« life happens, blogging doesn't | Main | kazaam awards: final ballot »

only a frenchman could turn 9/11 into pornography

"The only way to know what happened in the restaurant at the 107th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center on September 11 2001, between 8:30 and 10:29 AM is to make it up."

So reads the pitch for French author Frédéric Beigbeder's new book, Windows on the World.

I can't find much on this author that isn't in French (the translations from Google don't make much sense), and I haven't been able to find a review of the book. Merde in France says this much about it:

In an excerpt from the book entitled 'Loving to death', published in a special edition of 'Technikart', the trapped office workers are portrayed as victims of the consumer society (and not as victims of those nice well behaved Muslim zealots) who decide to partake in some furious sex as their office burns and crumbles around them. Beigbeder joins the moaning drunk Renaud among French 'artists' making vile efforts at profiteering on the dead of 9-11. In a country where Thierry Meyssan can sell 200,000 copies of a scandalous book, so great is the French desire to celebrate 9-11, Beigbeder's novel is set to be a best seller. Remember, there never was any French sympathy for 9-11

What I managed to figure out from the loose translations is that this book is destined to be a best seller in France.

We've seen 9/11 turned into many things; t-shirts, bumper stickers, maudlin posters. Never did I imagine the moment when I would witness that day turned into a pornographic novel.

The disdain this man - and most of his countrymen - must have for Americans is beyond the grasp of my imagination. Is it jealousy that would make someone take such an event in history and saturate it with sex stories? Is it snobbery or callousness that would make one go out and buy this book and enjoy this story?

I wonder if some people view 9/11 as a piece of fiction; a tall tale of tragedy and heroics that has grown to epic proportions, so that the reality of it all does get lost in the stories of death, despair and bravery.

I wonder if some people have so removed themselves from that day that they no longer view it as something real.

I wonder if people who do not live in America smirk when they think about 9/11, almost laugh to themselves at the though of the foolish Americans running about, fanning the flames off of themselves and taking shelter from the debris of the towers.

Disaster sex and romance is a staple of most made-for-tv and big screen movies depicting mass death scenarios. Amid ruins and rubble, people fall in love and have sex. But those are pieces of fiction. The Towering Inferno. Armageddon. Poseidon Adventure. Fake stories of death and destruction laced with romance.

I can't imagine this bloated ego of a man, Beigbeder, sitting down to write this book knowing that the scenario he writes of his real. People died horrible deaths at the hands of terrorists in that very location in his story, on that very day. And here he is, almost making light of it.

And then a publishing company decides it's a great idea to print this monstrosity.

And then the French people buy it and read it and put it on a best seller's list.

And then they turn and ask why no one wants to visit France anymore. They wonder why Americans hold such animosity towards them.

I don't wonder at all.

TrackBack

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference only a frenchman could turn 9/11 into pornography:

» Do You Hate The French? from The Bitch Girls
If you didn't before, you might hate them now. [Read More]

» Mas oui from Inoperable Terran
Michele gets good and torqued up about the idiotic French 9/11 porno novel.... [Read More]

» Vile from oxymoronic.org
I don't really have any more words than Michele does, but I want to make sure you all read this.... [Read More]

» Frenchman turns 9/11 turned into a porn story from Things that ... make you go hmm
I used to just think it was the French government that was ignorant, now I'm thinking you can add at least one writer to the pool [Read More]

» The Cul-de-Sac - August 2, 2003 from suburban blight
Good evening, and welcome to the Cul-de-Sac, suburban blight's weekly mega-roundup of what bloggers in my neigborhood are doing and saying. This week, I made a special effort to go outside the comfort zone of my blogging neighborhood and meet... [Read More]

» Lilli's in the TV Set from Too Much To Dream
When Michele asked me to fisk this person I blithely agreed, but I've been sitting here for an hour or so wondering just how to properly approach this particular example of idiocy. First, some background: Michele commented on a post... [Read More]

» Exploiting the 9/11 Victims from LilacRose
Just when I think I cannot be shocked anymore by the depravity to which people can sink, I read about... [Read More]

