Point Omega

The work of highly successful artists is often described in the work's place in time relative to the artist's career. Thus you have early Picasso, late-period Beethoven. Sometimes the word vintage is employed as in, “Jaws is vintage Speilberg...” Writers seem to fare less well than their non-literary counterparts as their careers mature. Late-period Beethoven could be summed up by terms masterful, exquisite and revolutionary. Picasso never stopped innovating and only in very old age, right at the end, did he struggle and fail. My perception is that writers seldom get a glittering third act. Maybe time and further reading will prove me wrong. DeLillo seems to have the reputation of the artist whose best work is strictly in the rear-view mirror. I don't agree.

Centered on a trio of characters, this novella seems to vibrate with what must be a distinct Delilloness. I felt it in White Noise and I felt it here in this compact story of an experimental filmmaker (whose career it seems will never have a second act, let alone a late-period/vintage/revolutionary phase); a fading, retired military scholar — the intended subject of the filmmaker's new project; and the scholar's disturbed daughter. My overall impression is much the same as it was for White Noise. Somehow I sense that DeLillo is playing three-dimensional chess, and while I might be stuck playing checkers, I can feel the genius in his work. I will leave in-depth interpretation of the book up to readers more familiar with his entire body of work. All I can offer is an assertion that whatever skill you can identify on the page is just the tip of the iceberg. The uneasy, almost other-worldly quality and the characters which practically slip from the page they are so alive attest to much more going on than meets the eye.

If anything, reading this short work convinces me that DeLillo deserves a full hearing, that I owe it to him and to myself to read all his books. I started Underworld as a teenager, loved it even then, but stopped for whatever reasons. Let's blame it on the hormones. Mao and Libra have been on my (virtual) shelf forever. I will now try to make my way through the entire heap. I can't offer a higher recommendation than to say it makes me want to read more.