The Silence by Don DeLillo

​  Ok, it’s official now. I really, really don’t like Don DeLillo’s writing. It should have been obvious from the disappointment of Zero K, but no, I figured I’d give him another go, being that this one was so short. It is, indeed, as silences regrettably tend to be, very short. It reads in about 60 minutes. But there’s no reason I can think of for why one should read it at all.
   The timing of this book is auspicious enough; it was completed right before the world turned to doodoo and thus thematically is perfect for it. The story itself takes place in 2022 during a mysterious power outage. It essentially features a get together of friends who talk over a meal. Yeah, it’s as exciting as that. Mind you, such things can be made exciting, but DeLillo is above all that conventional appeal. DeLillo, it seems, fancies himself something of a poet. At least, that’s how this novella and its accompanying essay read. Like poems - heavily stylized, light on substance, rhythmless and rhymeless poems. Or, in art lingo, if you will, DeLillo writes through sketches, his pictures are incomplete, missing vitality, missing something. No meat on these bones. Things go nowhere.
     From a purely fictional perspective, this story is barely an appetizer. The premise is intriguing, but then…nothing. Nothing at all. People talk, have sex, talk. It’s all so vague, so tedious, so freaking pretentious. It’s the kind of fiction that wins awards not reading excitement. 60 minutes of silence would have been more rewarding. Pass.