Registers of Affect #3: "dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers"

"Think of two parallel lines [...] One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of the self. It's not generated by cause and effect like the other two lines. It's a line that cuts across causality, cuts across time. It has no history that we can recognize or understand. But it forces a connection. It puts a man on the path of his destiny."

-- Libra

DeLillo News & Notes: using DeLillo to understand Hurricane Isaac

As a resident of New Orleans, Louisiana, I had the pleasure of "experiencing" Hurricane Isaac earlier this month -- that is to say, I watched all of the different things that the media had to say about Isaac on television from the safety of a hotel room in Jackson, Mississippi. Perhaps it's only because I was reading DeLillo at the time, but I was struck by how much the media's presentation of Isaac resembled the "airborne toxic event" of White Noise.

As I constantly flipped through news channels (it seems that everyone, even me, likes a little disaster (imagery) in life), I kept hearing different things: "Isaac's just a tropical storm"; "Isaac is bordering on a Category One"; "Isaac expected to turn into a Category Two when it makes landfall." Not only did every news channel seem to have a competing opinion about what Isaac was, I also kept thinking that all of these arbitrary names -- "tropical storm"; "Category One"; "Category Two" -- were supposed to signify some hopefulness on our part that we could use language to control this event.

As I mentioned above, all of these thoughts that I was having reminded me of the "airborne toxic event" of White Noise. Readers familiar with White Noise are also aware that there is a mysterious toxic spill that occurs about halfway through the novel. This spill takes on new identities as the media decides to issue them. I have reproduced the three-part progression of this incident from "a feathery plume" to "a black billowing cloud" to an" airborne toxic event" (the names and backgrounds of the characters aren't important in order for me to make my point):


An hour later he was back in the attic, this time with a radio and highway map. I climbed the narrow stairs, borrowed the glasses and looked again. It was still there, a slightly large accumulation, a towering mass in fact, maybe a little blacker now.

"The radio calls it a feathery plume," he said. "But it's not a plume."

"What is it?"

"Like a shapeless growing thing. A dark black breathing thing of smoke. Why do they call it a plume?"

"Air time is valuable. They can't go into long tortured descriptions." (111)

...

"That was the Stovers," she said. "They spoke directly with the weather center outside Glassboro. They're not calling it a feathery plume anymore."

"What are they calling it?"

"A black billowing cloud."

"That's a little more accurate, which means they're coming to grips with the thing. Good." (113)

...

"It affects the false part of the human memory or whatever. That's not all. They're not calling it the black billowing cloud anymore."

"What are they calling it?"

He looked at me carefully.

"The airborne toxic event."

He spoke these words in a clipped and foreboding manner, syllable by syllable, as if he sensed the threat in state-created terminology. (117)


The best thing about this section of White Noise is twofold. On the one hand, DeLillo uses the medium of the novel to (re)present the media (re)presenting the news through the medium of television. At the same time, he also manages to critique this very (re)presentation when, for instance, he speaks of "the threat in state-created terminology." (This level of threat is taken to an entirely new level in Cosmopolis. Expect a post on this soon.)

So, what we should make of this relationship between DeLillo and real life? The answer to this, unfortunately, is not so clear. Using his satire, has DeLillo now authorized us to laugh at the media, thus consoling us? Or, is laughter not enough, and should we still worry about how much control the media has over reality? With DeLillo, of course, we often have to balance more than one answer at a time. Yet these answers certainly don't feel like solutions.

Maybe this, then, is DeLillo's flaw as a writer: he cuts to the heart of the problem, yet fails to offer a solution. David Foster Wallace seems to say as much in his brilliant reading of DeLillo (see: "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction").

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DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Registers of Affect #2: the way terror "hovers and shimmers"

DeLillo is the laureate of terror, of modern or postmodern terror, and the way it hovers and shimmers in our subliminal minds.

-- Martin Amis

See the full review of The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories:
"Laureate of Terror: Don DeLillo's prophetic soul"

DeLillo Book Reviews: a review of Falling Man

"Racing Against Reality"

In June of 2007, Andrew O'Hagan reviewed DeLillo's novel Falling Man for the New York Review of Books. The first half of O'Hagan's review contextualizes Falling Man better than any other that I've read. In short, he takes us through Players, White Noise, Libra, Mao II, Underworld, and The Body Artist in order to show us that DeLillo -- with his discussions of plots, death, terrorism, and the World Trade Center -- had been leading us up to that "day of days" for a long time. As O'Hagan writes, 

To have something exist as your subject before it happens is not unprecedented in the world of literature [...] but the meeting of September 11 and Don DeLillo is not so very much a conjunction as a point of arrival [...]

