Updike and Sontag

After reading John Updike's essay, I found myself in a unexpected mood. Even though I had heard it all before, had seen the unforgettable images on that terrible day, and had remembered most of what he described, his recollection of September 11, 2001 left me heavyhearted and gloomy all over again. Maybe it was his impeccable word choice and descriptions or his beliefs that made me think twice about why war is even an issue, but Updike clearly wrote from his heart. One of my favorite passages from this essay was "Determined men who have transposed their own lives to a martyr's afterlife can still inflict an amount of destruction that defies belief. War is conducted with a fury that requires abstraction...we have only the mundane duties of survivors--to pick up the pieces, to bury the dead, to take more precautions, to go on living." In my eyes, this passage itself summed up the effects of war and conflicts. Updike did an awesome job of not only telling but also showing how America was harmed and changed forever. Even better, Updike was able to end his essay with a pinch of happiness as he declared that Americans get through it all.

Now, once I read Susan Sontag's essay, I would have to say that my mood changed quite radically. I would best categorize it as an angry but calm one. For lack of a better word because my brain isn't quite functioning, I re-realized quite a few things as I worked my way towards the end of her essay. America isn't perfect, humans aren't perfect, and governments are definitely not perfect. I completely agreed with Sontag in the sense that bombings done by any country are wrong, even the U.S. I have to admit though, I was completely and utterly offended when Sontag said, "...whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards." Why was this so offensive to me? Well, in my eyes because they did something so terrible, they are cowards. The brave people are the ones who learn to live with their enemies and don't kill innocent people. I was also offended because to me it felt like Sontag was saying American's deserved what we got because our government isn't perfect and we can be so much better. Obviously we can potentially be more than strong, but we don't need to have a terrorist attack to prove this.