DeLillo Book Reviews: Point Omega

"Review: Don DeLillo's Point Omega"

Even though this review wasn't written for a higher end publication, perhaps it should have been. Its author, Joshua Willey, gives an honest and fair appraisal of Point Omega while also taking into account the career path that DeLillo has been treading since the publication of The Body Artist in 2001 -- or, as Willey calls it, "the formal transformation of Don DeLillo."

Willey observes that we once associated DeLillo with "oversaturation," but now "we find him at his most empty." Yet instead of lamenting the loss of DeLillo's old style, Willey acknowledges that "DeLillo is breathing deeply now, and it suits him well." He even speculates on what may have actuated these formal changes in DeLillo's prose:

It is almost as if his subjects crossed a failsafe line. Perhaps it was no longer possible for him to write honestly about America in 2010 in the same voice he'd used in 1990.

This speculation is something that we could use a little bit more of right now. I applaud Willey for reviewing DeLillo's latest novel on its own terms, something that other, more "reputable" critics have had a tough time doing for the past decade or so.

Personally, I think we've yet to realize the full implications of DeLillo's "formal transformation," but I have suspicions that this period could turn out to be the most important one of his career. (Of course, some critics would certainly disagree with me. See, for example, Michiko Kakutani's review of Point Omega for The New York Times.)