The second half of his review, however, takes a turn. O'Hagan writes that this connection between DeLillo and 9/11 is too strong, so that when the day actually comes, it "instantly blows DeLillo's lamp out." O'Hagan then builds on this point:

DeLillo the novelist prepared us for September 11, but he did not prepare himself for how such an episode might, in the way of denouements, instantly fly beyond the reach of his own powers. In a moment, the reality of the occasion seems to have burst the ripeness of his style, and he truly struggles in this book to say anything that doesn’t sound in a small way like a warning that comes too late. Reading Falling Man, one feels that September 11 is an event that is suddenly far ahead of him, far beyond what he knows, and so an air of tentative rehearsal resounds in an empty hall.

Although I respect O'Hagan's review, particularly the first half, I am not inclined to side with him and his dismissal of Falling Man. (In fact, I would like to spend a future blog post showing how DeLillo does succeed in this novel.) O'Hagan's review, like many that I've read, appears to argue for DeLillo's post-9/11 irrelevance. With the power of hindsight, one can reliably say that Point Omega has disproved this flimsy generalization about DeLillo.

DeLillo News & Notes: he confirms that he is working on a new book

In late April, DeLillo confirmed that he is working on a new novel (though, seeing as it's now September, perhaps he's already finished it). Not only am I very excited to learn this news, but I'm also not surprised in the least about the book's purported subject matter: images, disasters, footage, all classic DeLillo themes. Below I have reproduced the section of the interview where he talks about this upcoming novel:

It is because when I write, I need to see what is happening. Even when it is just two guys in a room, writing dialogues is not enough. I need to visualize the scene, where they are, how they sit, what they wear, etc. I had never given much thought about it, it came naturally, but recently I became aware of that while working on my upcoming novel, in which the character spends a lot of time watching file footage on a wide screen, images of a disaster. I had no problem describing the process, that is to say to rely on a visualization process. I am not comfortable with abstract writing, stories that look like essays: you have to see, I need to see.

(See the full interview HERE.)

The great thing about this quote is how DeLillo manages to bury a golden nugget of information within a great insight into his writing process. One day, I hope to put together insights like these, of which there are many, and further develop an interpretive approach that I have tentatively been calling "cross-media theory."

Still, no one is blind to the fact that DeLillo is getting up there in his years, and he probably doesn't have much time left for writing (though, I'm sure he has no shortage of ideas). Anyway, this realization reminded me of a moment near the end of the interview that he gave with Adam Begley in 1993. Asked about his future plans, DeLillo confessed:

[...] I'm aware of the fact that time is limited. Every new novel stretches the term of the contract--let me live long enough to do one more book. How many books do we get? How much good work?

Registers of Affect #1: events

The event gathered force.

-- The Names

A Shared Event at a Coffee Shop: Living in a DeLillo-esque World

It is safe to say that I spend a rather disproportionate amount of my time in coffee shops (even as I write this post, I am sitting in one!). This summer I would estimate that on average I've visited a coffee shop at least once per day, sometimes even twice. I do this not only because I enjoy the atmosphere, the internet, and, of course, the coffee, but also, and perhaps most importantly, because there is so much to be observed here. Indeed, I have observed so much in my time at coffee shops, especially this summer, that I'm beginning to think it wouldn't be unwise for me to dedicate a blog solely to reading them as public spaces.

Most of us visit coffee shops on a regular basis, but what is the purpose of this space? Just off the top of my head, I can say that I, personally, have used the coffee shop this summer as a place for: caffeine; observation; homework; learning German; reading; Facebook; internet surfing; composing e-mails; blogging; writing; socializing; meeting new people; playing board games; hanging out with friends; breakfast, lunch, & dinner; working on a children's book; etc. And this is just me! Now, most of these may sound like rather trivial, everyday tasks, but for one person to be able to accomplish -- no, to want to accomplish -- all of these tasks in a single space is so endlessly strange and interesting to me. I fear that I've reached the point where I'm more addicted to the coffee shop itself than the coffee they offer.

Still, I've yet to mention the enigmatic "shared event" that titles this post. I'm drawing the concept from Don DeLillo, an American author whose ouevre I am currently working through. DeLillo often speaks of "events" and how they "gather force." One of his characters in The Names (1982) even speaks of feeling "involved in events." The idea has always been rather interesting to me, not only because I seldom find this idea mentioned in writing or everyday life, but also because it seems totally relevant to contemporary existence.

