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Product Description
Billy Twillig has won the first Nobel Prize ever to be given in mathematics. Set in the near future, this book charts an innocent's education when Billy is sent to live in the company of 30 Nobel laureates and he is asked to decipher transmissions from outer space.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
'Ratner's Star' is Don DeLillo's fourth novel, published in 1976. I suspect that it is also the least read and the most frequently abandoned - which would be a pity, since in some ways it shares the qualities of the later, more popular books.
DeLillo's public profile changed in 1985 when 'White Noise' won a National Book Award, and there now seem to be two distinct DeLillo audiences: one that discovered him at that time and knows him primarily through that book and its successors, particularly 'Libra' and 'Mao II', all big sellers and now firmly ensconced on university syllabuses; and a second audience that has followed him from his beginnings in the early '70s, and for whom these later books are not a surprise but a continuation. For these readers, 'White Noise' is if anything a relaxation into comedy from DeLillo's thorniest efforts, of which 'Ratner's Star' is the first and 'The Names' the second.
DeLillo is on record as stating that Thomas Pynchon set the benchmark for his generation of American writers, and 'Ratner's Star' is arguably DeLillo's most Pynchonesque book. Set at an unspecified point in the mid-twenty-first century, this is also DeLillo's closest approach to science fiction - though this takes the form of mild extrapolation from the late twentieth century and speculation about advances in mathematics and physics rather than technological fantasies about the far future. In fact DeLillo persistently derives comedy from the unforeseen consequences of technological innovation - a tactic that gives him something in common with Kurt Vonnegut.
Interviewed by Adam Begley for Paris Review in 1992, DeLillo stated that "I was drawn to the beauty of scientific language, the mystery of numbers, the idea of pure mathematics as a secret history and secret language--and to the notion of a fourteen-year-old mathematical genius at the center of all this. I guess it's also a book of games, mathematics being chief among them." This gives an idea of one aspect of the book. Only Richard Powers among younger writers has come so close to writing a novel that is a scientific novel rather than a novel 'about' science. There are wonderful sections in which DeLillo conveys something of the beauty of pure mathematics and cosmology. Inevitably, there are others that are almost impenetrable at first reading.
The central difficulty is that the book seems to be trying to accomplish two rather incompatible things. One is a celebration of the human capacity for abstract thought. The other is a satire of human arrogance and complacency. In theory the two might be thought to be sides of the same coin. In practice, DeLillo sometimes struggles to link them. The plot - in which Billy Twillig, a young Nobel Laureate in mathematics, is dragooned into joining a scientific project to investigate the meaning of a mysterious message received from the vicinity of Ratner's star - is essentially a point of departure and a source of red herrings. Underlying the comic episodes - the general character of which any DeLillo reader will recognise - is a persistent metaphysical disquiet. As with both Pynchon and Vonnegut, an unstinting admiration for the powers of intellect is combined with a suspicion about individual motives and morals, a fatalism about man's powers in the face of natural forces, and an acknowledgement of the irrational.
For me, the saving graces, as always, were DeLillo's language and his gift for the absurd. But make no mistake: this is a long, demanding book, possibly the most difficult that DeLillo has published, and not a complete success.
DeLillo's public profile changed in 1985 when 'White Noise' won a National Book Award, and there now seem to be two distinct DeLillo audiences: one that discovered him at that time and knows him primarily through that book and its successors, particularly 'Libra' and 'Mao II', all big sellers and now firmly ensconced on university syllabuses; and a second audience that has followed him from his beginnings in the early '70s, and for whom these later books are not a surprise but a continuation. For these readers, 'White Noise' is if anything a relaxation into comedy from DeLillo's thorniest efforts, of which 'Ratner's Star' is the first and 'The Names' the second.
DeLillo is on record as stating that Thomas Pynchon set the benchmark for his generation of American writers, and 'Ratner's Star' is arguably DeLillo's most Pynchonesque book. Set at an unspecified point in the mid-twenty-first century, this is also DeLillo's closest approach to science fiction - though this takes the form of mild extrapolation from the late twentieth century and speculation about advances in mathematics and physics rather than technological fantasies about the far future. In fact DeLillo persistently derives comedy from the unforeseen consequences of technological innovation - a tactic that gives him something in common with Kurt Vonnegut.
Interviewed by Adam Begley for Paris Review in 1992, DeLillo stated that "I was drawn to the beauty of scientific language, the mystery of numbers, the idea of pure mathematics as a secret history and secret language--and to the notion of a fourteen-year-old mathematical genius at the center of all this. I guess it's also a book of games, mathematics being chief among them." This gives an idea of one aspect of the book. Only Richard Powers among younger writers has come so close to writing a novel that is a scientific novel rather than a novel 'about' science. There are wonderful sections in which DeLillo conveys something of the beauty of pure mathematics and cosmology. Inevitably, there are others that are almost impenetrable at first reading.
The central difficulty is that the book seems to be trying to accomplish two rather incompatible things. One is a celebration of the human capacity for abstract thought. The other is a satire of human arrogance and complacency. In theory the two might be thought to be sides of the same coin. In practice, DeLillo sometimes struggles to link them. The plot - in which Billy Twillig, a young Nobel Laureate in mathematics, is dragooned into joining a scientific project to investigate the meaning of a mysterious message received from the vicinity of Ratner's star - is essentially a point of departure and a source of red herrings. Underlying the comic episodes - the general character of which any DeLillo reader will recognise - is a persistent metaphysical disquiet. As with both Pynchon and Vonnegut, an unstinting admiration for the powers of intellect is combined with a suspicion about individual motives and morals, a fatalism about man's powers in the face of natural forces, and an acknowledgement of the irrational.
