Falling+Man+by+Claire+S.

= __Falling Man by Don DeLillo__ = == = Claire St. Cyr = = = = = Journal Entry #1- Beginning- Page 84. =I’m reading the book //__Falling Man__,// by Don DeLillo. The novel starts out in the morning of September 11, 2001 in New York City. The World Trade Center is collapsing because the terrorist attacks are in the midst. The main character, Keith, is escaping the towers. He is a lawyer in his late 30’s. At this point he is living by himself because him and his wife, Leanne, have separated. They have a child together named Justin. Keith begins walking to the house in which they all used to live together because all he wants is to be with them. He arrives at the house and is let in after standing at the door way for a while. They talk for a little. Leanne is a volunteer at an Alzheimer’s patient facility. Leanne’s father commits suicide after being diagnosed with dementia and she still wonders about it. After talking for a while keith and Leanne agree to move back in together. Near the end of the section, they began to give more details of the terrorist group that planned these attacks. = =So far I enjoy this book. It is entertaining to be because I lived during this time period, although I was very young so I was not fully aware of the details. The details included in this book are very gruesome and in depth make me want to keep reading. I think the plot is intriguing because the man was in the building and the details are first person so it is him seeing them and we hear his thoughts. It is a little confusing but in order = to understand the content fully I want to continue reading. If you are a reader who enjoys a mildly challenging read, this book would be satisfying for you. So far it has been an enjoyable page-turner and I hope it will stay this way for the remaining sections to come.
 * **[|2001] **
 * Alzheimer’s Disease
 * Don DeLillo was born and raised in a town outside of New York City.
 * =Saddam Huesein =
 * Catholic as a religion is dominant.

Journal Entry #2
**Page 84-137** During this section of the story it is mostly transitional information. While leaving the burning buildings, Keith accidentally grabbed Florence Givens briefcase. She was a woman who worked on the floor below Keith. Meanwhile he has moved back in with Lianne and Justin, his wife and son. It is still a little awkward adjusting to being with each other again. Everyday Leanne reads obituaries in the newspapers and she also begins to get very annoyed with little things. She hears Islamic music playing from the apartment below and she ends up physically assaulting the woman who was playing the music, who happened to be a follower of the Muslim faith.

After reading these pages, I feel that a possible theme could be that since so much trauma and fatalities occured, death is frequently mentioned in the book and is rpevelant in the characters' lives. After reading these chapters I felt many mixed emotions. These emotions include sadness, hope, and sympathy. I felt sad while reading because learning about the people’s losses and their suffering made me emotional. One example when I felt this way while reading was when it went into more detail about people’s whereabouts during the attacks and how they felt afterward. I also felt hopeful while I was reading this story. I felt this because even though it is a sad topic, it is nice to know that people weren’t always just giving up on themselves and were trying to do everything they could to try to live as normally as they were before the attacks occurred. Lastly, while reading I felt so much sympathy for the characters in the book. I felt this way because in these chapters there was a lot of inside detail about the characters’ lives, both before the attacks and afterward. I always knew that the attacks were very hard on people and that they dramatically changed their lives forever, but it is so much different when you get to know someone’s life story, and where they were when the attacks took place and then have to read about how they dealt with the events and move forward with their lives.


 * [|Discrimination against people of Middle Eastern decent.][[image:http://www.artmoth.com/images/content/backgrounds/14-1284184410-bg-alzheimers-disease-awareness.png width="274" height="192" align="right" caption="Lianne volunteers at an Alzheimer facility."]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">During this time period it was hard for people to cope with the loss of hundreds.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">[|Bin Laden]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Alzheimer’s facility in which Leanne works
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Heightened emotions lead to people acting out.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">**Page 137-178**
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">During this quater of the book it switches the focal point to Hamburg, Germany. At this place Hammad who is an ex- Iraqi soldier joins the plotters of 9/11. In this section it includes information about Muhammaed Atta who is the real life leader of the September 11 attacks. Hammad talks about how he is inspired by the discipline of Amir, who is the terrorist's group leader, and joins the Jihad. Hammad goes into details about his preparations for September 11. In the training he has to go to an Afghani jihadist camp and take lessons at a flight school in the Florida panhandle. After the book talks about the preparation for the terrorists it switches back to Lianne and Keith. They are physically intimate. Lianne doubts that their relationship will be strong. Florence becomes a larger part in the book because she says that without Keith she would have died. They continue to see each other and Keith has an affair with her, but it only lasts 15 days. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">After reading these chapters I was disturbed because it went into such detail about the terrorist training. The details were intense and made the training seem very brutal. I do not know how people could go through all of it just to get the satisfaction of destroying our country. On the other hand I was shocked about Keith. He and Lianne could have had a new strong relationship although he continued to cheat on her with Florence. I was happy because it only lasted 15 days so Lianne did not find out and it did not hurt their relationship. Overall I do not necessarily like the book. It is hard to follow and complicated at points but I am continuing to stay open minded. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Hammad
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Jihad
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Muhhammaed Atta
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Training in Florida Panhandle
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Hamburg, Germany


 * > In order to view a video on terrorist training here in America, click the link below.

[] ||

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Journal Entry #4 <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Pages 179- End

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I finished reading the book __//Falling Man//__ by Don DeLillo. In the ending chapters of this book, many things happen that help tie up the loose ends of the previous plots and story lines in the group. Three years after the other events in the book, one of the characters, Lianne, still attempts to keep order in her life. One way that she does this is by editing books that are written about terrorism. One day on her way home, Lianne sees Falling Man preforming on the side of the street. She is very disturbed by his presence and the representations that he acts out. Later in the novel, while reading obituaries in the paper, she discovers that Falling Man has died and becomes focused on the fact that she could never interpret his actions. Another one of the characters, Keith, finds a job becoming a professional poker player. By doing this, he spends little time at home and is oftentimes at a loss for words. Also, he and Lianne both start to drift away from one another, leaving Lianne to become very in touch with her religious side and make peace with her fear and uncertainty. She ends up leaving Keith. In the last pages of the book the author goes into details about Hammad’s thoughts about accepting death as he is about to crash the plane into the north tower. This is the tower that Keith was in the day of the incident. As he runs out with thousands of others the tower collapses seconds after he escapes. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Finishing the book brought upon a feeling of sadness inside of me. This was in part due to Lianne and Keith’s split. While reading, I kept thinking that the traumatic event that they both went through and experienced would make them stronger, and so I was hoping that they would solve their differences. However, in the end they do end up leaving each other. In some ways I think that this might have been for the best though, because if they wouldn’t be able to be comfortable around each other then it would lead to more sadness. Another emotion that I felt while reading was uncertainty, especially when it switched back to the character of Hamad. This confused me because I remembered him being mentioned earlier in the story, but when it shows the collage of images at the end of the novel, it took me a while to connect that they were from his point of view during the attacks.


 * <span style="display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">Terrorists
 * <span style="display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">[|Emotional Separation]
 * <span style="display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">Physical Divorce
 * <span style="display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">Dwelling over the unknown
 * <span style="display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">Differences that are irreconcilable