Countdown to 9/11

I love the LA Public Library's "Hot off the Press" program. They make a selection of popular new books available at the branches for a 7-day loan period. So you have to read fast, but you don't have to wait forever on the hold list.

This is how I got my hands of Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. It's on pretty much every best books of 2006 list, but has apparently also become fashionable to hate on as of late. (I'd provide links, but I'm on this 7 day deadline. Maybe later.) But I'm not a hater by nature, and even if I were inclined to be, I loved this book.

Messud's characters are awesome - they move in rarefied circles and are comfortable in the kind of intellectual banter that most of us don't get on a daily basis. So in some ways it's hard for me - even as a graduate of another elite university - to identify with them. On the other hand, they are charmingly flawed and selfish. And oddly enough, I love the ways that they are frustrated by the petty imperfections of those they love the most. Because after all, who doesn't carp about their friends?

Anyway, the book starts in March of 2001, and jumps through the odd numbered months through to September, to that fateful day, and then beyond to November. As the reader, you know all along what's coming, and how it will - must - affect their lives and plans. And at the same time, I at least found myself reliving my own pre-9/11 live, just out of college, and wondering if it would have been different had I known what lay ahead.

If you've read the book, let me know what you thought of the characters. I was most drawn to Danielle, and wasn't sure if that was the author's intention, or a reflection on myself. And insights into Ludo are particularly welcome.