Anyway, the point is, I tend to feel a hidden tenseness in coffee shops, as if everyone who shares these spaces, this internet, and this air, everyone who chooses to have private conversations in a public place for all of us to hear -- it's as if we all still wish to maintain a separate space, our own privacy or secrecy, despite our behavior in this space. I often wonder what can be done to break down this sense of a wall. Why, I think, is it so difficult for me, or anyone for that matter, to engage the person who sits no more than two feet away from me, the person whom I openly allow to see what I'm doing on my computer and who provides me with the same freedom?

The other day, while sitting in this very coffee shop, this tenseness was alleviated somewhat. For over an hour, I had been sitting next to the same person, a person who, I think, attends the same university that I attend and was writing a paper for school much like I was. On top of this, we were sharing the same internet, the same air, both drinking coffee. As one says in English, there was something "in common" between the two of us. Yet I still felt that there was something inaccessible there, something unbridgeable.

The solution to this proved to be no less than a power outage, which was caused by a passing thunderstorm. It wasn't our sharing of internet or air that brought us together; rather, it was a "shared event" -- a power outage, a taking away, a negative -- that reminded us of our commonality. Consequently, we were able to engage in conversation, we were able to find "common ground," able to "break the ice." But the power outage did more than this. Ironically, the loss of power proved to be a spark of another type, erupting a chain of laughter throughout the coffee shop. The event "gathered force," we might say. The whole atmosphere of the coffee shop was affected, if only for a few moments. It wasn't long, however, before the generators were signaled, the power restored, and the measurable change, the realized community, was submerged once again.

---

DeLillo, Don. The Names. New York: Vintage, 1989. Print.

DeLillo News & Notes (Special): commemorating the four-year anniversary of DFW's suicide

In lieu of DeLillo-related news, I would like to commemorate the four-year anniversary of DFW's suicide by providing a handful of links to sources that all highlight his relationship with DeLillo in some way.

---

- "I don't enjoy this war one bit"

This is a letter that DFW wrote to DeLillo in October, 1995. The letter seems to carry so much more weight when we remember that at this time, both writers must have been working on what would become arguably their most important books (for DFW, Infinite Jest; for DeLillo, Underworld). While it is difficult to choose just one passage from this letter to excerpt, one can't not be moved by these candid words:

I sent it to you because your own fiction is important to me and because I think you're smart and because, if you do end up reading it and end up saying something to me about it, I stand a decent chance of learning something.

One sees in this letter just how much DFW is struggling with his fiction psychologically. It is unfortunate that he did not live a longer life, or he may have been able to realize these words, which DeLillo wrote back to him in November:

At this point discipline is inseparable from what I do. It's not even definable as discipline. It has no name. I never think about it. But there's no trick of meditation or self-mastery that brought it about. I got older, that's all. I was not a born novelist (if anyone is). I had to grow into novelhood.

- "See the inside of some of Wallace's books"

The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas has a collection of books that belonged to DFW. A few of these, including Players and Ratner's Star, DeLillo wrote. While this website only provides a quick glimpse into these books, it's enough for one to see how much value DFW placed on DeLillo, seeing as he inscribed voluminous notes onto the title pages of both of these books.

- "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction"

This essay, which I was pleased to find on the Internet, is still one of the best readings of DeLillo, and it is certainly the best reading of the scene in White Noise about "the most photographed barn in the world." Again, it is difficult to extrapolate a single passage from this brilliant essay, so I would just recommend reading it for yourself. Like the two links above, this essay again demonstrates how important DeLillo was to DFW.

DeLillo Interviews

In 1987, The New York Times published the following interview with DeLillo, which I like for a few reasons. It is straight to the point, and it discusses his work thematically (death, theater, culture, illusion v. reality, hospitals/motels, and television). And, as always, DeLillo here offers insights into his own work.

His comments on the relationship between death and theater are particularly interesting:

And I began to sense a connection, almost a metaphysical connection, between the craft of acting and the fear we all have of dying. It seemed to me that actors are a kind of model for the ways in which we hide from the knowledge we inevitably possess of our final extinction.

[...] I can't imagine a culture more steeped in the idea of death. I can't imagine what it's like to grow up in America today.

He always provides a few valuable notes about The Day Room, the highlights of which I have reproduced below:

But it's not the kind of play one can easily discuss because it doesn't involve interrelationships between characters--it involves a sense of theater, and of acting, and of human identity.

Act Two was a different matter completely--in a way, Act Two is an attempt to explain the first half of the play to myself; in a way it's the play about the play.

I guess I'm interested in the way the play forms a kind of unending circular structure--it bends back on itself. This has greater significance to me than any sense of what is real and what isn't.

