his way
down the stairs and out of the rubble after attempting to save a friend and co-worker. He
makes his way to his wife Lianne’s house, and she takes him to the hospital, where he is
treated for minor injuries. Keith and Lianne struggle through the aftermath of the attacks and
to work to rebuild their relationship after being separated for some time. Keith returns a
briefcase he carried with him out of the tower to its owner, another survivor named Florence,
and they have a brief affair built on shared experience. Justin, the seven-year-old son of
Keith and Lianne, scans the skies with binoculars looking for more planes and a man named
“Bill Lawton,” whom is actually Bin Laden. Lianne works through her tumultuous emotions
in the months following the attacks by leading an Alzheimer’s support group. It is a very
personal experience for her because her father committed suicide when he learned that he had
Alzheimer’s, prior to the September 11 attacks. Lianne’s mother Nina and Nina’s lover
Martin explore their feelings regarding the attacks through fierce dialogue, debating the role
of God in the extremists’ motivations, the goals of the extremists in the attacks and the
worldwide ramifications of the events.
DeLillo tells the other side of the story- the Muslim extremist side- through Hammad.
Hammad is a young Arab expatriate living in Germany who becomes an extremist as a result
of his relationship with Amir, his spiritual counselor. Hammad’s story is told briefly in three
short sections of the novel. His story is traced from his study at a technical University in
Hamburg, Germany where he meets Amir and becomes involved in a mosque to his flight
training in Florida to his participation in the attacks of September 11.
 Extremist Portrayed/Described:
Muslim extremists are portrayed. While it is assumed that the reader knows them to
be members of Al Qaeda, this is never overtly stated. It is clearly indicated, however, by the
presence of Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir el-Sayed Atta, the real coordinator of the
September 11 attacks, called Mohamed Atta by the American media and called Amir by
Hammad in Falling Man. The details DeLillo provides regarding Hammad and Amir’s
journey from Hamburg to Florida leading up to the September 11 attacks in Falling Man
parallel the real path Mohamed Atta led his team of hijackers on, from the Technical
University of Hamburg to the flight schools in Florida and eventually to their self-perceived
martyrdom on September 11, 2001.
 Extremist Activities:
The extremist activities portrayed in the novel are the planning and implementation of
the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks.
Extremist activities begin in Hamburg, Germany with the recruitment of young men
to a local mosque, including the protagonist of the extremist sections of the novel, Hammad.
The extremists are then re-visited in Nokomis, Florida, where Hammad and others are
training in flight school. Finally, the extremists are last seen in the novel in the moments
before the planes crash into the World Trade Center towers.
 Role of Religion in Extremist Activities:
The role of Islam in the extremists’ activities is obvious in the novel. Hammad is
drawn to the mosque in Hamburg as a result of his disillusionment with the western culture
around him. He embraces the idea that the corrupt West is at fault for his personal social and
economic frustrations, and embraces Islam as the “struggle against the enemy, near enemy
and far, Jews first, for all things unjust and hateful, and then the Americans” (DeLillo 80).
Notably, Hammad’s first encounter with Islam in the novel is an encounter with extremists,
not with the form of Islam that the large majority of Muslims around the world practice. The
religious overtones are clear, however, and become more overt and common as Hammad is
traced through the novel to Florida and then to the events of September 11. In Nokomis,
Florida, Hammad clearly embraces a cosmic war world-view that drives his actions.
Immediately before his death on September 11, his focus is religious, expectant of what
awaits him in his soon-to-be martyrdom. Religion permeates the activities of the Muslim
extremists in Falling Man.
 Portrayal/Description of Non-Violent Religious People:
Nina and Martin are the only characters in the novel that delve into spiritual matters
following the events of September 11. They are portrayed as somewhat aimless yet
intelligent people, who contribute interesting perspectives of religious violence though they
are not themselves religious. They quarrel regarding the motivations of the extremists: “It’s
sheer panic. They attack out of panic… they think the world is a disease. This world, this
society, ours. A disease that’s spreading… There are no goals they can hope to achieve.
