probably the best of delillo's 21st century output to date (i confess i haven't read the body artist). some of his most beguiling prose stands behind the requisite Big Ideas, yet the characters' own soliloquies are kept at bay. the way that the characters talk about the Big Ideas seems more naturalistic here than in, say, underworld, where too often the characters simply exist as vehicles for the abstractions delillo wants to approach. the central figure of point omega, elster, spouts off dialectic when he wants but what he wants at the moment, but his righteousness is always at odds with his ambivalence. with all the time in the world to reflect upon the means and the ends of his career, his life, he feels as if, before he dies, he must begin to justify his actions contextually to someone. that someone is jim finley, who stays at least a couple weeks longer than he plans, doesn't get laid, and, presumably, never gets his film made. once the tragic climax passes, elster more and more resembles a saddened child: confused, overwhelmed, only partially understanding his recent loss. when his attempts to look backwards and make sense of his life (linearly) is disrupted by a crisis in the present, it invokes a certain vulnerability that's simultaneously youthful, adolescent, and adult.

when delillo hits as he has here, he can make a couple-three hours encapulate an emotional eternity.