» Fisking Lili from Third Kind
Bit of an uproar at a small victory and Spleenville, among other places, about some upcoming piece of shit French book set inside the burning World Trade Center and portraying the victims as engaging in an orgy or some crap.... [Read More]

» Michele On The Warpath from Wizbang
Few things warm my heart as much as a pissed off Michele. When the target is a pond scum French author attempting to turn 9/11 into a soft core porn book and anti-capitalist screed, well that means it's time to... [Read More]

» insensitive clodliness from Wackypenguin
ViaMichele, an excerpt from Frederic Beigbeder's book Windows On The World: (translated from French, i believe) 'When I think that you will never see my home entertainment system: with a screen as wide as the Lake Superior', said the brown... [Read More]

» Too Much Time On Their Hands from Wizbang
How else can you explain the French? Where else could a disgusting piece of trash like Windows on the World be honored with a literary prize and 9/11: The Big Lie is a best seller? Doing a little digging on... [Read More]

Comments

Speaking as someone who lost a friend on 9.11, I can only begin to imagine the anger those who lost husbands, wives, fathers, or mothers, etc.

I don't want to turn this into a blanket indictment of the French, but it would not be much of a stretch to do so.

What arrogance....

Hey, you don't have to turn it into a blanket indictment of the french, I'll do it for you. Fuck the french, if that's how they treat American, or ANY kind of tragedy. I am sure not ALL french people hate America, but, from what I understand, the majority do. We should mercy-kill the entire nation somehow. Well, maybe not the entire nation, but certain of the upper set.

I saw something about this over on LGF, and all I want tos say is Fuck those cheese eating frogs. i can't understand how some people can still defend the French.

ohmy god thats so disgusting
you know michele
you and i know so many people who have the right to write about that day
my friend jose who ran the restaurant in the world trade center
and lost many of his friends
his job
his life
and walked about
ruined, in shock
for a year
until he finally rebounded
he has not written about that
but could and perhaps should

and yet this prick
who wants a cheap cell in paris
writes making fun of a terrible day

who was in the restaurant so early
the poor working slobs
in the kitchen
most likely Mexican guys cutting a mountain of onions for $5 an hour
perhaps the early set up crew of waiters getting ready for their lunch crowd, filling up salt and pepper shakers,
the sous chef trying to figure out what to do for the days special

the day manager
looking at the reservation list
checking the inventory

just a bunch of non glamorous
hard working employees
trying to make enough money to get by in nyc

thats the story id write

real people
really killed
in a really horrible way
by monsters

au re voir
la pricks de la france
eat my jewish american shorts!

Thank you, world, for giving me one more thing to boil with rage about today. C'est ecrivain, il pet plus haut que l'encule. (This author is farting higher than his asshole.)

I think this guy should find out what it's like to live like Salman Rushdie for a few years when the extremists had a bounty on his head. Who's with me?

D

French intellectual. The very definition and best example for the word despicable.

I agree with you, Michele, that disaster is always the foundation for great love and sex scenes. But we're all still so raw from 9/11 -- and I don't doubt that this will be sacred territory for us for the rest of our lives.

I prefer to wonder about all the potential that was lost that day -- the relationships that were never formed, the businesses that were never started, the ideas/inventions never patented, the children that were never conceived. Dramatic, I know, but much better than the twisted affairs that Beigbeder conjures up.

"The only way to know what happened in the restaurant at the 107th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center on September 11 2001, between 8:30 and 10:29 AM is to make it up."

Actually what happened there is known about and understood from pieced together telephone calls made by those poor people as they suffocated to death. Many wept and prayed, some became hysterical. Others still tried to escape to the roof, some died there overcome by smoke.

About 200 people huddled together in a conference room gasping for air around the broken windows that this dirty French nazi imagines they had an orgy under.

What a disgusting bastard, pig, baboon anus this creature is. I hope he dies under a bus.

I hope he dies under a bus.

I would agree with this sentiment if it had been written thus: "I hope he dies under a bus slowly."

Within a few years, all those "lovely Muslim immigrants" in France will have bred themselves into a ruling majority; that will be the ultimate revenge against les frogs!

