Rachel Ruggeri
ENG 474
Dr. Ernest Smith
9/7/14
The Zero “It’s a satirical novel whose rules are its own.” (HarperCollins(2007, July 17).Q&A With THE ZERO’s Jess Walter, https://www.booktheives.blogspot.com) As a satire based on the tragic events of September 11, 2001, The Zero “broke” many literary rules, but Jess Walter decided he would present that time in our history as he saw fit. I gained quite a bit of insight into Jess Walter’s inspiration for The Zero through the interviews. The unusual protagonist we see as our “hero” in the book is based largely on Walter’s viewpoints to the way we, as a culture, reacted to the attacks.
Using a key theme in postmodern works, fragmentation. Walter states that “Transitions suck. Transitions are almost always forced or if they’re not, then they take you-they transition-to a place you don’t want to go.” “Fragmentation kept it so fresh for me, because I was never sure how much I was going to reveal (Ehrnwald,Ligan,Lynaugh,Vesta(2010, February 20 & March 16). A Conversation with Jess Walter, https://willowsprings.ewu.edu/interviews/walter.pdf)
Walter creates time gaps in Remy’s memory. Remy, alongside the reader, is bounced from situation to situation, never quite sure of what he had done to lead him there. All of his negative memories have seemed to vanish, including the majority of that tragic day. In the HarperCollins article (https://www.booktheives.blogspot.com), Walter discusses how these gaps in memory relate to the way in which we, as a country, “bail” ourselves out of negative situations when they become increasingly uncomfortable.
“I began to think about the remote-control nature of our attention span now. After 9/11 we watched terrorism on TV for a while, but then turned to American Idol.” (https://www.booktheives.blogspot.com) These time gaps are realistic, in a postmodern way. To Remy, they are almost dream-like. He feels as though he is having an out of body experience. Many Americans, especially New Yorkers, felt that way from the minute that plane hit the first tower. Life became a blur, and like the commercial society we are, we used the attacks to find positivity in the situation through financial gain. In the book, Walter uses Guterak’s commercial for “First Responder’s cereal- The Cereal of Heroes” to show the outrageous material gains the country was trying to use to rebuild. Tours were given of The Zero during the early cleanup stages to celebrities. It became more important to Guterak who he showed around the grounds that day and who heard his story, rather than what he found in the debris. Walter said he began writing The Zero after seeing a sign at a retail store that read “God Bless America New Furniture Arrives Every Day.”
Walter says “I hope that in its surreal, darkly funny way, the novel reflects our irrational reaction to events that will define our generation.” (https://www.booktheives.blogspot.com) A postmodern novel can take a serious situation and lighten it through humor and irony. Throughout the novel, everyone in Remy’s life believes he is joking when speaking about his “condition” regarding the time gaps. He is the only one who seems to be aware of his lacking memories. Comments and responses he makes in interaction with co-workers and friends are sometimes very humorous when he tries to figure out how he came to be in a particular situation. A child dealing with the death of a parent after the attacks is eased by Remy’s son Edgar grieving his father’s passing, even performing a memorial reading at his school, while his father is in fact, alive and in the very same room. Walter uses faction to create this postmodern novel. The context is provided by the non-fiction element. And while 9/11 or World Trade Center is never directly mentioned, one can clearly piece together the background of the story. The fiction element is Remy’s story on his life after the attacks. Remy is not sure what is his life is real and what situations have actually taken place. The reader works through this disability with Remy and stays intrigued as they continue to piece the puzzle together. Walter discusses the importance of the fiction element, “I think you arrive at levels of meaning in fiction that you don’t always reach with memoir, that you might not reach with any other kind of writing because of the process which focuses you to go possibly deeper into character…” (https://willowsprings.ewu.edu/interviews/walter.pdf) We as a reader, get to know Remy, not just as a witness to the tragedy of 9/11, but as an individual dealing with the effects of the attacks well past that date in our history. We struggle with him as he loses his eyesight and the girl he loves. We are kept at an emotional distance through the narrator and the time gaps, but can sense Remy’s increasing frustration and the roller coaster his life has become.
Remy’s reactions to The Zero, were Walter’s reactions. Day after day, crews worked through the endless paper, dust, and debris. Never finding bodies and trying to make sense of the paper. As time goes on and the crews clear up the mess, it is as if we all begin to lose memory of what the site really looked like. Today The Zero is a memorial, a tourist attraction where people take pictures and visit a museum to remember. Those who were there in the days following the attacks cannot forget.
My favorite quote from the interviews with Jess Walter is “Maybe we need to sacrifice and serve and suffer and grieve and rant and howl with inappropriate laughter.” (https://www.booktheives.blogspot.com) The events of the day and the effects they had on our country were devastating. The Zero brings a subtle comic relief to the story that makes it a little easier to take in. It is a truly brilliant literary work that I thoroughly enjoyed.