An excoriating portrayal of loss and an unnerving post-Iraq discourse mark this brilliant novel of modern America.
Point Omega
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"If "Underworld" was DeLillo's extravagant funeral for the twentieth century, "Point Omega" is the farewell party for the last decade.... DeLillo has .... written the first important novel of the year."--Michael Miller, "New York Observer"
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‘Point Omega is a treat: the most satisfying and least cryptic of DeLillo’s late novels’ Sunday Telegraph Reading the fiction of Don DeLillo is an utterly original experience: powerful, prescient, perceptive. Writing in a prose that is both majestic and muscular, his unerringly accurate vision penetrates deep into the soul of America and consistently leaves readers with a fresh perspective on the world. Since the publication of his first novel, in 1971, he has been acknowledged across the world as one of the greatest writers of his generation. Richard Elster, a retired secret war adviser, has retreated to a forlorn house in a desert, ‘somewhere south of nowhere’. But his planned isolation is interrupted when he is joined by a young filmmaker intent on documenting his experience in a one-take film. The two men sit on the deck, drinking and talking. Weeks go by. And then Elster’s daughter Jessie visits. When a devastating event follows, all the men’s talk, the accumulated meaning of conversation and isolation, is thrown into question. Written in hypnotic prose, this substantial novel is both a metaphysical meditation and a deeply unsettling mystery, from which one thing emerges: loss, fierce and incomprehensible. ‘Another formidable construction by a very distinctive writer’ Evening Standard ‘A pared, intense anti-parable . . . so rigorous and so precise’ Observer ‘Impossible to forget’ Sunday Times
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Paul Bowes
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
'Point Omega' is the latest of a group of short novels or novellas that Don DeLillo has published since the appearance of the very long and much admired 'Underworld' in 1997 underlined his claim to be the best living American writer of prose fiction. All four books are short and sparely written; all are haunted by a sense of time running out.
In one reading 'Point Omega' is an existential thriller about a disappearance, perhaps a murder. In another, a warning about the dangers of looking into the abyss. In a third, it is a meditation on cultural and psychic exhaustion.
DeLillo takes an idea of Teilhard de Chardin's - the 'omega point' of absolute concentration of information and communication towards which de Chardin believed mankind was being drawn - and inverts it. The book presents an alternative to the view of technological optimists who believe in an evolution of human consciousness towards a 'singularity' - a takeoff point beyond which humanity will begin to transcend its limitations. In DeLillo's dark parable, complexity and selfconsciousness, ever-finer attention to ever-greater detail, ever-greater knowledge, lead over an event horizon into a black hole of solipsism and ultimate insignificance. For one of the central characters, human beings want to become stones again, giving up the burden of consciousness.
As a long-time admirer, I expected to enjoy 'Point Omega', but I hadn't expected it to be so good. The book is beautifully written, in what I suppose we are obliged to call DeLillo's late manner. There is nothing flashy here, and the opening section demands a little patience as the author conceals his intentions. But there is a plain continuity of thought with earlier novels - particularly 'End Zone' and 'The Names' - that makes it very much a part of DeLillo's distinctive artistic achievement. On this showing, 'late' DeLillo still has a lot to offer.
In one reading 'Point Omega' is an existential thriller about a disappearance, perhaps a murder. In another, a warning about the dangers of looking into the abyss. In a third, it is a meditation on cultural and psychic exhaustion.
DeLillo takes an idea of Teilhard de Chardin's - the 'omega point' of absolute concentration of information and communication towards which de Chardin believed mankind was being drawn - and inverts it. The book presents an alternative to the view of technological optimists who believe in an evolution of human consciousness towards a 'singularity' - a takeoff point beyond which humanity will begin to transcend its limitations. In DeLillo's dark parable, complexity and selfconsciousness, ever-finer attention to ever-greater detail, ever-greater knowledge, lead over an event horizon into a black hole of solipsism and ultimate insignificance. For one of the central characters, human beings want to become stones again, giving up the burden of consciousness.