Hmm. From a writing standpoint, this could be a pretty interesting plot device (someone correct me if that term is wrong for what I'm thinking about). Take a major event in history, make up some characters and put them in the middle of that event with no actual involvement in the event other than being swept up in the aftermath of the event. Remember that sex sells. I think it would make a great literary exercise.

Where this guy goes wrong appears to be when he portrays the victims as possibly deserving of their fate. I'm sure all the scenarios he managed to imagine involved decadence, corruption, and greed, whereas if most of us wrote a story about two lovers caught in the WTC that day, our hearts would bleed for the characters.

Instead of using Google as your translation program, I found the translation by babelfish was very understandable:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

MommaBear ---

Revenge, it might be, but I'm really scared of a ruling radical Muslim population in a nation which has a large number of nuclear weapons. I'm not exactly thrilled with the French right now, but I'd still rather have them than the Islamists; it's better to be insulted than nuked.

Laura

"I'm sure all the scenarios he managed to imagine involved decadence, corruption, and greed..."

Of course he imagined that. France is one of the most decadant and corrupt, morally speaking, countries on the face of the earth. And, evil people always imagine that everyone in the world is like them. This bastard needs to, not die, but be tortured slowly, mutilated to deformity, and then allowed to live, looking hideous. I bet he wouldn't be so smug then.

Sorry, I am not usually so violent in my speech towards people, even people I don't like, but I consider this asshead to be sub-human. (The french guy, not the guy I quoted from heh)

or girl i quoted from, sorry hehe

Three thoughts:

this man disgusts me. while I can't bring myself to saying I hope he dies slowly under a bus while a weasel eats his eyeballs, I do wish he wakes up someday and regrets what he has done.

I suspect that in 50 years or so, there will be a considerable number of "9/11 revisionists" in France, who will try to claim that it either never happened, or that not as many people died as the Americans claim.

you know, the next time France is threatened with an invasion from another country, we will probably come in and pull their nuts out of the fire yet again. They don't deserve it, and we probably shouldn't do it, but I bet we will. Because that's how the US is.

"Beigbeder's novel is set to be a best seller"

If it becomes a best seller, than its readers are even more contemptible than its author.

You people are ridiculous. It is called FREEDOM OF SPEECH. This man can think, say, write anything he wants. If you don't like it DON'T READ IT!!!!

No, Kimberly, you're the one who is ridiculous, with your hysterical shrieking (in the form of all caps and multiple exclamation points). You are also stupid: notice no one here is saying this book should be banned. But you know, what's going on here is also free speech. If you don't like what you read here then you shouldn't read it.

You mean, like only an American or Brit could have turned the Holocaust and Nazi-regime into a TV-comedy?

They want to show Americans intellectual contempt, I'll show them financial contempt.

No trips to France.
No French wine.
No French products.

And as they whine about the 33% loss in French wine business and 25% drop in French tourism, they can read "Windows on the World" and wonder why we don't like them anymore.

They aren't worth it. Buy American, visit Italy and I hear Australian wines rock.

As if we needed a new reason to hate the French!

"You mean, like only an American or Brit could have turned the Holocaust and Nazi-regime into a TV-comedy?"

You have evidence to back that up, Lilli?

Hey Knucklehead aka ANDREA HARRIS,

At what point did I suggest anyone stop people from reading what is going on here or try to put a stop to it? Wake up and smell the coffee. KNUCKLEHEAD!!!

"You people are ridiculous. It is called FREEDOM OF SPEECH. This man can think, say, write anything he wants. If you don't like it DON'T READ IT!!!!"

Ditto what Andrea said. And hey, y'know, Kim, French laws regarding freedom of speech are very different from American laws regarding the same. I'm just glad I ain't a EUroweenie ,and you couldn't pay me Bill Gates's annual salary to live in France, either.

Kim, like Andrea pointed out, no one is saying the book should be banned. The same freedom that gives someone the right to publish a horrible book like that, gives me the right to denounce it.

Now, run along.

If, Lilli, you are trying to equate Hogan's Heros with this, you are sadly lacking. Shows like that, and the BBC shows Blackadder and Dad's Army were satires about the way the military conducted itself, the war on the homefront, or a laugh at the Nazi's expense. None of these made any attempt to find humor in genocide.