They’re not liberating a people or casting out a dictator. Kill the innocent, only that…
Forget God. These are matters of history. This is politics and economics… They use the
language of religion, okay, but this is not what drives them” (DeLillo 46-47). As is
illustrated in the evaluation below, Juergensmeyer and Almond both assert that religious
violence is a reaction to secularization. This much, Martin and Nina get right. They also are
aware that the Muslim extremists who execute the September 11 attacks have apolitical
goals, as Juergensmeyer asserts most extremists do. However, perhaps the most important
thing presented to the reader by Martin and Nina is their assumption that terrorists are not
religiously motivated. It is made clear in Falling Man through Hammad and Amir that the
Muslim extremists involved in the September 11 attacks were religiously motivated, and that
this religious view of the world is a powerful force for them. Perhaps DeLillo is attempting
to speak to the American public that shares Martin and Nina’s views.
 Other Pertinent Information:
DeLillo breaks the novel up into six sections: Bill Lawton, Ernst Hechinger, and
David Janiak are the sections devoted to the Americans impacted by the September 11
attacks while On Marienstrasse, In Nokomis, and In the Hudson Corridor are the sections
involving Muslim extremist activity.
The names used to title the sections involving Americans are pertinent but one does
not discover this until they are well into that section of the novel. Bill Lawton is what Justin
thinks Bin Laden’s name is. Ernst Hechinger is revealed to be Martin’s real name after he
expresses strong opinions to Nina and Lianne regarding the attacks. David Janiak is revealed
to be the Falling Man’s real name in his newspaper obituary.
The titles of the extremist sections, on the other hand, are locations lacking any
personification or depth. Rather than reflecting a character in the novel they are
inconsequential to the characters portrayed in those sections. In Nokomis, Hammad actually
states that his location doesn’t matter: “What does it matter? Let these things fade into dust.
Leave these things behind even as we sleep and eat here. All dust. Cars, houses, people.
This is all a particle of dust in the fire and light of the days to come” (174).
The contrast DeLillo creates simply by naming the sections differently contributes to
the dehumanization of the Muslim extremists and the deep humanization of the Americans in
the novel. The fact that only eighteen pages of the 246-page novel are dedicated to Hammad
and his Muslim brothers also contributes to the dehumanization of the extremists. The
Muslim characters are not developed in the way that the American characters are. However,
this is largely DeLillo’s point. He was not attempting to explain why September 11
happened through the eyes of the Al Qaeda extremists, though he does explore this briefly.
Rather, in Falling Man, DeLillo attempts to write a novel for Americans that captures the
grief and permanent change that emanated from the events of September 11. This is a novel
about the impact of the events on Americans; a novel about how it felt, not about why it
happened.
Evaluation:
DeLillo portrays the Muslim extremists involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks
on the World Trade center fairly accurately and with insight, though his dehumanization of
the extremists limits his credibility to a certain extent. In Terror in the Mind of God, Mark
Juergensmeyer notes that young men, especially expatriates, who are socially and
economically marginalized are drawn to the cosmic war mentality of fundamentalists and
extremists. He notes, “These cosmic wars impart a sense of importance and destiny to men
who find the modern world to be stifling, chaotic, and dangerously out of control. The
imagined wars identify the enemy, the imputed source of their personal and political failures;
they exonerate these would-be soldiers from any responsibility for failures by casting them as
victims; they give them a sense of their own potential for power; and they arm them with the
moral justification, the social support, and the military equipment to engage in battle both
figuratively and literally” (Juergensmeyer 193). Thus the violent mission of cosmic war
provides a stable anchor to extremists in the perceived chaotic and corrupt world. Any
personal failings as identified by society at large are forgiven by the spiritual community that
supports these warriors as evidence of the corruption present in society; they are victims of
society who have become aware of the cosmic war and taken up arms to defend
righteousness. The cosmic war mentality that precedes extremism makes glorified martyrs
out of socially and economically humiliated young men.
DeLillo’s Hammad is a frustrated young expatriate experiencing the “loss of identity”
and “loss of control” that Juergensmeyer indicates as being formative of a world view
conducive to the embracing of fundamentalist and extremist practices (Juergensmeyer 204).
Living on the margins of German society and attending a technical university in Hamburg,
Hammad is drawn to Amir, his spiritual counselor who gives him an identity ethnically by
uniting him with other Arab expatriates. Amir also gives Hammad an identity religiously and
spiritually by orienting his world-view within Islam, as well as control of his destiny through
the call to a literal and violent war in jihad, which Hammad calls “the highest jihad, which is
to make blood flow, their blood and that of others” (DeLillo 173). Hammad employs the
language of cosmic war, using phrases like “world domination,” and he articulates his
dualistic view of the world in his criticisms of his perceived enemy, the secular west (DeLillo
173). Most importantly, Hammad seizes the empowerment of martyrdom, the moral
justification and social support provided by extremist Muslim theology: “We are willing to
die, they are not. This is our strength, to love death, to feel the claim of armed martyrdom”
(DeLillo 178).