As a long-time admirer, I expected to enjoy 'Point Omega', but I hadn't expected it to be so good. The book is beautifully written, in what I suppose we are obliged to call DeLillo's late manner. There is nothing flashy here, and the opening section demands a little patience as the author conceals his intentions. But there is a plain continuity of thought with earlier novels - particularly 'End Zone' and 'The Names' - that makes it very much a part of DeLillo's distinctive artistic achievement. On this showing, 'late' DeLillo still has a lot to offer.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This short novel is up there with DeLillo's best. The sparse prose carries great philosophical weight and the author really does help you to see the world differently. He seems to get right inside human consciousness. He's also dryly funny, too.
Perhaps not the ideal DeLillo starting point, but a great book nonetheless.
I'm curious to know who else, if anyone, is writing at this level?
Perhaps not the ideal DeLillo starting point, but a great book nonetheless.
I'm curious to know who else, if anyone, is writing at this level?
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a terrible, terrible book: self-indulgent, pretentious, without meaning or explanation and largely without action or incident. Its sole plus point is its length. At less than 150 pages of well-spaced type you only waste two or three hours getting through it.
This is the first DeLillo I have read and it will be the last. I like a fair bit of modern American fiction (Roth, Franzen et al.) and was expecting to like this and then move on to what is (I think) supposed to be his best book, the lengthier Underworld. I suppose I should be grateful that this novella has saved me the trouble.
Point Omega doesn't get anywhere near working as a story or as a metaphysical meditation. The book is topped and tailed by chapters written about the exhibiting of a real piece of modern video art, which consisted of showing Hitchcock's Psycho slowed down so that it took 24 hours. This book is equally artistically bankrupt, bereft of ideas and uninteresting. If showing a well-known film really...really...slowly is your idea of art, then this book is for you.
[...]
This is the first DeLillo I have read and it will be the last. I like a fair bit of modern American fiction (Roth, Franzen et al.) and was expecting to like this and then move on to what is (I think) supposed to be his best book, the lengthier Underworld. I suppose I should be grateful that this novella has saved me the trouble.
Point Omega doesn't get anywhere near working as a story or as a metaphysical meditation. The book is topped and tailed by chapters written about the exhibiting of a real piece of modern video art, which consisted of showing Hitchcock's Psycho slowed down so that it took 24 hours. This book is equally artistically bankrupt, bereft of ideas and uninteresting. If showing a well-known film really...really...slowly is your idea of art, then this book is for you.
[...]
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very accessible
I sometimes struggle with Delillo's work, but Point Omega is relatively easy going and a pleasure to read (preferably twice). Read more
Published 12 months ago by Matt
5.0 out of 5 stars
Short, challenging and incredibly well written
On the title page the words "A Novel" follow on from "Point Omega". This seems an almost willful act of confrontation. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2010 by Jamie Mollart
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unlimited time.
Time is the leading thread of this novel. It tells how it affects people and how people are trying to manipulate Time. Read more
Published on 29 May 2010 by Jan Dierckx
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty hard work
I read this book as a selection for a men's reading group I belong to. We don't just pick "masculine" themes or books written by men but we do try and tackle works by authors... Read more
Published on 17 May 2010 by Mr. Randy C. Barber
4.0 out of 5 stars
Omega point
With each new work from Don DeLillo I find myself asking the same question - 'Is it as good as White Noise? Read more
Published on 9 May 2010 by James Choles
3.0 out of 5 stars
Short but sweet
We never know what to expect next from the Delillo pen. And here he lives up to all expectations and gives us? The unexpected. Read more
Published on 25 Mar 2010 by Ian Edward
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pointlessly depressing, hopeless and unpleasant
I was introduced to Don DeLillo's work over 20 years ago and have read all but a few of his books. Those that I've read have been either very good or great literature, the... Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2010 by Ant Man Bee
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Strange Mystery Platformed on PSYCHO
Wikipedia declares that omega is "the last, the end, or the ultimate limit of a set." In POINT OMEGA, DeLillo explores where this point exists in humankind. Read more
Published on 7 Mar 2010 by Ethan Cooper
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