And Kimberly? Chill. True, this bloated sack of pseudo-intellectual crap can, indeed, write anything he wants, and any publisher can put it in pretty covers and charge people for the privilege of owning his psychotic, deviant ramblings. Any fool can part with their money to do exactly that, and no one denies their right to do so. That said, those who would knowingly buy this detrius masquarading as literature are beneath contempt. Sorry you cannot make such a distinction.

You people are so silly to be offended by this book. There are far worse things happening right outside your window. See ya!

I just looked out my window.

A couple of cars, a tree, a few buildings. Nothing bad at all.

Now, Kimmy, stop telling us what we should and should not be offended by. Once again the French are spitting in our faces, and I'll be damned if I'm going to smile pleasantly at them and act like it's OK.

Well I don't think that the author of this book would really turn 9/11 into porn. I found it sad how you people think that the French are anti-american. The truth is the French don't like the US Gov. not the Americans. The author is maybe an anti-american. But that doesn't mean that the majority of frenchfolks are either. Being french-canadian I know what I'm talking about. I have familly there in France and I know that a lot of people felt sympathy for the people who have lost people in 9/11.

Josianne - please read what I quoted from Merde again: the trapped office workers are portrayed as victims of the consumer society...who decide to partake in some furious sex as their office burns and crumbles around them.

Sounds not only pornographic, but rather callous as well.

Now that I have read the quote it's sounds more like porn...I've heard of that author before. He's very controversial in France. Therefore does NOT represent the french population. So please stop this idiot hate against the French.

Josiane - that hated government comprises of Americans, who were elected to those positions as Americans. It wasn't the American government who died on 9/11. It was the American people.

'It's not the people, it's the government!' might have worked back in the days of kings and emperors, but in a democracy it's no excuse - if the majority of the French elect an asshole like Chirac as their leader, then the vast majority of the French are assholes themselves.

I hardly think Michele is advocating the position of 'if your name is Pierre then I hate you'. Any individual deserves the benefit of the doubt, but The French refers to a certain collective. And that collective puts 9/11 porn on best-seller lists. I rest my case.

Josiane,

You may be french-canadian, I don't doubt that. and sure, not ALL french hate Americans, but I know several french people living here IN america who have a disdain and general loathing for all things american, and, like I said, they're LIVING here. So, don't say what ALL french people feel, because, I've seen with my own eyes what at least some of them feel.

Sam-So you're saying that the "french collective" hate the americans that died? Please...this is nonsense.

If Chirac ended up president is because of the people who didn't vote on the first round. At the second round there was Chirac and LePenn. LePenn was stupid and not very representitive. Therefore the French had no choice to vote for Chirac (87 % of the votes). I don't see how the french are suppose to "assholes" as you say.

I have seen on german TV several US comedy-series about Nazi-time. One is playing in a prisoner camp - I'm not sure if it's a concentration camp. I have no idea what the english names of these things are, I tbh don't even recall the german ones.
But how about the whole genre of "western movies", especially the more comedy ones.
The USA is not the only country in the world which lost some thousands or people through some attack, but when I read what michele writes it sounds like some are reserving themselves the exclusive-rights on suffering.
This guy wrote a book about people who have sex in their office - well, maybe that would be exactly what I'd do if knwing there is no escape and just some limited time left. Has nothing to do with "The French" or "The Americans" at all.

Lilli, did you notice the part where it says that the Americans were "trapped office workers are portrayed as victims of the consumer society," and did you know this is the third Frenchman to write about 9/11 in such a way?

I've never seen a comedy that plays the death of real people in a real, tragic situation. Show me a tv comedy in America that plays cocentration camps or terrorist attacks on other nations for comedy and infuses them with raunchy sex.

Stop posturing, Lilli. Your french is showing.

Therefore does NOT represent the french population.

Josiane, maybe. But the fact that the book is predicted to be a best seller DOES represent the French population. And it's disgusting.

It's clear from Kimberly's mature, considered responses that her "Seeya!" meant Mom was home and she was going to have to get off the computer or get in big trouble.

