Mao II

Mao II is a masterpiece of contemporary fiction. In Delillo's canon, I rate it better than White Noise and on par with his massive opus, Underworld. Despite Mao II's relative brevity, the denseness of ideas contained within are staggering. This was easily one of the best books of the 1990's, if not the last quarter century. Right up there with Mason & Dixon, American Pastoral, and a few select other masterworks. While the novel is composed of characters who appear, for the most part, throughout the story, the book is structured more as a series of vingettes. Delillo deals with many themes, but the primary one, I think, is the struggle between the individual and the 'masses' in contemporary society. In this regard, he traverses the same terrain as Marcuse in "One Dimensional Man" and Canetti in "The Power of Crowds". And, he does it on a global scale: touching upon everything from a Moonie wedding, to the rise of the Ayatollah in Iran, Chairman Mao in China, and of course, contemporary American society. Other themes are: the power of images, terrorism and the narrative power of terrorists (this is 9 years before 9/11), the role of the artist (writer, photographer, etc), true belief, teachers and apprentices, and censorship, state and otherwise. All this woven together concisely with his meticulously sculpted sentences. I often pick up this book and randomly re-read various chapters; in this fashion, I've probably read the entire book 5 times. Lastly, I've debated with friends whether Delillo's vision in Mao II is a bleak one or a hopeful one. Like the old "Lady and the Tiger" fable, it probably comes down to who you are more than any clear answer from him. However, I think the wedding scene at the end (against very dire circumstances that I won't give away here) points to at least some optimism for individuals (while providing a nice 'barbelling' of the novel with the mass wedding at the book's beginning). That's just my take, but anyone reading this work will push their brains outward, regardless of their predispositions.

This is a younger, cooler DeLillo than his more recent work. Personally I think it is his best book. It is in my mind the most creative of his work. It is incredible to see such a unique approach to writing. It is like reading a poem with its lyrical riffs but it has a plot that matters. The weakest facet of the book is that the dialogue often sounds false. Hearing DeLillo characters speak to each other is like listening to jazz -- not about exploring the realistic mind but the deeper surrealistic mind. These characters are bigger than reality. These particular people in this book have a charm that I don't think DeLillo ever again captured. This book is beautiful and about something that actually matters. While Creative Writing degrees muddle the pool of talent in much the same way that expansion teams in baseball lessened the overall talent on each MLB team, writing about something that matters to the world is quite an act of courage. It is wonderful to see a book that creates its own artistic terms and abides by them while sizzling the senses with creativity and wit. Also, what is superior about this book -- if you are considering which DeLillo book to read -- is that it is not that long. It is as self-indulgent as Underworld in style but it is more tightly woven and thus, in my opinion, a much better book. Simply, it is a quicker read. At this time in our history this book is useful to understand the emotional side to terror, the conformist mind, power, politics and self-respect. DeLillo was way ahead of his time this way. While many Americans blindly support the war on terror you have a thoughtful analysis of why terror exists at all, written way before Bin Laden turned against the US. Mao II is a great introduction to DeLillo.

The felt power of DeLillo's prose, the bass of the storm, the intensely concentrated recognition-scenes in the corridors of Third World terror, the null domains of Manhattan and Beirut, two cities ravaged by their own modes of iniquity, blight, and cultural devastation, from the faux-iconic pop-artifacts of Warhol's Factory to the scorched earth policies of Middle East cabals. *Mao II* has, strangely, been shuffled aside in the DeLillo corpus, treated as an aberration, a minor work, an off-day, an ill-advised experiment. As in *The Body Artist*, the author seems especially to have written it for himself -- like his writer-surrogate Bill Gray, aloof in his tightly-caulked safehouse, gnarled, diehard, a true artist experimenting till the end, perceiving it all anew.And DeLillo is an expert spectator. He knows how to jumpstart the reader's eye with each sentence, record the synaptic dissonance of individuals at the edge of disquiet, in transitory spaces, in windows of departure, like a snooping harrier throwing its falcon-shadow onto the tower block, a soul built and weathered by the preceding century. And let's face it, *Mao II* is strange territory. The author is pushing hard to bridge the nighted gulf of Third World angst, analyze and dissolve the force-fed media fictions, the sound-bites and simulations, the BBC monotone, the petty moralizing. But throughout, his troubled and troubling characters hold it all together, headstrong, witty, brilliantly in thrall to the chemical lift of DeLillo's lyrical drug (the first 15 pages of this novel, describing a young woman's sojourn into the Sun Moon cult and her subsequent de-programming, is perhaps my favorite of all this author's writing). Chockfull of ambition and in full career, DeLillo narrates what is left for us to consider....Somewhere between the plastic tautologies of a silkscreened Mao Zedong (c/o Andy Warhol) and the wakening streets of bomb-scarred Beirut, *Mao II* reads like a speculative op-ed piece on the secret life of Thomas Pynchon (who contributes a jacket blurb), but deepens in perspective to encompass the loneliness of all writers, playing games with themselves and their public, addicted to secrecy, manic with espionage, racked by self-doubt -- a vampire in excelsior -- feeling the old virtuosity slip away.... DeLillo's writer-protagonist, Bill Gray, hamstrung by a 20-year work-in-progress that he will never publish, finds himself seeking new paradigms in the hostage-trading black market of Middle East factionalism, in a last-ditch attempt to put his war-machine back on track. Confused? Just read the novel.But *Mao II* was also written in response to the Tom Clancys of the world, using Middle East terrorism as a backdrop for paramilitary potboilers, the suffering and confusion of endangered peoples set against the insipid "patriot games" of Harrison Ford as NATO super-sleuth. DeLillo provides a tactile photomural of the way things "really are," in the tortured banalities o

This fascinating novel probes the connection between isolation and mass movements in the modern world. In doing so, DeLillo is intensely personal, creating memorable characters who are visually and emotionally there, on the page, in full brilliance and confusion. He also employs sublime writing, which captures experiences, images, or ideas of individual isolation or mass movements and then juxtaposes them, showing weird but profound connections. My favorite pages are 149-153, where DeLillo describes New York City's Tompkins Square in the early nineties. Then, drug abusers, the mentally ill, and the homeless turned this lovely neighborhood square into a shambling, threatening shantytown. If you missed it, DeLillo has saved the moment. The central figure in this book is Bill Gray, an isolated writer with a wide and discerning following. Anyone who wants to write might ponder two of his insights: "Writing is bad for the soul when you get right down to it. It protects your worst tendencies." (page198); or, "It was the writing that caused his life to disappear." (page 215).

I am always torn between recommending Mao II or White Noise to those who want to try some DeLillo. Perhaps one can consider Mao II to be a watered-down White Noise: its characters and events are fleshed out more, and it reads more like a novel than a collection of clever aphorisms. Mao II lacks the "edginess" of White Noise, but at the same time, we should applaud DeLillo of not harping on the theme of "America is really consumerist" for ever and ever. A writer of his skill can take on more challenging themes than that. So what's it about? It's about individuals and crowds, and the frightening equivalence between the lone-wolf individual and the composite of crowds. Think repeating Mao portrait. Think of the name of the reclusive, lone-wolf main character: Bill Gray. There's also stuff about art, and of course DeLillo's ubiquitous "novelists are terrorists" insinuations.This is probably my second-favorite DeLillo, and the one I'd recommend to someone looking for something like a traditional novel. It was very enjoyable, although perhaps not as intellectually searing as something like White Noise or (Pynchon's) Lot 49.