The Names- Don Delilo

[Amanda]

Listened to for the bingo. This is a kind of intellectual theory of knowledge based novel, with a lot of odd elements and subplots. It can be argued that the main character is Owen Brademas, an archeologist obsessed with writing and language and its power over different facets of thought, power and society. He spends a lot of time in Greece, a main setting of the story.

Through various absurdities, a murderous language cult is brought into the story, story lines about global terrorism (which sounded remarkably post 9//11 for a book written in the early 80s), and the nature of optics in politics. I really liked one line about how saying Western conquerors “built their empires” but Eastern/darker conquerors are said to “swarm in” changes our whole conception of similar actions.

It’s a very smart book in a lot of ways, and wacky in others. It was periodically really interesting or inspired but it did feel a little muddled and not cohesive overall. I gave it 3 stars.

[Diane]

Rating: 3 stars


I feel like it is taking forever to get through all of the DeLillo books on the list. I think I will only have one to go after this one.

One thing I did like about this one was the setting. Most of the book is set in Athens, Greece, with a few side trips to other locations. DeLillo did a great job of describing the setting. The characters were quirky (ex. the protagonist's 6-year old son was an aspiring novelist) and the plot (if you can call it that) was unusual. The book somewhat read like a thriller, but not quite. Overall, I thought it was just okay.

[Kristel]

Reason read: 1001 special event; word of the month, May 2024
This was not my favorite DeLillo novel. I had a hard time finding a reason to like this one. It is a story that had potential and I liked some aspects but mostly I did not like this one. There are themes of language, marriage, religion, politics, writing. There is a bit of mystery but it’s not enough. This just wan’t my thing. I d think the “politics” was spot on.