As for French-hating... Well, it takes more than an "I'm sure I'm sorry"-type insincere pseudo-apology, which is all we have gotten so far from the French, to make this all better. They could start by not acting as if we somehow owed them our tourist dollars, that might help. In the meantime, as long as Americans continue to feel as if they are being spat at, we will continue to dislike the French. As for this dude being a "controversial" writer, that's as may be -- controversial does not necessarily mean unpopular.

I don't wish the pathetic little scribbler dead, any more than I wish that on the drooling, hysterical Holocaust-deniers. I just shake my head and move on; some people are too stupid to be educated.

Speaking of the French, other contributors here are correct in stating that the book's expected runaway sales there tells us a great deal about the French mind-set. Something tells me biographies of John Kennedy and Albert Einstein are not as popular there as the French translation of Mein Kampf.

A foolish, little people, so consumed by their envy and hatred all reason escapes them are not worthy allies.

To throw some water on the fire....

Books become bestsellers for many reasons. For example, controversial books are often bestsellers because of the controversy; people buy the book just to see what the controversy is about (for example, The Satanic Verses).

Further, absent Bookscan data, can anyone tell me exactly how many copies constitute a bestseller in France?

Not every bestseller sells like Living History (ca. 800,000 copies?) or Harry Potter (ca. 10 million).... most sell much less, particularly if they only hit the bottom of the bestseller list, and that only for a week or two. 20,000 copies, bunched up at the front, would cover that.

Look at the American bestseller list over the last few years..... Ann Coulter. Noam Chomsky. Michael Moore. Pat Buchanon. You want to tell me you can look at three titles on a subject over two years, only knowing the relative sales figures and not the actual numbers, and from that predict with any accuracy what most of the French think? L. Ron Hubbard had a fiction bestseller a couple of years back; does that mean most of America are Scientologists?

And that's before we get into the fact that bestseller lists have in the past manipulated by pre-publication manipulation and by deliberate misreporting by bookstores (if a bookstore overstocks a title, it may report it as a bestseller in order to convince people the title is popular, and therefore should be purchased).

Are there anti-american bigots in Freance? No doubt. We have them in Canada too.

But the existence of some jerks within a group does not make all people in that group jerks, and especially not the same kind of jerk. Saying all Frenchmen are like the people who buy this book (which, even if it sold at Harry Potter numbers, would be bought by just 3% of the population), is like saying all Republicans/Bush voters/War supporters are like Pat Robertson.

"You mean, like only an American or Brit could have turned the Holocaust and Nazi-regime into a TV-comedy?"

These weren't written within 5 years of the event. And some of them are pretty tasteless.

For example, "Life is Beautiful" was made 50 years after the concentration camps and it is utterly tasteless. And stupid. But at least the director was trying to say something good about humanity, however treacly. But this author is trying to use innocent people's horrible deaths for political purposes, barely 2 years after the event.

Does that help?

I would never presume, upon meeting someone from France, that he/she hated me for being from the U.S. Not even if I knew 90% of the French population had bought this book.

But the fact that it was written, and got published, and will likely be bought--and that it puts an American national tragedy to such awful use--doesn't give me warm fuzzy feelings about France as a whole.

And, Lilli--I do NOT think Americans have a monopoly on suffering: far from it. In fact, I think we're some of the luckiest people in the world, for a bunch of reasons having to do with our traditions, our natural resources, and the great minds that have driven some of our innovations.

But 9/11 happened to us more than it did to any other country: most victims were U.S. Citizens. And anyone who buys this book is supporting something extremely disrespectful of this country.

Now go away and let people finish venting.

I can't help agreeing with Bill (the different one) -- it's just a plot device, and unoriginal at that. I try to judge books from a purely esthetical perspective, so the big question is whether it's good literature; I suspect it's not. Allowing for an ethical dimension, and judging by the descriptions, it's plain disgusting. However, I'd have to read it to verify these hypotheses; if curiosity wrestles down repulsion, I still might, so the bastard will have hooked me. From what I understand, Meyssan's book has been misrepresented in the blog world; I wonder if this one is being unfairly tarnished, too, -- hardly so but a possibility.

Here in Russia, we’ve had a few major terrorist attacks since the mid-1990s, so I can imagine my emotions if some Frenchman (or American, although the French elites are the more Russophobic) dared to portray the victims in line with her stereotypes of modern Russians. But emotions notwithstanding, I hope I would still have the guts to read the stuff and pass unbiased judgment solely on the esthetical merits.

