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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
It's almost 2 AM right as I'm writing this. About ten minutes ago I was googling for the "most boring books" to help me fall asleep. I came across a lot of lists and started thinking about what was the most boring book I've ever read. I thought of Point Omega, except I couldn't even remember the name or the author until the name came up in another list.
I can't believe I spent money on this book. I can't believe my introduction to literature professor assigned this in my first quarter of college. I can't believe I crammed reading this book driving back to school at the very end of winter break. I could have spent that time talking to my friends or staring out the window, because it would have been way more interesting.
Maybe I'm dumb but the novella didn't make any sense to me. I didn't know what I was supposed to take away from it for my class. I don't know how my professor wanted us to write a paper about it. I want my money back.
I can't believe I spent money on this book. I can't believe my introduction to literature professor assigned this in my first quarter of college. I can't believe I crammed reading this book driving back to school at the very end of winter break. I could have spent that time talking to my friends or staring out the window, because it would have been way more interesting.
Maybe I'm dumb but the novella didn't make any sense to me. I didn't know what I was supposed to take away from it for my class. I don't know how my professor wanted us to write a paper about it. I want my money back.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Delillo, the master of clean, spare prose, tackles the difficult subject of time, mortality and the mystery of human relationships in this slim novella. Despite the brevity of the story, it is framed in three parts, which some critics have observed that it reads like the 3 lines of a haiku.
The first part details a nameless character who obsessively views a conceptual art installation called "24 hour Psycho", which is a deliberate slowing down of Hitchcock's film so that it spans 24 hours. To the unnamed viewer, "the original movie was fiction, this was real." The main story forms the second part, where a filmmaker, Jim Finley seeks out a retired war strategist or "defense intellectual" Elster, who has become a recluse in the middle of a desert, in order to persuade him to be the subject of a one-take bio-documentary that objectively tells it as it is. In the blankness of the landscape and uncontained space, the two men form an unusual bond that encompasses Elster's detached daughter, who is sent to her father's by her divorced mother as an attempt to set some distance between her and a dubious suitor. The story resolves, or rather, comes full circle when it reintroduces the anonymous viewer at the same exhibit, where inexplicably only one day has passed, though there are telltale signs that the world of intermediate story intersects with this world, which confuses and enthralls at the same time. Is this part of the slowed down time or is Delillo pushing home the point that time is only relative to our experience?
The first part details a nameless character who obsessively views a conceptual art installation called "24 hour Psycho", which is a deliberate slowing down of Hitchcock's film so that it spans 24 hours. To the unnamed viewer, "the original movie was fiction, this was real." The main story forms the second part, where a filmmaker, Jim Finley seeks out a retired war strategist or "defense intellectual" Elster, who has become a recluse in the middle of a desert, in order to persuade him to be the subject of a one-take bio-documentary that objectively tells it as it is. In the blankness of the landscape and uncontained space, the two men form an unusual bond that encompasses Elster's detached daughter, who is sent to her father's by her divorced mother as an attempt to set some distance between her and a dubious suitor. The story resolves, or rather, comes full circle when it reintroduces the anonymous viewer at the same exhibit, where inexplicably only one day has passed, though there are telltale signs that the world of intermediate story intersects with this world, which confuses and enthralls at the same time. Is this part of the slowed down time or is Delillo pushing home the point that time is only relative to our experience?
A novel closer to a poem than anything else I've seen from Don DeLillo.
Oh f***, it happened again. Creo de verdad que no puedo ser objetiva con Delillo, pero es el tercer libro suyo que leo y el tercero que releeria nada más terminar.
Ο τρόμος· το αίσθημα της ματαιότητας, του ψυχικού ευνουχισμού μπροστά στο αναπόφευκτο του χρόνου.
Ο χρόνος· δύο συλλαβές με τόσο μεγάλο φορτίο.
Ένα μυθιστόρημα γεμάτο μοναξιά, με την καθαρότερη έννοια του όρου, γεμάτο υπαρξιακούς και συναισθηματικούς προβληματισμούς.
Ο χρόνος· δύο συλλαβές με τόσο μεγάλο φορτίο.
Ένα μυθιστόρημα γεμάτο μοναξιά, με την καθαρότερη έννοια του όρου, γεμάτο υπαρξιακούς και συναισθηματικούς προβληματισμούς.
DeLillo delivers another small and moving novel. With film as his leitmotif DeLillo delivers a novel of ideas. I am reminded of Bela Tarr films.