One of our esteemed skills exchange members has written a great book review of Dave Eggers ‘Zeitoun’. A book whose subject matter bookends Naomi Kleins, ‘The Shock Doctrine’ which I reviewed earlier this month

Out of every act of violence, of destruction and catastrophe, something beautiful can emerge. The woes of turmoil in reality are often catalogued in art for two differing reasons. Firstly, because it’s relevant; and secondly – and most crucially – it’s to make sense of the mayhem. The attack on and subsequent collapse of the Twin Towers, just shy of a decade now, set a litany of writers to their tables. The horror of the piping smoke, and the illimitable travesties that lay for weeks under the smouldering rubble, were far more surreal than what fiction tells. The results were engrossing. Martin Amis, chiefly an author, got a book out of the attacks. In a series of punch-packed essays, one of which spiralled Amis into infamy after claims bits of it were anti-Islamist, the irrepressible master of the craft was at is his stylistic best. Films on the subject arrived, too, over- reliant on sensationalism and sentiment.

The world of fiction roped in the event in the hope they could make it appear more ghastly than it already was – an impossible task, despite a plethora of decent tomes taking on the insurmountable. The reasons for many of their failings were simple: all of it was too violently real to tamper with. Yet often it does work, and there is a simplistic reasoning for that also: because, though we hate to admit these things, we’re open to reliving carnage because it makes us feel more alive.

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