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The Body Artist: A Novel by Don DeLillo
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The Body Artist: A Novel (original 2001; edition 2002)

by Don DeLillo

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,430466,221 (3.04)156
A stunning novel by the bestselling National Book Award-winning author of White Noise and Underworld. Since the publication of his first novel Americana, Don DeLillo has lived in the skin of our times. He has found a voice for the forgotten souls who haunt the fringes of our culture and for its larger-than-life, real-life figures. His language is defiantly, radiantly American. In The Body Artist his spare, seductive twelfth novel, he inhabits the muted world of Lauren Hartke, an artist whose work defies the limits of the body. Lauren is living on a lonely coast, in a rambling rented house, where she encounters a strange, ageless man, a man with uncanny knowledge of her own life. Together they begin a journey into the wilderness of time, love and human perception. The Body Artist is a haunting, beautiful and profoundly moving novel from one of the finest writers of our time.… (more)
Member:SmithSJ01
Title:The Body Artist: A Novel
Authors:Don DeLillo
Info:Scribner (2002), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 128 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:**1/2
Tags:Read, 2014 Reads

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The Body Artist by Don DeLillo (2001)

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» See also 156 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 46 (next | show all)
This is the second DeLillo book I've read, so I knew to expect an odd book. I'm not really into dissecting novels for hidden meanings and symbolism, so I am sure I missed things. That said, I didn't really enjoy this book. It was short, and the idea of a 'body artist' was interesting. As a book about dealing with the death of a loved one this was a decent read, too. I was amused by the ways the protagonist combines elements of her life, including the people she sees around her, into her performance. It almost turned her own life into just another layer of her performance art, rather than a 'real' life. I could see how this book could make for good class discussions in a literature class, but I would not have included it in a 1001 Books list. ( )
  JBarringer | Dec 15, 2023 |
2.5 - A bloated short. Far from Delillo's best. ( )
  trabovas | Feb 14, 2023 |
2.5 - A bloated short. Far from Delillo's best. ( )
  trabovas | Feb 14, 2023 |
A short and very odd book that manages to be about how explicit abstract thought can be. Most of the enjoyment of this book happens after one reads it. There is a delightful lack of many of the checkboxes in standard fiction: the protagonist has little backstory, nor does the relationship itself (Lauren, a body artist, is left alone after the death of her husband), there isn’t a plot, per se, and the reader is not invited to care about the characters. Instead, we are drawn into a spectral study on what it means to remain behind. Lauren uses (to our mind) random sights and sounds for her performance piece; don’t we all? Whether she is imagining and then reimagining snippets of conversations with her late husband or there is a physical ghost in the house is irrelevant — just as any of the sparse facts we are told about either Lauren or her husband seem (?) to be irrelevant. It is in the prose, in the descriptions and observations, even more so in the strange way the reader is left with a dual reaction of “no, this is meaningless / yes, this is how life is” that the book succeeds.

It reminded me of David Lowery’s film “A Ghost Story” in that the beginning was making me fidget and wonder where the story was going and even into the middle I suspected I wasn’t going to last; then it became beautiful. I didn’t underline a single sentence, despite all the praise for the book’s prose, and couldn’t repeat any of them to you. But they are weirdly there, in my brain, in the same chopped and collaged way many are written. I didn’t enjoy reading the book; I enjoyed having read it. ( )
  saschenka | Jan 28, 2023 |
The real meaning(s) of this book went past me, I think, but I enjoyed the writing a lot. Usually I read pretty quickly and not very thoroughly. But the language in this story made me want to read very slowly and I actually read a lot of the book word by word, almost as if I was reading it out loud. ( )
  steve02476 | Jan 3, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 46 (next | show all)
DeLillo hat "die intimsten und elementarsten zwischenmenschlichen Regungen genau beobachtet", insoweit verspricht der Klappentext nicht zu viel. Nur eines leistet "Körperzeit" eben nicht: Es stellt diese Regungen nicht "unter die Haut gehend" dar. Reglos, unkörperlich bleibt seine Prosa, angestrengt intellektuell und dabei den Sinneseindrücken durch die aufgetürmten Metaphern die Unmittelbarkeit, die Tiefe nehmend.
 
Mit dieser Studie über den Schock der Todeserfahrung hat sich DeLillo ganz nah an die Radikalität der Beckettschen Monologe herangeschrieben. Diese Prosa strebt auf einen, wie es in "Körperzeit" heißt, "imaginären Punkt" zu: "einen Nicht-Ort, wo sich die Sprache mit unserer Wahrnehmung von Zeit und Raum überschneidet." Dieser imaginäre Punkt, an dem die Sprache DeLillos ihre Wirkung entfaltet, ließe sich auch beschreiben als Kreuzpunkt von Innen- und Außenwelt im Medium der Sprache - auch wenn für dieses Mal von der Außenwelt kaum die Rede ist
 

» Add other authors (10 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
DeLillo, Donprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Heibert, FrankÜbersetzersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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A stunning novel by the bestselling National Book Award-winning author of White Noise and Underworld. Since the publication of his first novel Americana, Don DeLillo has lived in the skin of our times. He has found a voice for the forgotten souls who haunt the fringes of our culture and for its larger-than-life, real-life figures. His language is defiantly, radiantly American. In The Body Artist his spare, seductive twelfth novel, he inhabits the muted world of Lauren Hartke, an artist whose work defies the limits of the body. Lauren is living on a lonely coast, in a rambling rented house, where she encounters a strange, ageless man, a man with uncanny knowledge of her own life. Together they begin a journey into the wilderness of time, love and human perception. The Body Artist is a haunting, beautiful and profoundly moving novel from one of the finest writers of our time.

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In this spare, seductive novel, DeLillo inhabits the muted world of Lauren Hartke, an artist whose work defies the limits of the body. Lauren is living on a lonely coast, in a rambling rented house, where she encounters a strange, ageless man, a man with uncanny knowledge of her own life. Together they begin a journey into the wilderness of time-time, love and human perception. (from book jacket)
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