This is the first DeLillo book i've read and while I can say I liked it, I must confess that I really have no idea what it's all about. Bookended by the tale of a man obsessively watching a art installation comprising of Hitchcock's Psycho slowed down to last 24 hours. In between this there is the story of a wanna-be documentarian who spends time at a war theologian's house trying to get him to commit to a film he wishes to make.

I know theres a point here, a theme i'm not getting. For the life of me however i cannot imagine what it is! Maybe a little research is in order. Anyway the prose is quite excellent, the story is intriguing at the least and as such I would definately recommend it, especially considering it's brief 117 page count.

It's really good. More quiet than the other DeLillo I read, White Noise, and definitely...weightier, it felt. Like there was more meaning between the lines or something that I'm not quite getting, something on the tip of my tongue, a meaning that I won't ever be able to put into words, except maybe that things end. Honestly, it would be supremely fitting if this were DeLillo's last book. I can tell, I'm going to be thinking about this one for a few days.

Oh, and DeLillo's dialogue shines as usual.

4/5

I love how deep into his character’s thoughts Delillo gets. I love the way he narrates the subconscious and find it endlessly compelling to read. Not sure this reaches any of White Noise’s heights, but it’s very well written and engaging nonetheless. My favorite chapters were probably the first and last, set in the room of the 24 Hour Psycho. Found those sections to be more compelling than anything else in the novel to be honest.

Blew through this novel in one sitting. Boy, had I missed Don DeLillo. There are few things that get me like his way of crafting words does. Quick read. Created disturbance and uneasiness that sank through my entire body. Great complement to my month off from facebook with the themes of time.

My favorite lines:

Opening of Chapter 1, p. 17: The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. The true life takes place when we're alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamingly self-aware, the submicroscopic moments.

p. 45: It's all about time, dimwit time, inferior time, people checking watches and other devices, other reminders. This is time draining out of our lives. Cities were built to measure time, to remove time from nature. There's an endless counting down, he said. When you strip away all the surfaces, when you see into it, what's left is terror. This is the thing that literature was meant to cure. The epic poem, the bedtime story.

p. 47: "I stayed awhile. Because even when something happens, you're waiting for it to happen."

p. 58: "Both crazy. Over the years it ripens."
"What, being crazy?"
"You don't see it at first. Either they conceal it or it just needed to ripen. Once it does, it's unmistakable."

p. 66: In the kitchen he said, "I know about your marriage. You had the kind of marriage where you tell each other everything. You told her everything. I look at you and see this in your face. It's the worst thing you can do in a marriage. Tell her everything you feel, tell her everything you do. That's why she thinks you're crazy."
At dinner, over another omelette, he waved his fork and said, "You understand it's not a matter of strategy. I'm not talking about secrets or deceptions. I"m talking about being yourself. If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose something crucial to your sense of yourself. You need to know things the others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself."

‘Behind me, his bedroom light went out, brightening the sky, and how queer it seemed, half the heavens coming nearer, all those incandescent masses increasing in number, the stars and constellations, because somebody turns off a light in a house in the desert.’

An ambitious book that misses the mark. Delillo’s prose is beautiful and choking, the whole time I felt claustrophobic despite the vast and expansive landscape in which this piece is set. Something about the tumbling, almost stream of consciousness style of writing gave this text a sense of true urgency. And yet, it feels like the story itself and the manner in which it’s written don’t align. Throughout, I felt caught up in Delillo’s prose, and yet... nothing really happens, there is no payoff, it lacks substance.

Perhaps this book is supposed to be consumed on a thematic, symbolic level. And perhaps I will have to revisit this/ properly analyse it to find the beauty in it, or to find what it is that Delillo is pointing to in all of this flowing prose. I’m not sure I will though, so maybe this book will always remain a mystery to me.

Somehow my relation to Don Delillo is ambivalent...On one side I really enjoy the artsy poetry-like meta-physical cool kind of writting, which by the way is short, which makes it easy to slip in as a snack between books. On the other side I really have to push myself and drag myself through some parts of his books.
It's like some exhibitions on modern art, a metaphor, which i by the way suspect him to like.

Point Omega is the same. It has these really cool themes with time, and reason, and he brilliantly resolves around these. However the first par is awfully, long and boring (50 pages can feel long sometimes...)

Although you sometimes have to drag yoursekf through an exhibition, it usually pays off, at least more than watching reality tv, or the like. The same goes for point omega, it still evokes something. and therefore should have 4/5 stars :)

Pretentious over intellectualised wank. It takes itself so seriously it’s almost comical.

I like a philosophical deep dive now and then but not like this