New Voice

 ”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…)