The Names (1982)

Like looking into the face of God. What can you possibly say? How the hell do you describe the pieces? Describe the fit? It's a weird alchemy. Delillo's prose is (as always) weirdly flat-footed and purposefully awkward, but somehow, he cuts it in a way that's searing and prophetic and Old Testament and just gorgeous in its steady, matter-of-fact pacing.

Reading THE NAMES is like reading the original template for the world. It's the Rosetta Stone for, y'know, civilization as we know it, NBD. Delillo has this insane, skull-pounding virtuoso talent for distilling into a single, effortless throw-away parenthetical observation a topic that's amassed an electron cloud of buzzing contradictory arguments and thoughts and pages and articles and column inches.

And that talent is humbling and catastrophic and you turn the last page and it feels like a privilege. A grand unearned privilege to sit and bask in the interrogation-lamp brilliance of this book and watch Delillo just peel away skein after skein of, well, what DOESN'T this book cover? Of every layer of human interaction: love, affairs, children, terrorism, tourism, money, murder, marriage, death. All of it. Just atomized and scrutinized then blown away. For you. Jesus Christ, this was good good good. ( )

It has been a long time since I read this book so perhaps I shouldn't review it, but the negative review posted gave me pause and I felt like including a bit of a counterbalance. A very uncomfortable, foreboding, experience which I can still relive some 15 or so years later. An exploration into magical thinking which is at the core of all religions and most pathologies. Like going through survival training. Glad I did it but wouldn't necessarily want to repeat it. I would suggest trying "White Noise" for an equally profound but less difficult read. ( )

A miss for me: I eagerly began reading The Names, my first Delillo novel, assuming I would be adding him to my rotation of can't-miss authors. I agree with other posters, Delillo's characters are very well developed, complicated and believable, and Delillo demonstrates true skill as a writer. Unfortunately, as a coherent story, this book was a miss for me. I consider myself a sophisticated enough reader to handle most fiction but this novel was confusing - perhaps esoteric? It was hard at times to figure out who was speaking to whom and to remember characters that were introduced earlier in the novel. I plodded through hoping to find links that would pull the story together but they eluded me. I won't rule out giving Delillo another try, however, based on my experience with The Names, I'm in no rush.