It doesn't take "guts" to read stuff like that, Alexei -- at least, not in France or the US. And Meyssan's book has not been "misrepresented" by bloggers. All that we know about it comes straight from the horse's mouth, as we say: the author himself.

I know that in Russia in the past you have had more serious troubles when it comes to censorship and getting in trouble for reading forbidden books. Notice that no one here is proposing this book be banned. But I wonder if you truly understand that the generally freer press we in the West have had has been abused by people like these authors, whose works are getting published ahead of that of no-doubt worthier authors', all because the controversy so generated will make the publishing house and the author some cash. (Oh, yeah, they're in it just for the Cause. Excuse me, I got a little sarcastic there.)

Perhaps the novel will be just another pile of lukewarm sub-Marguerite Duras-ish drivel that will sell ten copies to university students fancying they will shock their fellows, and then be forgotten. One can only hope.

Thanks for the lecture, Andrea. You have introduced me to the concept of free press without failing to point out I have no claim to membership in the Westerners' club. I appreciate the putdown.

However, it still does take "guts", wherever you are, to read through a book mocking the suffering and death of people just like you and me, with one purpose: to evaluate its artistic merits.

As for Meyssan, I don't really care what he says. Authors do poor jobs explaining their creations. I'd rather read the book; I'm just not sure it's worth the money.

An author who can't do a good job explaining his creation isn't much of a communicator. One's clarity of expression is a pretty good indicator of one's clarity of thought.

Andrea is just full of the milk of human kindness, isn't she?

Andrea isn't really the milk of human kindness type. That's why we all read her.

"only a frenchman could turn 9/11 into pornography"

yeah, he should have used it as an excuse to slaughter thousands of civilians instead. Y'know, like civilized folk.

There's a porn movie made by an American man that involves farm animals, homosexuality, rape scenes, and war... The disgust of this man - and most of his countrymen - ... ;) heh. Hollywood is notorious for capitalizing on and fictionalizing MANY true war and true tragedy events.

You know, I keep hearing Francophiles talking about France's contributions to culture etc. etc. etc.

I gotta wonder - do Italians ever pull this stuff? In everything cultural but literature, France isn't fit to air out Italy's jockstrap, historically speaking. France's culture appears to have been at the "train wreck" stage since '68, but they still wield their supposed sophisitication like some kind of club.

Jesus Christ, Alexei, what on god's green earth are you talking about? Have trouble typing with that ten-ton chip on your shoulder much? I wasn't accusing you of anything or kicking you out of the "Western free press club" or whatever the hell you are so bent out of shape over. I was actually trying to sympathize with your point of view. Fuck me if I ever bother doing that again.

As for you, Dark Avenger, you cute thing you, you can stuff your smart remarks where the sun don't shine. Ooh, was that too lacking in the "milk of human kindness"? So sowwy.

Sorry, Michele, I seem to bring out the whiny baby in some people.

Oh, and I love the brave "anonymous" commenter who left the "iraqbodycount.org" url. Ooh, we are slain by your commenting kung fu! The very mention of dead civilians causes our defenses to wither! Help us! We're melting... we're melting...

Damn the French. If I ever saw a Frenchman I would punch them in the throat and say ASV sent me!!!

I knew 42 people who died in those towers. Worked with them for 10 years from 350 miles away, and visited them when I had to go to Wall Street. I still have parts of the white shirt I shredded for masks. Amazing how many you can get from a 15 1/2 32-33 button-down. The reality of that day makes fiction of this type meaningless. "Man's Inhumanity To Man" continues........

Hmmm...maybe I'll actually read the novel before condemming it.

"The reality of that day makes fiction of this type meaningless."

So, I guess I'll never be reading Catch-22, The Red Badge of Courage, Richard II, Henry V, Soldier or most of the war poetry of the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews - since they somwhow mask the reality of horrible days.

