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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
No
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Another well written drag. Why do I do this? Delillo can write, no question about it. His prose is spare, the images enviably strong, but this piece just baffled me. I like my novels of "ideas" to be a bit better disguised as such, I suppose. Hopefully the other books of his I've selected to attempt will be a bit more engaging. Oh, and annoying quibble, but at 117 pages with huge typeface and margins, this is a novella in disguise.
a little too esoteric for my taste (read for white boy philosophy students who think they have really unlocked critical thought)
I think I'm going to need some time to put together my thoughts on this one.
This is my first DeLillo, and it's made me eager to read more DeLillo. It's a short novel, but it's packed full of big ideas, feeling a bit too grandiose at times, like he was reaching for something beyond and not quite grasping it, which from what I can surmise is the point. It's about the ineffable, the things we understand less the more we think that we do. It's about disappearing and the relativity of time and perception and reality, and how we and everything exist contained within ourselves. So yes, it was good, it was gripping, I wanted to keep reading and find out how it would all come together, the sentences are beautifully strung, and I will definitely be reading more Don DeLillo in the future, hopefully with even better results.
This is my first DeLillo, and it's made me eager to read more DeLillo. It's a short novel, but it's packed full of big ideas, feeling a bit too grandiose at times, like he was reaching for something beyond and not quite grasping it, which from what I can surmise is the point. It's about the ineffable, the things we understand less the more we think that we do. It's about disappearing and the relativity of time and perception and reality, and how we and everything exist contained within ourselves. So yes, it was good, it was gripping, I wanted to keep reading and find out how it would all come together, the sentences are beautifully strung, and I will definitely be reading more Don DeLillo in the future, hopefully with even better results.
3.5
I love Don DeLillo's unique writing. Each word is tight and precise, which leaves so much space in the text - in those sterilised blanks in-between words and sentences. I love the cleanliness of it and the almost inorganic humanity he conjures, in his world of ideas. However, Point Omega has already begun to fade away in my mind, and it's not even been two weeks since I read it. Most of what happened in the middle of this short book felt uninteresting and unmemorable. I'd like to give it four stars because the average ratings of his books on here pain me. But this one really didn't do much for me.
I love Don DeLillo's unique writing. Each word is tight and precise, which leaves so much space in the text - in those sterilised blanks in-between words and sentences. I love the cleanliness of it and the almost inorganic humanity he conjures, in his world of ideas. However, Point Omega has already begun to fade away in my mind, and it's not even been two weeks since I read it. Most of what happened in the middle of this short book felt uninteresting and unmemorable. I'd like to give it four stars because the average ratings of his books on here pain me. But this one really didn't do much for me.
In short? It's about a secret war advisor and a young filmmaker.
Well before the book graced shelves, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin coined the term Omega Point, described as a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which the universe appears to be evolving.
The novel records the exchanges between a retired academic, Elster, and a documentarian, Jim. Elster, at the end of his storied career as a scholar and wartime philosophizer for the U.S. government, retreats to the desert to enter his final stage of personal consciousness and introversion – his own Omega Point.
Finley’s goal is to persuade Elster to make a one-take film with Elster as its single character – “Just a man and a wall.”
The novel’s framed by scenes of an art installation by Douglas Gordon, shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2006, entitled “24 Hour Psycho.” In it, Hitchcock's movie is slowed down to complete a single showing over 24 hours. This stands as a reference point for the novel’s many meditations on time. “Point Omega” is small yet intense novel that emphasizes that the important things in life are not the big sweeping events, but the small moments and micro-moments that we live. The type of things that make time stand still.
Perhaps he presents his ideas in such a condensed format because he wants us to slow down and read them again. You can read this in a day, but when you do, slow down and really pay attention to DeLillo, I think you will be rewarded.
Well before the book graced shelves, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin coined the term Omega Point, described as a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which the universe appears to be evolving.
The novel records the exchanges between a retired academic, Elster, and a documentarian, Jim. Elster, at the end of his storied career as a scholar and wartime philosophizer for the U.S. government, retreats to the desert to enter his final stage of personal consciousness and introversion – his own Omega Point.
Finley’s goal is to persuade Elster to make a one-take film with Elster as its single character – “Just a man and a wall.”
The novel’s framed by scenes of an art installation by Douglas Gordon, shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2006, entitled “24 Hour Psycho.” In it, Hitchcock's movie is slowed down to complete a single showing over 24 hours. This stands as a reference point for the novel’s many meditations on time. “Point Omega” is small yet intense novel that emphasizes that the important things in life are not the big sweeping events, but the small moments and micro-moments that we live. The type of things that make time stand still.
Perhaps he presents his ideas in such a condensed format because he wants us to slow down and read them again. You can read this in a day, but when you do, slow down and really pay attention to DeLillo, I think you will be rewarded.
4/5
I love how deep into his character’s thoughts Delillo gets. I love the way he narrates the subconscious and find it endlessly compelling to read. Not sure this reaches any of White Noise’s heights, but it’s very well written and engaging nonetheless. My favorite chapters were probably the first and last, set in the room of the 24 Hour Psycho. Found those sections to be more compelling than anything else in the novel to be honest.
I love how deep into his character’s thoughts Delillo gets. I love the way he narrates the subconscious and find it endlessly compelling to read. Not sure this reaches any of White Noise’s heights, but it’s very well written and engaging nonetheless. My favorite chapters were probably the first and last, set in the room of the 24 Hour Psycho. Found those sections to be more compelling than anything else in the novel to be honest.