Lost in the Field of Visionl Witnessing September 11 is a very interesting narrative, telling a story of hopelessness, fear, resignation, and then acceptance. Reading about the plight of one woman witnessing the attacks and then the aftermath had a much more powerful impact than any other account I have heard so far, since most accounts were he super polished accounts of news anchors with the same clips endlessly looped. The reality of the situation, especially in the aftermath, was much different from what the TV told me. I did not knwo that only professional photographers were allowed to photograph ground zero, nor did i know of all the protests or installations that sprung up. Ms. Taylor described wonderfully her emotions right after the towers collapsed, from pure astonishment to just feeling like part of the spectators of new york, who were, essentially, unable to help in any major way. I felt that her feelings on eing a spectator and a ‘nonhero’ were very tragic, and it makes any claim I can have ot being helpless pale in comparison.
In the second half of the narrative, Ms. Taylor seems very disjointed from the overall population of New York, and her writing attains more of a third party perspective on the situation. I would like to know what brough on this shift, as it feels that she didn’t really participate but instead walked around still in a daze, which is a perfectly natural response, but I still found it a bit odd that it shifts from the personal to the impersonal.
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