I am french and I love america. I belong to this country in which I want to live later. It's my deepest dream. I would never insult any American with no good reason. Please don't put all the french in the same bag, even if I must admit that most of the french people doesn't like America as much as I do, and lots, too much people, does hate your country. I'm sorry about that. It's something I've always been trying to fight. But I don't know anyone who's actually visited your country before who doesn't like it. They just don't know what they're talking about.

But there are also, in France, people who love your country, who have cried all their tears after the september 11th, who can't cope with anti americanism.

Please, don't forget that.

Xavier

I didn't realize that Mr. Finn personally experienced any of the realities portrayed in the fiction he cites. I bow before someone who personally witnessed the slaughters wreaked by mighty Agmemmnon and can compare Homer's account.

I've been to France and recall fond and not-so-fond memories.

Joseph, when you have personally witnessed more than twenty people die (and I've seen more) without being employed as a soldier, come see me. We'll have more common ground after you've experienced the helplessness of having someone die in your arms.

What does it take for America to understand who the enemies are, if it's the World, so be it, after all, the whole world is feeding from American blood, oh and about the French, those are the lowest form of living creatures I've ever seen, smelly, traitors, cowards, ungrateful, and did i mention smelly?

"Hmm. From a writing standpoint, this could be a pretty interesting plot device (someone correct me if that term is wrong for what I'm thinking about). Take a major event in history, make up some characters and put them in the middle of that event with no actual involvement in the event other than being swept up in the aftermath of the event. Remember that sex sells. I think it would make a great literary exercise"

Thats been done by james cameron with 'Titanic'. 80 YEARS LATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not a year and a half

Well, as difficult for you all to swallow as this may be, I have to say i agree with a lot of you but in different ways.
Number 1 and most important, I do strongly believe in freedom of speech. This may be a sore spot for most, but him being able to say what he wants is really what all of our ancestors and forefathers fought and died for. REMEMBER THAT?
Whether or not he is wrong is more or less a moral issue we all have to take up individually.
Pagan said it best, SEX SELLS. Look at all the attention he is already getting. You all should blame yourselves for the growing popularity! I had never heard of this but now I want to read it!
I also must say that I have thought about things like this before. I can remember being a teenager and having a conversation about knowing a plane was gonna crash and what would I do? In the face of certain death, I have to admit, maybe I would want to have sex. Wow, is that wrong?
I can't think of any other way I would prefer to go.
Besides, doesn't that give the horrible story of 9/11 a happy ending?
db

no wonder everybody thinks Americans are scum

Some individuals will literally stab their loved ones in the back for the life insurance money, this man is just trying to turn a profit. Simply because he is a bastard does not mean every french citizen should be categorized the same because they are buying this book, remember, they didn't write it, they are only reading it. One point I would like to bring up is why is it justified for Hollywood (AMERICA)to create a mockery of Pearl Harbor as nothing more than a mere love story but all French are condemned by one ignorant man writing a distasteful book pertaining to 9/11. I think the majority of the individuals who posted messages on here are bigots searching for a reason to hate the French because they already had something against them. It is not because the event is just fresh in your mind. It will always be fresh in many of our minds as well as Pearl Harbor. Oh by the way, Sam, did Richard Nixon represent the American citizen because Americans elected him to office. Hmmm, what about Reagan?? I think not. If what you wrote is your true opinion, you are narrow minded and possess shallow logic, in more simple terms, get an education it might be quite beneficial to you in the future. As for the anonymous individual who left the sweet URL, go f*@k yourself and rott in the god forsaken country. Oh yes, Americans love the god forsaken country so much we want to take the sh*t h@*l over, really, wake up. I suppose your the type that likes to watch women get slaughtered for just showing their face, or any individual for doing something the wonderful "elected" Saddam disapproved of. Maybe it was better that way, huh???

Hatred attracts hatred and most of the comments are full of hatred. Aren't you fed up with violence ?
In order to win over violence, we should all respect each other and unite as human people. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Daisaku Ikeda should serve as examples to be followed.
Love and non-violence are stronger than war arms.

