E-Mail This Article to a Friend Poetic license, continued

In the story told by the Report, America’s new enemy is partly of its own making, and so too are the narrative’s heroes, who struggle to deliver the country from evil. These include elected officials, military personnel, and employees of the federal government. Part Nine, "Heroism and Horror," introduces individuals and groups who risked and often gave their lives on September 11. Among them are city rescue squads, firefighters, and police. There are valiant citizens on the ground, and the passengers and crew aboard United Flight 93, who died defeating the hijackers’ scheme to crash the commandeered aircraft into the Capitol. Bereft of a miraculous rescuer like Beowulf, The 9/11 Commission Report calls on the American people to serve as their own collective hero, and seeks to ensure the nation’s survival by restoring its faith in the miracles of self-government. The narrative voice that Republican and Democratic commission members forged to tell the story of 9/11 itself expresses a heroic America, unified and strengthened by adversity. The Report’s concluding statement foresees ongoing heroism in Americans and their ideals, trusting the democratic process to save the country from future perils: "We look forward to a national debate on the merits of what we have recommended, and we will participate vigorously in that debate." The Report’s authors do not doubt the resilience of their democracy or the capacities of their compatriots.

It is commonly assumed today that the time for writing grand narrative interlacing secular and sacred themes is over. We no longer blend the terrestrial and the celestial, the divine and the earthly. All the same, from the first sentence of The 9/11 Commission Report, describing a historical sunrise in a blessed America, and well into the narrative, the heavens enclose a dense sphere of action. The Twin Towers of New York City figure in an aerial setting, and preservation of the Capitol and the White House occurs in the sky. Civilian and military personnel fight Alien Bombers for control of the earth below, and conversations between the airborne and the grounded propel the action. Aerial goings-on also carry more than personal or political significance: God is literally invoked by Americans responding to the attacks, and by the jihadist hijackers who represent Al Qaeda’s maverick branding of Islam.

Little wonder that the Report’s concluding recommendations are as mixed as the nature of the enemy it portrays. The "worthy adversary" requires the new Department of Homeland Security to work in concert with a whole host of governmental entities in the US and overseas to protect the country from the formidable menace it poses. But the Grendelian monster, lurking enviously on the rim of an overconfident and richly endowed civilization, and programmed in the large scheme of things to return one day to wreak havoc and set things right — this Nemesis appears to inspire guilt, and to call for soul-searching. The Report consequently includes recommendations designed to make America appear and act less loathsome to people struggling to live with dignity under its long silhouette. One such recommendation begins: "The U.S. government must define what the message is, what it stands for. We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors."

CHASING AHAB

Members of the 9/11 Commission have been accused of producing a report with no author, but the cursive signature of each hints at a felt involvement. Like the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, they pledge their Lives and Fortunes and sacred Honor to the nation’s founding principles. Like the Declaration of Independence, the Report is a piece of committee work. So was the King James Bible of 1611. So too, in a way, were the immense epics of antiquity, whose "authors" wove together story strands passed down to them by predecessors. In the end, their material is only anonymously "authored." Homer names his Muse, and the Beowulf poet speaks for an epic tradition. If anything, the "authorless" character of The 9/11 Commission Report belongs to a time-honored practice of epic storytelling.

American annals abound with episodes and heroes worthy of epic treatment, but no single story or series of linked events has thus far been turned into a literary epic of the American people. A few works — notably Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1885) and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) — have, for different reasons, assumed epic dimensions. The latter, in particular, has the length and heft, the range and philosophical depth of an epic. It juxtaposes the transcendental and the material; it is a celebration and a jeremiad; it springs from native cultural ground and is universal; and it pits the human against the primordial. But while certain literary works have, at different times in America’s past, achieved epic qualities in the eyes of some, none has emerged as America’s uncontested epic.

In his keenly observed analysis of American politics and manners, Democracy in America (1835-’40), Alexis de Tocqueville noted that the American tended "to his private concerns as if he were alone in the world" and then gave himself up "to his commonweal as if he had forgotten them." The American alternated between "the most lively patriotism" and the most selfish cupidity. Tocqueville’s observation has proved prescient but not necessarily predictive. Some insist that, since 9/11, America has been irreversibly transformed. If Americans remain unchanged, then September 11 may be remembered as just another July 4, November 11, or December 7, a "historical" day whose singeing particularities are largely forgotten. The 9/11 Commission Report could well go down as a minor blip on national literary radars. But if the country has been triggered by 9/11 to recall its past or imagine its future in ways that have never accorded with its individualistic and short-term interests, then it should be promising to follow the fate of The 9/11 Commission Report. At the moment, it is surely, at the very least, a narrative of the epic kind. Beyond that, the curious Report may turn out to be America’s first enduring story about itself.

Daniel Aaron is Victor S. Thomas Professor Emeritus in the Department of English, Harvard University, and the author of numerous books on American literature and history. Leslie Dunton-Downer’s most recent work, with co-author Alan Riding, is Essential Shakespeare Handbook. Harvey A. Silverglate is a criminal-defense and civil-liberties lawyer, and a frequent Phoenix contributor. The authors can be reached at has@harveysilverglate.com.