For me, the saving graces, as always, were DeLillo's language and his gift for the absurd. But make no mistake: this is a long, demanding book, possibly the most difficult that DeLillo has published, and not a complete success.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was eager to read the book, but got rather disappointed when I opened it: the printing is so bad and so difficult to read that I'm not sure I'll be able to get through it. Am I the only one with this problem?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
21 reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Difficult but rewarding
9 Feb 2001
Format:Paperback
The Names and Ratner's Star are probably Don DeLillo's two most difficult works. They're both dense, brainy and exacting, both laden with pages of abstract theory. In short, they are a long way from the funny, swiftly moving prose of White Noise, Players and Running Dog. Ultimately, though, because The Names is preoccupied with the nature and textures of language, it might be slightly easier for lovers of literature to enjoy. Ratner's Star, on the other hand, delves deeply in the heavy waters of space, time and complex mathematics. As someone who is scientifically and mathematically inept, I can't say I followed the more esoteric portions of the text, but I'm not sure that's the point. Rather, it seems to have been DeLillo's intention to deliberately lose the reader in order to illustrate that the sciences, while seeking to elucidate the wonders of the natural world, often lead us into heightened states of confusion. If you're thinking of reading Ratner's Star, prepare yourself for a challenge. Maybe not on the order of Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake, but difficult nonetheless, particularly in the context of current fiction, which is very often spectacularly undemanding. In terms of plot and narrative, this book deserves perhaps a three (much of it is formless and untethered, a far from the relatively airtight Libra and Underworld). But it is an exacting and complicated book that, like so much of DeLillo's best work, invites us to take a closer look at who we are and what we believe in. And for that it gets five stars.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Great DeLillo for math/science fans
6 July 2000
Format:Paperback
This is what DeLillo wrote after having spent a few years studying mathematics. It is a beautiful effort, albeit a bit different from much of his other work: no terrorists, no fear of death, and none of the characters is as memorable as the Gladney family from White Noise. It does, however, resemble White Noise is that it has the standard silly/almost-surreal professorial figures, and children wise beyond their years. DeLillo does show his Pynchonesque side, demonstrating thorough knowledge of math and physics; he is not just spouting catchphrases when he writes about these things.
Ratner's Star is mediocre DeLillo (which is still great!) for those not interested in math and science -- and perhaps top DeLillo for those who are interested in math or physics. Extra points for those readers who were intellectually precocious as kids: you will definitely identify with Billy, more or less.
The ending is wonderful, and I must say I didn't see it coming; although as soon as I read it, I thought "how could I not have seen it coming!" That is the mark of a well crafted novel.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
not DeLillo's best undertaking
11 Dec 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I must admit that this book, even after two stabs at it, didn't thrill me the way other DeLillo novels can, and I did feel as though I were reading something more by Thomas Pynchon. Many of DeLillo's finest work seems to work on the exploration and twisting of its own metaphor, but filtered through extraordinary but still accessible characters, people who feel both rooted in and confused by the complexities of the world behind them. _Ratner's Star_ seems to want to delve in such a way, but through a situation far more absurdist.
Billy Twilling is a young math Nobel laureate who is pulled into a think tank that bombards him on all sides with eccentrics, from fellow mathematicians to the custodians. Yet many of these characters become redundant through their lack of introduction and propensity for monologue. Many moments of the book read like Kafka and Michio Kaku co-writing an episode of _Dragnet_. Twilling's main job is to decipher a coded message received from outer space, but of course his progress is hindered and his job outright disregarded by many in Field Experiment One. Eventually, the book breaks down in plotline and form itself when Twilling is pulled underground into a new project that is off the charts.
There are many delights in this book--Twilling himself is a wonderfully concise and hilariously unhumorous boy. DeLillo shows his skill at even comic timing on the page. The scenes with a mathematic precurser who has banished himself to a hole in the ground and the meeting of the esteemed Ratner himself during a torch ceremony are wonderful, yet I didn't find the book as a whole challenging with its exploration of metaphor as DeLillo does in later books. There is a wide expanse of characters, but the ecentricities become the focus of the book, not the crucial ideas, and the eccentricities become a little formulaic at times, even in their seeming randomness.
Billy Twilling is a young math Nobel laureate who is pulled into a think tank that bombards him on all sides with eccentrics, from fellow mathematicians to the custodians. Yet many of these characters become redundant through their lack of introduction and propensity for monologue. Many moments of the book read like Kafka and Michio Kaku co-writing an episode of _Dragnet_. Twilling's main job is to decipher a coded message received from outer space, but of course his progress is hindered and his job outright disregarded by many in Field Experiment One. Eventually, the book breaks down in plotline and form itself when Twilling is pulled underground into a new project that is off the charts.
There are many delights in this book--Twilling himself is a wonderfully concise and hilariously unhumorous boy. DeLillo shows his skill at even comic timing on the page. The scenes with a mathematic precurser who has banished himself to a hole in the ground and the meeting of the esteemed Ratner himself during a torch ceremony are wonderful, yet I didn't find the book as a whole challenging with its exploration of metaphor as DeLillo does in later books. There is a wide expanse of characters, but the ecentricities become the focus of the book, not the crucial ideas, and the eccentricities become a little formulaic at times, even in their seeming randomness.
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