Has anybody here tried to know more about this book (if not read it) before condemning it?! It seems that all you know about it is an excerpt from a weblog called Merde in France (Shit in France), a source I tend to believe to be a bit tendentious.
With Advanced Search in Google you can select the English language (come on, guys!) and you will find several critics of Frédéric Beigbeder's "windows on the world" ...in English. Whatever you think about his book, Beigbeder is not anti-american.
I find it appalling that you all rush like this into conclusions, saying nothing of the xenophobic comments. Many of you are totally prejudiced which make them so easy to manipulate. They behave like little pathetic soldiers of human kind's biggest enemy -ignorance. They may feel some confort by feeding each other's anger. But they have to be aware that, by doing so, they are not doing their country a favour.

I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on it, really. However, I do know that many American movies were made on wars, slaughters or various destructions where the Americans were NOT the victims. Many of these movies have even become widely reknowned... But noone feels the insult unless they're the ones targeted.

Americans have become a corrupt, decadent, but mostly a mislead society. The U.S. government controls what their people know- thus what the government wants them to know. Why else would half the American people still believe the war in Iraq was justified, seen how it has failed to produce any of the intended results ? Saddam is still alive, no relationship was found between Iraq and Al-Quaida ( supposing they're really behind 9-11 ), no weapons of mass destruction were found, and all those heroic stories from the front lines... well, most of them were made up.

In fact, under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical and sadistic rule, the country was held in an iron grip, but was nearly free of crime ( other than Hussein's own... ) whereas ever since the Americans took the country, terrorism has reached an all-time high. Don't you get it ? They want you out

Salut les blaireaux.
Quand les américains serons capables de comprendre une autre langue que l'anglais,quand ils auront des médias qui leur montreront ce qu'il se passe en dehors de chez eux,quand la politique étrangère des USA sera plus diplomatique, moins "va t'en guerre" et moins arrogante, peut être que les attentats cesseront chez vous et en Irak.
Amusez vous bien a traduire ce messsage (si vous n'abandonnez pas avant la fin).

hello my friends, i'm french, AND i still like american people (when they try to think, and don't say that they want to kill every french people)
Stop fucking around, learn a foreign language (french for example.....or russian, spanish, whatever you want!!), and fight your governement (it sucks!!!)
ciao

Send us your american wives and girls when you'll give freedom (joke??) and be "fighting terrorism" in Iraq (another joke??) ; french guys are maybe traitors and rats, but we know what's a female orgasm.......

IN RESPONSE TO VINCENT LA GRENOUILLE:
Pas tous Américains sont ignorants, en fait la plupart de ne sont pas. Beaucoup d'Américains savent d'autres langues. C'est drôle comment ignorant vous serez obligé à penser la façon que vous pensez des Américains. ou si vous préférez l'Espagnol.
No hay la necesidad de insultar un grupo de personas usted tiene probablemente no experiencia con.
Dies macht Spaß, der Sie macht, wie ein stummer Esel auszusehen.
I am American and I love all people no matter what their ethnic background is, even if they are French and stupid (Vincent la Grenouille). No one should throw anyone in the same group of people because of there race.
Tutti dovrebbero amare l'un l'altro! Ciao

Ah!! bravo Catherine!! tu parles plein de langues!!! je suis comme un con a coté de toi!!!
Te sens pas visée cousine transatlantique, cette histoire linguistique était anecdotique (quoique représentative de mon expérience personnelle, désolé!!).
Le plus important, c'est de virer votre handicapé mental de la maison blanche....
ciao, continue de pratiquer les langues du vieux monde, et portes toi bien.
bise

Holy shit my fucking god only the french could do that, i highly dout that the people it the trade center where having sex they were probably scared shitless, only the french, they shall burn in hell and they were victimks of the bombers not of anything else but of the attackers, plus i just really hate the french cuz they will not help us out in the war, but we helped them out in ww1 and ww2 plus they are destroying mcdonalds in france so that is why i hate them and they think they are better than us. I REALLY HATE THER FUCKING FRENCH THEY ARE SICKOS MAKING 9/11 INTO PORNO DAM THEM

I'll keep this decent. I agree with all of you. French people- SCREW ALL OF YOU. How the heck can you turn a tragedy where hundreds of people died- some French- into a porn book? Where the f*** is your mind? Arragance- some day you'll get attacked, and you will know how it feels to lose people's lives, and how it is to have other COUNTRIES laughing and writing porn about it. Go to hell.