I would simply say that a hospital room is an extreme condition, and much of the writing I've done, I think, is set in extreme places or extreme states of mind.

A motel is a peculiar reality [...] particularly motels in undefined parts of the landscape. You don't know quite where you are, and for a brief time perhaps not quite who you are.

Readers familiar with Players will remember, as DeLillo himself noted in a later interview, that "At the beginning of the novel we hear a discussion about motels, which is where the novel ends" (35). Perhaps the motel itself is one artifact -- both a contemporary and an American one -- through which to read DeLillo.

Update:

As I was rereading End Zone, I noticed that during Chap. 16, Major Staley lectures Gary Harkness about nuclear war, and it occurs in a motel, "a gray building, barely distinguishable from the land around it" (79).

---

DePietro, Thomas, ed. Conversations with Don DeLillo. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2005. Print.
DeLillo, Don. End Zone. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Favorite Passages: "How do they endure all those terrible things?"

I came across this passage as I was reading The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories (New York: Scribner, 2011). The story is called "Human Moments in World War III," and it was originally published in 1983 (Esquire, July). The story is about two men in orbit around the earth, the narrator and a younger man named Vollmer. The passage consists of the latter's sublime musings from their bird's-eye perspective. The emphasis on the names of the things themselves -- the deserts, the oceans, the volcanoes, the hurricanes -- and the theme of catastrophe strikes me as classic DeLillo. For, as he writes in White Noise, "Only a catastrophe gets our attention."

Anyway, it is, I feel, a piece of writing to be admired.

---

It's almost unbelievable when you think of it, how they live there in all that ice and sand and mountainous wilderness. Look at it," he says. "Huge barren deserts, huge oceans. How do they endure all those terrible things? The floods alone. The earthquakes alone make it crazy to live there. Look at those fault systems. They're so big, there's so many of them. The volcanic eruptions alone. What could be more frightening than a volcanic eruption? How do they endure avalanches, year after year, with numbing regularity? It's hard to believe people live there. The floods alone. You can see whole huge discolored areas, all flooded out, washed out. How do they survive, where do they go? Look at the cloud buildups. Look at that swirling storm center. What about the people who live in the path of a storm like that? It must be packing incredible winds. The lightning alone. People exposed on beaches, near trees and telephone poles. Look at the cities with their spangled lights spread in all directions. Try to imagine the crime and violence. Look at the smoke pall hanging low. What does that mean in terms of respiratory disorders? It's crazy. Who would live there? The deserts, how they encroach. Every year they claim more and more arable land. How enormous those snowfields are. Look at the massive storm fronts over the ocean. There are ships down there, small craft, some of them. Try to imagine the waves, the rocking. The hurricanes alone. The tidal waves. Look at those coastal communities exposed to tidal waves. What could be more frightening than a tidal wave? But they live there, they stay there. Where could they go?

Registers of Affect #0: What Are They?

Each week, I will post one example of what I am calling "Registers of Affect." These will be brief passages (often from DeLillo's texts, sometimes from his interviews, and occasionally from secondary literature) that speak in the language of affect theory. Admittedly, you may ask: What does this language sound like?

In her book Ordinary Affects (2007), Kathleen Stewart asks us to be attentive to the affective dimensions of the everyday. As she writes,

The ordinary is a shifting assemblage of practices and practical knowledges, a scene of both liveness and exhaustion, a dream of escape or of the simple life. Ordinary affects are the varied, surging capacities to affect and to be affected that give everyday life the quality of a continual motion of relations, scenes, contingencies, and emergencies. They're things that happen. They happen in impulses, sensations, expectations, daydreams, encounters, and habits of relating, in strategies and their failures, in forms of persuasion, contagion, and compulsion, in modes of attention, attachment, and agency, and in publics and social worlds of all kinds that catch people up in something that feels like something.  (2-3)

While one could interpret this passage as being too broad ("it can mean anything!"), I would caution against doing so. For Stewart is in fact saying something quite unordinary. By calling attention to those moments of the everyday that are so frequent, mysterious, and routine that we do not usually try to account for them, Stewart reveals just how much we ignore the fabric of everyday existence.

If we are going to develop a sound politics, we need to be attentive to how things happen, how we are affected to act. And we should consider doing this in a way that may not necessarily be scientific, but certainly is committed to "speculation, curiosity, and the concrete" (1).

Using these "Registers of Affect," I will argue that DeLillo is attentive to the affective dimensions of everyday life. Note, too, that I will not offer any commentary about them (though I may occasionally point to connections between two or more).

Please, just enjoy and contemplate these "Registers of Affect."

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Stewart, Kathleen. Ordinary Affects. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. Print.