In Strong Religion, Almond asserts that there are necessary causes of religious
violence, structural components of society and environment that must be present for religious
violence to occur. First among these necessary causes is secularization. Religious
movements that become violent respond to the “threat of secularization… by mobilizing in
opposition to this invasion and to the traitors who compromise the enemy” (Almond 122).
Hammad expresses outright mobilization in opposition to his perceived enemies, the secular
West and its embodiment, the United States and Americans. He calls Americans “wrongeyed men and women laughing on TV, their military forces defiling the Land of the two Holy
Places” (DeLillo 175). Hammad’s use of this language clearly illustrates his view of
Americans as his military and spiritual enemies. Also among Almond’s necessary structures
for extremism are mobility and education. DeLillo’s extremists exhibit both of these
necessary causes of religious violence. Hammad and Amir are Arab expatriates living in
Germany- they are representative of the Palestinian mobility that Almond asserts has
contributed to Islamic fundamentalism. Hammad and Amir are also recipients of an
empirical education at a technical university, which Almond states is more conducive to
extremism than educations that are “speculative or theoretical in orientation” (Almond 124).
DeLillo gives Hammad and Amir a background and a social environment that is conducive to
religious violence according to Almond.
Almond’s argument extends, however, asserting that a religious movement cannot
become violent without chance occurrences igniting them and without the choice of those
involved to become violent. DeLillo does not present the reader with a chance occurrence
that inspires Amir and Hammad to pursue their plot of attacking the World Trade Center, but
he does illustrate Hammad’s choice to join the movement and become violent. DeLillo states
that in response to knowing that “Islam was under attack,” Hammad was “becoming one of
them now, learning to look like them and think like them. This was inseparable from jihad.
He prayed with them to be with them” (DeLillo 83). There is a clear transition from a
Hammad that is baffled by Amir’s passion to a Hammad that learns to be “like them.”
Hammad makes a choice to become violent, to participate in violence that is religiously
motivated. In this way, Hammad fits Almond’s requirements for the development of an
extremist.
Juergensmeyer asserts that extremism is about symbolic empowerment and is not
executed in order to achieve specific political goals. He states, “Although some movements
for religious nationalism are indeed serious alternatives to secular rule, proponents of
religious terrorism often have a less tangible goal. These acts are often devices for symbolic
empowerment in wars that cannot be won and for goals that cannot be achieved… awareness
of their potency is all that they desire” (Juergensmeyer 218). The Muslim extremists in
Falling Man do not express desired political consequences of their actions. Instead, what is
expressed is a wish for martyrdom, an entirely religious wish to die in the name of a greater
cause, a symbolic statement to the world. In the moments before his plane crashes into the
north tower of the World Trade Center, Hammad thinks, “This is your long wish, to die with
your brothers… How could any death be better? Every sin of your life is forgiven in the
seconds to come. There is nothing between you and eternal life in the seconds to come”
(DeLillo 238-239). Hammad clearly has purely religious and apolitical goals in his death.
He desires symbolic empowerment through his martyrdom, as Juergensmeyer demonstrates
most extremists do.
DeLillo’s portrayal of the Muslim extremists involved in the September 11 terrorist
attacks is in many ways very accurate and insightful. However, DeLillo spends the majority
of his novel developing deeply personified American characters and spends only eighteen
pages in three separate small sections of the novel developing Hammad. He puts forth no
effort to glean empathy or even sympathy from the reader for Hammad while the rest of the
novel is focused on the empathy the reader is expected to feel for the Americans affected by
tragedy. DeLillo borders on presenting the Muslim extremists as the enemy via his implicit
dehumanization of Hammad and Amir. DeLillo’s portrayal of the Muslim extremists lacks
development and depth. However, I hesitate to criticize DeLillo for this because as stated
previously, this seems to be his goal: not to explore why and how September 11 happened
from the extremist point of view, but to create a meaningful memorandum of the event for
Americans to appreciate.