The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom

The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom
by Martin Amis

The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom
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Book Summary Information

Author: Martin Amis
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 1400044545
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Knopf

Book Reviews of The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom

Book Review: Hey Islamists: prepare to know fear.
Summary: 5 Stars

Mr. Amis expresses the bile that many of us feel for these deformed, ugly, self-proclaimed 'religious' 'men.' The Islamists don't design planes, don't administer flight training, don't create or offer much of anything. They fail to evangelize as other religious people do in the civilized world - (i.e. by being nice and generous while INVITING others to join them in bowing and scraping, chanting incantations, eating special food and wearing special clothes...)
Apparently they can only think to stab a 110 lb. stewardess in the back as item #1 on their 'to do' lists. Death cults are a little weak on subtlety and imagination.
All in a day's work, one might suppose ...and in line with the tradition of heaving wheelchair-bound old guys into the Mediterranean ...or butchering Olympic athletes or reporters or diplomats in cold blood ...or strapping bombs on trusting young girls who happen to have Down's Syndrome...
...and on and on and on.
Amis' prose, glittering with hatred for these September 11th Islamist creatures, is relentless. ('Critics' are usually uncomfortable with relentlessness.)
We should thank our lucky stars for an honest, passionate good guy like Martin Amis. This fine collection of essays and stories is as stunning as his book a few years ago that tore into another vile bag of garbage: a certain Mr. Iosif Dzugashvili / Joseph Stalin.

Summary of The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom

A master not only of fiction but also of fiercely controversial political engagement, Martin Amis here gathers fourteen pieces that constitute an evolving, provocative, and insightful examination of the most momentous event of our time.

At the heart of this collection is the long essay "Terror and Boredom," an unsparing analysis of Islamic fundamentalism and the West's flummoxed response to it, while other pieces address the invasion of Iraq, the realities of Iran, and Tony Blair's lingering departure from Downing Street (and also his trips to Washington and Iraq). Amis's reviews of pertinent books and films, from The Looming Tower to United 93, provide a far-ranging survey of other responses to these calamitous issues, which are further explored in two short stories: "The Last Days of Muhammed Atta," its subject self-evident, and "In the Palace of the End," narrated by a Middle Eastern tyrant's double whose duties include epic lovemaking, grotesque torture, and the duplication on his own body of the injuries sustained by his alter ego in constant assassination attempts.

Whether lambasted for his refusal to kowtow to Muslim pieties or hailed for his common sense, wide reading, and astute perspective, Amis is indisputably a great pleasure to read-informed, elegant, surprising-and this collection a resounding contemplation of the relentless, manifold dangers we suddenly find ourselves living with.

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