Oct 30 2011
The Submission has
been compared to Richard Price’s richly evocative novels of New York life. It’s
an apt comparison, though Amy Waldman brings a new cast of characters to bear,
members of the Bangladeshi community.
The Submission by Amy Waldman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 320 pages, $26.
by Harvey Blume
Mohammed Khan, aka Mo, the main character of Amy Waldman’s
compelling novel, shares a trait with Herman Melville’s infuriatingly opaque
creation, Bartleby the scrivener. Like Bartleby, Mohammed, at key times,
prefers not to. But unlike Bartleby, a becalmed functionary in a bygone trade
(a copyist), Mo, an up and coming Manhattan architect, is at the epicenter of a
roiling conflict over the memorial to be placed at Ground Zero. His preference
not to explain, placate, or assuage — combined with inherent inability to do so
— exacerbates a city-wide conflict with global repercussions.
Khan has submitted what turns out to be the winning design
for the Ground Zero memorial. He proposes a garden with real trees planted
alongside inverted steel trees fashioned out of metal salvaged from the
demolished towers. Canals crisscross the site. A raised platform for meditation
is positioned at its center. The walls surrounding this six acre complex are
inscribed with the names of those who died in the 9/11 attack.
