New Voice

I endeavoured to follow through my readings of the Vietnam conflict, from my last post, with a shopping excursion to right my centre of gravity and ensure that I tackle the history from every angle – well, more than one. Being a historian first and foremost this is part of the obligation that is owed to the seriousness of the subject, apparently. I, of course, am not a historian, but I can read and do and pretend at the writing part.  My esteemed colleague, of the Secular Sundays posts, lent me his encyclopaedic knowledge of sixties and seventies American writings with a collection of Michael Herr-equalling shots of literature to vacuum up my soul into the US Armed Forces. Two things happened to impel a slight discursion on my Nam – centric world view. (continue reading…)

Secular Sundays would like to apologise for the lengthy delay since the last posting. The usual excuses apply – laziness, drunkenness, parenthood, obsessive running, existential angst, and sport on TV. Reading, however, is the main reason, and a new DeLillo is always a valid excuse for doing nothing else. Some may claim the size of the great man’s slim new offering is not sufficient to offer up as an excuse for keeping one from anything else, but as explained in David O’Connor’s post, there is more contained in the 115 pages of Point Omega than in most 300 page novels. (continue reading…)

 ”Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson 

There is a great deal to go on in Don DeLillo’s taut, contemplative new novel (or novella) Point Omega, only some of which I will comment on here.  I have no wish to review the book, or summarise its contents.  In the opening pages the author, always an accommodating if often misjudged, guide, teaches us how the book should be read, and how much can be gleaned from its apparently slim leavings.  A lone figure in the cool darkness of a gallery space is focusing on the art installation 24-Hour-Psycho: “It was only the closest watching that yielded this perception.  He found himself undistracted for some minutes by the coming and going of others and he was able to look at the film with the degree of intensity that was required.  The nature of the film permitted total concentration and also depended on it.  The film’s merciless pacing had no meaning without a corresponding watchfulness, the individual whose absolute alertness did not betray what was demanded” (p5).  His stillness is contrasted with the other visitors “wandering … in a daze” (p3).  (continue reading…)