The true life is not reducible to works spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. The true life takes place when we're alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamingly self-aware, the sub-microscopic moments. His life happened, he said, when he sat staring at a blank wall, thinking about dinner. I almost believed him when he said such things. He said we do this all the time, all of us, we become ourselves beneath the running thoughts and dim images, wondering idly when we'll die. This is how we live and think whether we know it or not. These are unsorted thoughts we have looking out the train window, small dull smears of meditative panic.
I love DeLillo's writing and this is a good book, but not great like many of his. It is a short novel that uses the desert and a slow motion video art presentation to present a mood of separation from the life most of live. DeLillo is a master at creating moods and situations evocative of deep self-examination. In Underworld and Falling Man, he moves the reader threw immense and all consuming emotions and thoughts as if travelling into uncharted areas of the mind. Point Omega is similar, but left me wanting more. It comes off as more of a short story than a novel. Still, the writing is often amazing and the engaged will reader will be given much to ponder about life and its meaning. It reminded me of a strange scent you can't quite place, but one that you also can't forget. DeLillo's writing always lingers.
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