Sunday, December 20, 2009

Mao Mao Mao Mao Mao Mao Mao Mao Mao

Gone is the playfulness of White Noise. This time, Don DeLillo puts on a much more serious face to deliver a kind of meditation on writing and terrorism, solitude and congregation, Semtex explosives and upper crust art. At the center is Bill Gray, an aging novelist who used to move the masses with his words, who now sees that bombs and gunfire do his work for him. Around him swirls his assistant, his lover, his loneliness, his failed novel-in-progress, a hostage in Beirut, an apartment in New York, the teachings of Mao Zedong, the imaginings of Andy Warhol. Bill's afraid that he might be losing his touch. That he can't do it on his own. After all, the future belongs to crowds. Quoting Bill.

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